Strict Care, Strict Joy***James Stephens 1882 – 1950 ***

Glen Hansard Read this poem at the National Concert hall Wednesday 26th August... It relayed a pure message to me one that Ive always known. Art in all its forms for me is like the only thing that will always be mine. Nobody can take it from me. Not just that but its the one thing in my life that gets me through the tough times... it turns a bad thing good and a good thing even better. Let us all take some blessing in the coming times of possible hardship. We have time on our hands once again. Dont waste it. Use it. explore your artistic side... paint, write, sing, dust off that guitar of yours that used to bring you so much pleasure, indulge yourself....you might just enjoy it! x

For some of my poetry - 

http://www.livemicgigs.com/index.php?q=node/70

Thanks for stopping by and I hope you have time to take a look through my site. Im a strong activist for the Arts, and Humanity..

LOVE!

Strict Care, Strict Joy!

1

To-day I felt as poor O'Brien did

When, turning from all else that was not his,

He took himself to that which was his own

—He took him to his verse—for other all 

He had not, and (tho' man will crave and seek)

Another all than this he did not need.

So, pen in hand he tried to tell the whole 

Tale of his woe in rhyming; lodge the full 

Weight of his grief in versing: and so did:

Then—when his poem had been conned and cared,

And all put in that should not be left out— 

Did he not find and with astonishment,

That grief had been translated, or was come

Other and better than it first looked to be:

And that this happened, because all things transfer

From what they seem to what they truly are

When they are innocently brooded on

—And, so, the poet makes grief beautiful.

2

"Behold me now, with my back to the wall,

Playing music to empty pockets!"

So, Raftery, tuning a blind man’s plight,

Could sing the cark of misery away:

And know, in blindness and in poverty,

That woe was not of him, nor kin to him.

And Egan Rahilly begins a verse—

"My heart is broken, and my mind is sad ..."

'Twas surely true when he began his song,

And was less true when he had finished it:

—Be sure, his heart was buoyant, and his grief

Drummed and trumpeted as grief was sung!

For, as he meditated misery

And cared it into song—strict care, strict joy!

Caring for grief he cared his grief away:

And those sad songs, tho' woe be all the theme,

Do not make us grieve who read them now

—Because the poet makes grief beautiful.

3

And I, myself, conning a lonely heart

—Full lonely 'twas, and 'tis as lonely now

Turned me, by proper, to my natural,

And, now, too long her vagrant, wooed my Muse:

Then to her—Let us look more close to these,

And, seeing, know; and, knowing, be at ease.

Seeing the sky o'ercast, and that the rain 

Had plashed the window, and would plash again:

Seeing the summer lost, and the winter nigh:

Seeing inapt, and sad, and fallen from good:

Seeing how will was weak, and wish o'er-bearing:

Seeing inconstant: seeing timidity:

Seeing too small, too poor, in this and yon:

Seeing life, daily, grow more difficult:

Seeing all that moves away—moving away

… And that all seeing is a blind-man’s treat,

And that all getting is a beggar’s dole,

And that all having is bankruptcy …

4

All these, sad all! I told to my good friend,

Told Raftery, O'Brien, Rahilly,

Told rain, and frosted blossom, and the summer gone,

Told poets dead, and captains dead, and kings!

—And we cared naught that these were mournful things,

For, caring them, we made them beautiful.