Honoring the Bards
 

As I walk the shadows of darkness
through lanes so narrow and still,
I walk with the words of the poets
who blessed parchments with their quill.

As I sit in the dimness of firelight
words flicker within the flame
taking me to those wondrous visions
from which poetic images came.

Floating, gliding o'er the rolling blue river,
paddles of the strong Hiawatha's hands.
Roil with the skipper: "come hither! my little daughter,
and do not tremble so" the father called commands.

Awaken from half-dreams of midnight
to the ever sharp cawing of "Never more!"
Or blissfuly lull in slumber to the sounds
"that sweeps my native shore."

Drink fully from the cup of life
delight in it's poetic throes
Inhale the heavenly fragrance from
the bloom of the Red Red Rose.

Whistfully in the mists their words
echo through the foggy morn
"O'er ruined fences the grape-vines shield"
shall produce naught of Heaven's scorn.

O' poets know that when I sleep
your songs my heart will surely raise
as, "I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;
I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise."

© Jackie (Micke) Jinks, April 2008

References:
- Hiawatha, Longfellow's ""Hiawatha's Sailing"
- "come hither! my little daughter, and do not
    tremble so" Longfellow's "The Wreck of the Hesperus"
-"Never more!" Poe's "The Raven"
-"that sweeps my native shore." Emerson's "The Bell"
- Robert Burns "The Red Red Rose"
- "O'er ruined fences the grape-vines shield" Robert
    Frost's "Ghost House"
- "I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;
    I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise." E. B.
    Browning "How Do I Love Thee?"