The Hammock Papers: Hawker

Showing posts with label Hawker. Show all posts

08 December 2024

Huzza!

Waes-hael for knight and dame!

O merry be their dole!

Drink-hael! in Jesu's name

We fill the tawny bowl;

But cover down the curving crest,

Mould of the Orient Lady's breast.

Waes-hael! yet lift no lid:

Drain ye the reeds for wine.

Drink-hael! the milk was hid

That soothed that Babe divine;

Hush'd, as this hollow channel flows,

He drew the balsam from the rose.

Waes-hael! thus glow'd the breast

Where a God yearn'd to cling;

Drink-hael! so Jesu press'd

Life from its mystic spring;

Then hush and bend in reverent sign

And breathe the thrilling reeds for wine.

Waes-hael! in shadowy scene

Lo! Christmas children we:

Drink-hael! behold we lean

At a far Mother's knee;

To dream that thus her bosom smiled,

And learn the lip of Bethlehem's Child.

Robert Stephen Hawker

22 January 2022

Den.

Priest and poet Robert Stephen Hawker's poetry-writing den (above), built into a Cornwall hillside overlooking the Atlantic.

ARE THEY NOT ALL MINISTERING SPIRITS?

We see them not--we cannot hear

The music of their wing--

Yet know we that they sojourn near,

The Angels of the spring!

They glide along this lovely ground

When the first violet grows;

Their graceful hands have just unbound

The zone of yonder rose.

I gather it for thy dear breast,

From stain and shadow free:

That which an Angel's touch hath blest

Is meet, my love, for thee!

Robert Stephen Hawker

Hawker excommunicated his cat from the hideaway for Sunday-mousing. Well-done.

BARRY HINES

"That's why it makes me mad when I take her out and I'll hear somebody say, 'Look, there's Billy Casper there wi' his pet hawk. I could shout at 'em; it's not a pet, Sir, hawks are not pets. Or when folks stop me and say, 'Is it tame?' Is it heck tame, it's trained that's all. It's fierce, and it's wild, an' it's not bothered about anybody, not even about me, right. And that's why it's great.Look, there's Billy Casper there wi' his pet hawk.' I could shout at 'em. It's not a pet, Sir. Hawks are not pets. Or when folks stop me and say, 'Is it tame?' Is it heck tame, it's trained, that's all. It's fierce, and it's wild, an' it's not bothered about anybody, not even about me right. And that's why it's great." (A Kestrel for a Knave)

WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART

"When I am, as it were, completely myself, entirely alone and of good cheer – say travelling in a carriage or walking after a good meal, or during the night when I cannot sleep – it is on such occasions that my ideas flow best and most abundantly. Whence, and how, they come I know not ; nor can I force them. Those ideas that please me I retain in memory and am accustomed, as I have been told, to hum them to myself. If I continue in this way, it soon occurs to me how I may turn this dainty morsel to account, so as to make a good dish of it. That is to say, agreeable to the rules of counterpoint, to the peculiarities of various instruments etc. All this fires my soul, and, provided I am not disturbed, my subject enlarges itself, becomes methodised, and defined, and the whole, though it be long, stands almost complete and finished in my mind, so that I can survey it like a fine picture or a beautiful statue at a glance. Nor do I hear in my imagination the parts successively, but I hear them, as it were, all at once. What a delight this is, I cannot tell."

WALT WHITMAN

The spotted hawk swoops by and accuses me, he complains of my gab and my loitering. I too am not a bit tamed, I too am untranslatable, I sound my barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world. The last scud of day holds back for me, It flings my likeness after the rest and true as any on the shadow’d wilds, It coaxes me to the vapor and the dusk. I depart as air, I shake my white locks at the runaway sun, I effuse my flesh in eddies, and drift it in lacy jags. I bequeath myself to the dirt to grow from the grass I love, If you want me again look for me under your boot-soles. You will hardly know who I am or what I mean, But I shall be good health to you nevertheless, And filter and fibre your blood. Failing to fetch me at first keep encouraged, Missing me one place search another, I stop somewhere waiting for you.

MARCUS AURELIUS

"Is your cucumber bitter? Throw it away. Are there briars in your path? Turn aside. That is enough. Do not go on and say, 'Why were things of this sort ever brought into this world?' neither intolerable nor everlasting - if thou bearest in mind that it has its limits, and if thou addest nothing to it in imagination. Pain is either an evil to the body (then let the body say what it thinks of it!)-or to the soul. But it is in the power of the soul to maintain its own serenity and tranquility."

VINCENT van GOGH

"What am I in the eyes of most people? A nonentity or an oddity or a disagreeable person — someone who has and will have no position in society, in short a little lower than the lowest. Very well — assuming that everything is indeed like that, then through my work I’d like to show what there is in the heart of such an oddity, such a nobody. This is my ambition, which is based less on resentment than on love in spite of everything, based more on a feeling of serenity than on passion. Even though I’m often in a mess, inside me there’s still a calm, pure harmony and music. In the poorest little house, in the filthiest corner, I see paintings or drawings. And my mind turns in that direction as if with an irresistible urge. As time passes, other things are increasingly excluded, and the more they are the faster my eyes see the picturesque. Art demands persistent work, work in spite of everything, and unceasing observation."