I just came across your Site, that poem of Thomas Gray's brings me back to an evening in May 1961.My brother and I decided while working in Slough to visit the location of Thomas Gray's country churchyard. So on our Saturday off we took the barman's direction to Stoke Poges, he told us it was only a mile or so down the road, so off we went and being fit and young what was a mile or so. As it turned outit was more like three miles, but on a lovely May evening we soon covered the distance, and came to a field were in the gathering dusk we made our way through the gate leading towards the monument.
My brother managed to read the verses to an audience of cattle in the next field, and what a perfect setting with a mist rising in the surrounding fields his voice rang out loud and clear. I thought of our old school teacher and his great love for this poem and wondered did he ever believe that the words of the poem would register with this band of Irish raggy-muffins, but long after we left school to seek work in England we did his dedication proud and paid homage to a great poet.
Leaving the monument it was now almost dark we looked in on the churyard and then made our way back to Slough to enjoy a well earned drink and recall old Joe our teacher and imagine how delighted he would have been to learn that we had seen Gray's churchyard and he wasn`t wasting his sweetness on the desert air.
This comment is especially poignant for me today as I have just begun a placement at a new school in Sydney. My first day was great. The student's are a mixed bunch, some may be raggamuffin like and quite spirited but already I know I will enjoy teaching them. I only hope that my love for Literature and Drama is communicated to the children as Anon's teacher communicated his love for Gray's Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard. Perhaps one day my students will trek miles and miles just to experience a play, or to see a site we learn about, or to learn more of a writer because they have been inspired by the passion of their teacher for her subject.
I also love that Anon. explored with his/her brother. This is something I do a lot of. I love my brother so much. He's a great adventurer and an amazing friend.
So thank you, Anon., for such a great story and for the encouragement and inspiration I found in it. I hope to see you here again.
posted by missmellifluous at 8:39 pm
3 Comments:
Very nice, and interesting to see the plaque to Thomas Gray. The poem which reminds me of being a schoolboy and it's great to read it again, means more now.
It is amazing how poetry can touch us and mean something. It's great even if what we feel is sadness.
In a tutorial last year I burst into tears as a lecturer read a poem out. He looked somewhat puzzled at my sudden flood of tears but kept on lecturing anyway only pausing to note how the sound of the words, 'Break, break, break,' were "like that of a breaking heart or the sound of someone's breathing when they [and at this point he directed his gaze at me] - cry."
I had just recently learned that a friend of mine had been found in the snow. He hadn't survived. Something in the poem resonated with my experience and I found myself breaking. If someone had read that poem to me at another time I don't think it would have had the same impact.
I later apologised to my lecturer for my tears in his class. He assured me that my response was "a right response to poetry," and advised me to bring a box of tissues to the next lecture.
I love it when poetry resounds with my own experience and makes me feel, even if what I feel is sadness. It really is amazing.
Missmellifluous, Thank you for your comments on my contribution to your Site.
My late brother and I were honest Irish building workers and like many an uneducated Irish person we had a great love of poetry and song.
The poems we were taught at school we seldom forgot, fragments remained with me, espically the poems my owm native Irish poets.
Visiting the grave of WB Yeats in Drumcliffe Cemetry in County Sligo was another plus for our old teacher, The Lake Isle of Innisfree, was a special favourite and further down the west coast Pauric Colum the Galway poet was also remembered, simple beautiful poetry like The Old Woman of the Roads, if not familiar they are worth a look.
Good luck and Slan agus Beannacht [Health and Blessing].
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