The Sound of the Sea, By : Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
“The sea awoke at midnight from its sleep”
Landscape Photography : Nigel Borrington
An Image and Poem to sleep too , Sunday into Monday Morning …….
The Sound of the Sea
By : Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
The sea awoke at midnight from its sleep,
And round the pebbly beaches far and wide
I heard the first wave of the rising tide
Rush onward with uninterrupted sweep;
A voice out of the silence of the deep,
A sound mysteriously multiplied
As of a cataract from the mountain’s side,
Or roar of winds upon a wooded steep.
So comes to us at times, from the unknown
And inaccessible solitudes of being,
The rushing of the sea-tides of the soul;
And inspirations, that we deem our own,
Are some divine foreshadowing and foreseeing
Of things beyond our reason or control.
Three Poems for Sunday, all with the title “Small town”, Images of Callan, Kilkenny
Callan, County Kilkenny
Landscape
Three Poems all with the title “Small town”
Small Town
By : Liz Anne
Jul 25, 2012
When I say I want more
Than this small town could offer
When I say I give more
Than this small town asks of me
When I say I’ve loved more
Than this small town could know
When I say I need more
Than this small town wants me to
I mean to say I am more
Than this small town would let me be
…
Small Town
By : Rebecca Hattaway
Oct 29, 2012
In her smile I can see something-
something like satisfaction,
or even pride?
that she has everyone fooled
but no one is falling for the bullshit.
Secrets don’t exist here.
It’s a back and forth game,
and she denies it until the end.
Most people play along,
laughing quietly
“Just humor her,
Let her think we buy it.”
…
Small Town
By : Silence Screamz
Oct 25, 2014
Small town people
Small town minds
Gossip turn sour
No secrets left behind
Small town girls
Small town boys
Turn off the lights
Lock up your toys
Small town crimes
Small town night
Light up the fires
Creeps into sight
Small town games
Small town sins
Newlywed murders
Takes it on the chin
Small town stories
Small town fairs
Drowning in the lake
Nobody cares
Four feet Friday !!! , “Four Feet”, by Rudyard Kipling
Four Feet Friday
Molly our Golden retriever
This is Molly our somewhat aging but much loved Golden Retriever, Aging very well I am happy to say 🙂
I took these images while on a walk with her yesterday in some local woodlands and was reminded of this Kipling Poem.
I think he captured so well the love and loyalty that pets bring to our lives and in the last, the memories that they leave when they are no longer able to be with us on their daily walks, of which I don’t think Molly has every mist a day. Mainly because I only need to go near the back door and there she is looking up and sitting down ready !!
I have enjoyed every walk with her four paws – in front and sometimes behind 🙂
Four Feet
by Rudyard Kipling
I have done mostly what most men do,
And pushed it out of my mind;
But I can’t forget, if I wanted to,
Four-Feet trotting behind.
Day after day, the whole day through —
Wherever my road inclined —
Four-Feet said, “I am coming with you!”
And trotted along behind.
.
Now I must go by some other round, —
Which I shall never find —
Somewhere that does not carry the sound
Of Four-Feet trotting behind.
by Rudyard Kipling
Three Poems all with the title ( Window ), By : Milind Phanse , John David Morris Meriwether and Drew Renquest
Sitting by the Garden Window
Photograhy : Nigel Borrington
Window
By : Milind Phanse
I sit by the window looking out
And see myself reflected,
Outside the glass looking in.
Reality and illusion facing off each other,
Or is the window the only reality ?
Separated by two ghosts,
perhaps imprisoning just the singularity
——————————————————————
Window
By : John David Morris Meriwether
I don’t want to get up from my seat,
because every time I walk around,
and sit back down,
I’m a different person.
——————————————————————
Window
By : Drew Renquest
You see so much yet stand so still
To wonder what is out there while dust gathers on your sill.
Such memories that you’ve witnessed but can speak none
I can maybe only recall one.
Craving to wander
I’d gladly trade,
How I would love to sit and watch the
world fade.
Solo images, Tide and time
Solo images
Tide and Time : Nigel Borrington
“But now in the dusk the tide is turning, Lower the sea gulls soar, And the waves that rose in resistless yearning Are broken forevermore.”
Independent Heart, A poem by : Jodie Moore
Independent Heart
Irish Landscape Photography : Nigel Borrington
Independent Heart
Soft words you spoken
From the heart that is broken
I know deep inside
You have a level of independence
With a mystery of suspense
You are recovering
Waiting for someone
To catch on to the discovering
Of the real you
With a heart so true
Giving of your best
Expecting nothing less
While hurt is making amends
Leaning on loving friends
Accounted for in time you spend
With words you write
Not giving into a broken hearts flight
Staying strong
Carrying others like me along
by Jodie Moore
“Some think to judge the very sky itself” , A Monday Morning Poem.
Some think to Judge the very sky itself
Callan and Kilkenny Landscape Photography
Nigel Borrington
A Monday Morning Poem
Its been a great weekend here in Ireland, Saturday was blue sky’s all day, while we had rain for all the day Sunday, oh well that’s Ireland – all seasons in one weekend.
While I was inside staying out of the rain, I did some tasks then reading followed with some writing, a couple of poems!
Of which this is one …..
Some think To Judge the very Sky itself
Some think to Judge the very sky itself,
from the rain it brings to the snow that falls,
from the shade and shape of each cloud that rushes by.
Judging its flowing expressions, as the very stars,
that rise at night and fall into the day.
Some think to judge the very sky itself,
as if this act will make them fly !
Yet the Sky looks back and never see’s,
the Stars shine down and never hear.
To Judge the sky, is as pointless a Human act as can be !!
Some think to judge the very sky itself,
but the Sky never hears their words.
They are like black grains of sand, lost along the ebb and the flow of Tide and Time !!!
The Lighthouse , By, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882)
St John’s Point Lighthouse,
Donegal
Irish Landscape Photography : Nigel Borrington
Its been a little time since I last got to visit county Donegal, having spent most of my time recently exploring counties Kerry and Cork. This year however I hope to visit again and the lighthouse at St Johns point will be very high on my list. This is a wonderful location at any time of year, stunning on a sunny day and spectacular in a winters storm!
Here I have matched some of my last photographs of the point and its lighthouse with one of my most loved lighthouse poems …….
The Lighthouse By, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882)
The rocky ledge runs far into the sea,
And on its outer point, some miles away,
The Lighthouse lifts its massive masonry,
A pillar of fire by night, of cloud by day.
.
Even at this distance I can see the tides,
Upheaving, break unheard along its base,
A speechless wrath, that rises and subsides
In the white lip and tremor of the face.
And as the evening darkens, lo! how bright,
Through the deep purple of the twilight air,
Beams forth the sudden radiance of its light
With strange, unearthly splendor in the glare!
.
Not one alone; from each projecting cape
And perilous reef along the ocean’s verge,
Starts into life a dim, gigantic shape,
Holding its lantern o’er the restless surge.
Like the great giant Christopher it stands
Upon the brink of the tempestuous wave,
Wading far out among the rocks and sands,
The night-o’ertaken mariner to save.
.
And the great ships sail outward and return,
Bending and bowing o’er the billowy swells,
And ever joyful, as they see it burn,
They wave their silent welcomes and farewells.
They come forth from the darkness, and their sails
Gleam for a moment only in the blaze,
And eager faces, as the light unveils,
Gaze at the tower, and vanish while they gaze.
The River, a Poem By : Sara Teasdale
Irish rivers
Landscape Photography : Nigel Borrington
The River
I came from the sunny valleys
And sought for the open sea,
For I thought in its gray expanses
My peace would come to me.
I came at last to the ocean
And found it wild and black,
And I cried to the windless valleys,
“Be kind and take me back!”
.
But the thirsty tide ran inland,
And the salt waves drank of me,
And I who was fresh as the rainfall
Am bitter as the sea.
Sara Teasdale :
Kilkenny Landscape Photography : Kells Priory on a Foggy Sunday into Monday Morning.
Kells Priory
County Kilkenny
Irish Landscape Photography : Nigel Borrington
I took these images late yesterday afternoon at Kells Priory , County Kilkenny. Sunday was a foggy day here with the mist on the ground all day into this morning but the old remains of the priory looked so gray and haunted in the fog.
Last night I found this poem, it relates more to a castle in Scotland but fits so well how kells cal look on a foggy winters day.
A Castle Old And Grey
By : Alexander Anderson
I never see a castle
That is gaunt and grey and grim,
But my thoughts at once go backward
To the past so misty and dim.
To the time when tower and turret,
Kept watch far over the vale;
And along the sounding draw-bridge
Rode knights in their suits of mail.
I see the sunshine glancing
On helmet, pennon, and spear;
And hear from the depth of the forest,
A bugle calling clear.
I fill the hall with visions
Of ladies rich in their bloom;
And stately knights in armour,
And waving with feather and plume.
If I climb the broken stairway,
Where the stone is smooth and fine,
I hear a rustle and whisper,
And footsteps in front of mine.
Whisper of youth and maiden,
As they met in the long ago;
His deep and strong and manly,
Hers tender and sweet and low.
But maiden and youth have vanished,
Away from the scene and the light;
Gone, too, the high-born lady,
And the plumed and armoured knight.
Only the grey old castle,
Of crumbling stone and lime,
Still stands to speak of the ages,
And the iron footsteps of Time.
Kells Priory , county Kilkenny on a foggy day
The Unnamed Lake, Poem by : Frederick George Scott (1861-1944)
Irish Landscape Photography
Nigel Borrington
A Monday Morning Poem
The Unnamed Lake
By : Frederick George Scott (1861-1944)
IT sleeps among the thousand hills
Where no man ever trod,
And only nature’s music fills
The silences of God.
Great mountains tower above its shore,
Green rushes fringe its brim,
And o’er its breast for evermore
The wanton breezes skim.
Dark clouds that intercept the sun
Go there in Spring to weep,
And there, when Autumn days are done,
White mists lie down to sleep.
Sunrise and sunset crown with gold
The peaks of ageless stone,
Where winds have thundered from of old
And storms have set their throne.
No echoes of the world afar
Disturb it night or day,
The sun and shadow, moon and star
Pass and repass for aye.
‘Twas in the grey of early dawn,
When first the lake we spied,
And fragments of a cloud were drawn
Half down the mountain side.
Along the shore a heron flew,
And from a speck on high,
That hovered in the deepening blue,
We heard the fish-hawk’s cry.
Among the cloud-capt solitudes,
No sound the silence broke,
Save when, in whispers down the woods,
The guardian mountains spoke.
Through tangled brush and dewy brake,
Returning whence we came,
We passed in silence, and the lake
We left without a name.
Irish Landscape Photography and a Poem “Secrets of the Forest” by : Wisteria Rose
Irish Landscape Photography,
Secrets of the forest
Nigel Borrington
Secrets of the Forest
There’s a dead tree connecting the earth to my heart,
And yet it’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.
One silver root, and four dark leaves.
A branch is at my neck,
And there is a leaf telling me secrets,
Gently in my left ear.
There are vines strung elegantly from trunk to my teeth
And I’ll play them for you.
The rain is the beat,
It’s the same as your pulse.
My blood runs cherry with every note.
Castle Walls a Poem by Celeste Nicole Cook
Cahir Castle, County Tipperary
Irish Landscape Photography : Nigel Borrington
Castle walls
By : Celeste Nicole Cook
Surrounded by tall walls,
so tall that it is insanity to dare climb them.
Before there used to be a gate that allowed visitors to come and go
as they please without disrupting the palace grounds
but over time the palace guard became bitter.
At first the gate was only opened for a few days,
but once those visitors left, leaving chaos and destruction behind
the palace guard became angry and was filled with rage.
With rage he destroyed the gate
and in turn built a thicker wall.
.
Replacing the beautiful craftsmanship that stood tall and proud,
with a thick grey wall that blended into the hills.
Now the remaining occupants have been imprisoned within towering walls were debris and dust has collected,
time has past and slowly the rage has been quenched.
Now the guard is contemplating whether to burn the chaos around him
and rebuild a city that shines and brings glory to all those who enter.
To build walls that can be climbed,
were children can sit once again and look out at the fields of flowering hills in the Spring.
Monday Morning , First light of day , A Poem By : Beverly Gelene
The Light from over the hill
Kilkenny Landscape Photography : Nigel Borrington
Monday mornings, well some come easy, some others come a little harder with inspiration hard to find !!!
I am finding this Monday morning lands right between the two posts, so maybe a poem and an image or two will help to get the week moving along its way 🙂 🙂
First Light of Day
By : Gelene Beverly
Listen to the quiet peaceful dawn.
Sun touching the rim of spaces’ night.
Stars fading to brushes of paint
In whirlwinds of dusk colored breezes.
Passing away the moon’s guard
To the light of the sun’s shift begins
Now sweeping into a new day.
“Hamlet Upon Loch Fyne” , Scottish Poem by : Don MacIver
Loch Fyne, Scotland
Landscape Photography : Nigel Borrington
In darkness of salten waters be stilled
The clouds o’er Loch Fyne hung low upon hills
Night falls gentle, Heaven by the ocean
Fishermen’s boat beneath moon drops anchor
The village at sleep, silent the sheep graze
A shallow wind drifts by our window sill
Morning’s fog creeps upon island’s meadow
In field surrounds lay thistle and snowdrop
House on the glen Castle Inverary
Majestic in caricature and lore
Wherest Gaelic Scots in fine lordly fashion
Spake proudly the moors and bonnie mountain
.
The Scotsman praise long of the fair Loch Fyne
As steeped in history, gentleman’s word
The beauty of eerie black water remains
Great mystic legend of centuries told
Midst nearby wood ruins of battle cries
Castles MacEwan and Lachlan attest
Drawn swords and gunnery of fishermen
Whose drift and trawl nets combed divided seas
In the air cast chilly a salten mist
The earth and garden Heather and Primrose
Green moor and mountain wondrous backrop scene
To waters of glass in silent refrain
From A Tree’s Point of View, a Monday poem.
Winters tree
Nigel Borrington
People pass me by without a second glance,
No one likes the ugly tree with no leaves.
My branches extend out in every which way,
Getting tangled within each other.
I look still on the outside,
Yet inside, water and nutrients course through my tissues.
I stand in wait, until the season comes,
When my arms are no longer bare and the fresh, green leaves can hide away my hideous outsides.
mdancer1399
Polk City, IA
Eternal Forest, a Poem with Images
Eternal Forest
Nigel Borrington
Eternal Forest
To long once more for that golden age
Is to be a pilgrim of spirit
Travelling through time
Paying homage to ancient ways
Long forgotten and fallen from use
To breathe new life
To reclaim identity
An awakening and rebirth
A Spiritual journey of self renewal
Undeniable birthright
Irrepressible heritage
Inseparable legacy
An honoring of the ancestors
And generations past
Like a wilting tree regrowing withered roots
To stand proud once more
In the eternal forest
The Holly-Tree , A Poem by : Robert Southey
Woodland Holly,
County Kilkenny,
Nigel Borrington
The Holly-Tree
By : Robert Southey
O reader! hast thou ever stood to see
The Holly-tree?
The eye that contemplates it well perceives
Its glossy leaves
Ordered by an Intelligence so wise
As might confound the Atheist’s sophistries.
Below, a circling fence, its leaves are seen,
Wrinkled and keen;
No grazing cattle, through their prickly round,
Can reach to wound;
But, as they grow where nothing is to fear,
Smooth and unarmed the pointless leaves appear.
.
I love to view these things with curious eyes,
And moralize;
And in this wisdom of the Holly-tree
Can emblem see
Wherewith, perchance, to make a pleasant rhyme, –
One which may profit in the after-time.
Thus, though abroad, perchance, I might appear
Harsh and austere;
To those who on my leisure would intrude,
Reserved and rude;
Gentle at home amid my friends I’d be,
Like the high leaves upon the Holly-tree.
And should my youth – as youth is apt, I know, –
Some harshness show,
All vain asperities I, day by day,
Would wear away,
Till the smooth temper of my age should be
Like the high leaves upon the Holly-tree.
.
And as, when all the summer trees are seen
So bright and green,
The Holly-leaves their fadeless hues display
Less bright than they;
But when the bare and wintry woods we see,
What then so cheerful as the Holly-tree? –
So, serious should my youth appear among
The thoughtless throng;
So would I seem, amid the young and gay,
More grave than they;
That in my age as cheerful I might be
As the green winter of the Holly-tree.
Robert Southey
The Lake, an Image and a poem by : Brian F Kirkham
The Lake, Nigel Borrington
The Lake, A poem by : Brian F Kirkham
The Lake
Calm, Clear, Cool –
The lake lies in its hole
whilst wondering in the woods
a fisherman has a goal
Sat on a chair
by the waters, still
he casts out a line
and goes for the kill
His float bobbles in the water,
awaiting a big fish
He’s hoping for a salmon,
for a suppertime dish
Finest lures he bought – on sale
and bait he uses – he hopes – prevail
the lake, keeps hidden, the whereabouts
of the big Salmon, or Lakeland trout.
The lake it seems is calm and still,
fisherman falls asleep until –
the noise under water makes him wake…
the fish are in another part of the lake.
“Snow on snow”, a Winters Poem By : James Hart
Snow on Snow
St Mary’s church
County Carlow
Irish Landscape Photography : Nigel Borrington
Snow on snow
By : James Hart
Snow on snow
Flakes gently falling
Like leaves from a tree
Asking permission
Before they land
On the snowflakes underneath
Each one different
Like leaves on a tree
A white carpet
Pure white till soiled
By children’s shoes
They love its touch
Ooo snowball fights
Snow doesn’t hurt
Snow is soft and forgiving
People hurt
They are selfish and cruel
So let it snow
Snow on snow on
Snow on snow
Gods our Sun and its Autonomy, a Poem.
Autonomy of the Sun
Landscape Photography : Nigel Borrington
Last Night I sat down and wrote my first Poem for a while, I was sorting through some Landscape Images and found a collection that I took earlier in the year.
These images are all taken Directly into the Sun, I love to play with the effects that the sun can create in a lens.
The subject of the sun in images I also find very inspiring, its our very life force and has fascinated mankind through out our long history, in both art and all the many religions we have followed.
Sometimes I feel that to use your eyes and clear your mind and just look at the landscape in front of you, on a clear day to just look up and the sun is freedom itself ! . In these moments there is no confusion of religion or even Science, Just yourself standing and looking at the world around you !!
Gods our Sun and it’s Autonomy
As a single cloud floats by and winds coerce,
I desire alone the Sun to have such might and force.
When Gods Command the ageless trees,
a boundless cosmos is all I ask for to see.
Not simply the power of a signal God alone,
But infinite forgiving universal love,
contained forever within time and space.
A completely cosmic power,
open to all and with in the grasp of my simple mind,
open and without fear of a hidden world.
As the Stars stride through horizons and winds twist forests trees,
I only plead to be just as free.
Only the Country Lane, Poem by : Adgray
The old Country lane, County Kilkenny
Irish Landscape photography : Nigel Borrington
Only the Country Lane Will Weep
by Adgray
I wander down the country lane
my old dog by my side
and I whistle merrily a tune
of how the view is wide
There are no hedgerows to crowd me in
or branches to block the sky
they’d have to use machinery
to bury me when I die
So don’t bother breaking your backs for me
I’d rather blow around with ease
just add what little goodness left
across the land upon the breeze
.
For this is where my heart is
this is my back yard
I’ve roamed it all my adult life
to leave it would be hard
No city house and airs for me
my graces rough and ready made
So lay me not in a neat little row
let my spirit fly and fade
I hitch my swag a little easier
and hunker to scratch his head
the billy boils as I wait with him
and then we both to bed
The stars sing lullaby’s to us
the wind sweeps us softly as we sleep
No debts no bills to leave behind
only the country lane will weep
Kilkenny Landscape Photography : Days of rain a Poem By : Vincent Mccarty
Misty Morning on the lane.
Kilkenny Landscape Photography : Nigel Borrington
Days of rain
vincent mccarty
May 11, 2013
i long for the days of rain;
when the air is thick,
the ground is soft,
and my mind is clear.
the drops hitting my skin
are a therapy like no other.
like fire,
they burn through my ropes,
and set me free.
i run from myself,
and fly with the wind.
too soon though,
with the puddles on the streets,
my wings vanish.
and i’m left longing
for the days of rain
once more.
Nigel Borrington 
The crows will only grow louder, by Laura Breidenthal. “Outward self-expression is a personal right , your right !!”
The crows will only grow louder.
Irish Landscape and nature photography
Nigel Borrington
I first came across Laura Breidenthal poem some two years ago and posted it the very day after, Its a great poem full of feeling and motivation !
I think we have all face these feeling at some point in our life’s and anyone who is outwardly expressive will have most of all.
I feel this poem relates to those moments we all have when other people, usually through negative and insecure motives try to put you and your creativity down in order to better themselves.!
I want to share this poem because I want it to act as a powerful motivation to keep going despite anyone Else’s opinion, if you do get someone putting you down know this its usually because they feel your creations are better than theirs if they have any and that they don’t have an idea how you do what you do.
Self expression is how your learn and how you get better at what you love !!!!!
If you read this post my advice is not to let anyone affect your personal rights to self expression, instead CROW Loader and BLOG more than ever 🙂 🙂 🙂
Outward self-expression is a personal right , your right !!
You may see a post using this Poem again and again during the year, I love this poem so much !!!!
The crows will only grow louder
By : Laura Breidenthal
There is no celestial place for you to guide my thoughts
Can you not see that I am free from you?
I am a crow perched high in the treetops
You will hear my crowing and you may hate it
But, you cannot take away my voice!
Yet still, as fire oppresses forests of life,
You can abuse my freedom to find your glory
You may discard these words for your love of gods,
And in so doing you may simply ignore
All the cries that I so passionately utter
But my infectious species will guide your mind straight back
To that once so lonely treetop where you merely glanced
And there will be multitudinous, oppressing thoughts
That shall enslave you and bind you unwillingly
The crows will only grow louder when you turn away—
When you pretend to ignore with your remaining, strangling pride
For my voice is a production sent from above
Dispatched to judge you pitilessly for your swelling lies!
And the choirs of ferocious beaks shall open forever
Harmony and dissonance as one
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February 11, 2015 | Categories: Comment, Landscape, Nature and Wildlife, Nigel Borrington, Poetry Gallery, Solo images | Tags: Callan, creativity, Irish landscape photography, Laura Breidenthal, motivation, Nigel Borrington, personal rights, poem, poetry, Self expression, The crows, The crows will only grow louder | 5 Comments