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| Our hosts for the evening |
"A day without love is a year without a summer ..." - the sentiment expressed at the opening of the lovely evening I spent on Friday at Deep Space Artworks here in Cheltenham. Jennie Farley and Eley Furrell were hosting an evening of Love Poetry which certainly caught the imagination of all those present. Jennie and Eley read a selection of their favourite love poems and then some of their own before inviting members of the audience to do the same, sharing another poet's work and then one of their compositions. The breadth was tremendous - from the amusing to the heartbreakingly sad - but my favourite had to be "A Woman To Her Lover" by Christina Walsh, superbly performed by Kathy Alderman. Almost impossible to believe that this was written in the late 1700s!
A Woman To Her Lover
Do you come to me to bend me to your
will
as conqueror to the vanquished
to make of me a bondslave
to bear you children, wearing out my life
in drudgery and silence?
No servant will I be
if that be what you ask. O lover I refuse you!
Or if you think to wed with one from heaven sent
whose every deed and word and wish is golden
a wingless angel who can do no wrong
go! - I am no doll to dress and sit for feeble worship
if that be what you ask, fool, I refuse you!
Or if you think in me to find
a creature who will have no greater joy
than gratify your clamorous desire,
my skin soft only for your fond caresses
my body supple only for your sense delight.
Oh shame, and pity and abasement.
Not for you the hand of any wakened woman of our time.
But lover, if you ask of me
that I shall be your comrade, friend, and mate,
to live and work, to love and die with you,
that so together we may know the purity and height
of passion, and of joy and sorrow,
then o husband, I am yours forever
and our co-equal love will make the stars to laugh with joy
and to its circling fugue pass, hand holding hand
until we reach the very heart of God.
as conqueror to the vanquished
to make of me a bondslave
to bear you children, wearing out my life
in drudgery and silence?
No servant will I be
if that be what you ask. O lover I refuse you!
Or if you think to wed with one from heaven sent
whose every deed and word and wish is golden
a wingless angel who can do no wrong
go! - I am no doll to dress and sit for feeble worship
if that be what you ask, fool, I refuse you!
Or if you think in me to find
a creature who will have no greater joy
than gratify your clamorous desire,
my skin soft only for your fond caresses
my body supple only for your sense delight.
Oh shame, and pity and abasement.
Not for you the hand of any wakened woman of our time.
But lover, if you ask of me
that I shall be your comrade, friend, and mate,
to live and work, to love and die with you,
that so together we may know the purity and height
of passion, and of joy and sorrow,
then o husband, I am yours forever
and our co-equal love will make the stars to laugh with joy
and to its circling fugue pass, hand holding hand
until we reach the very heart of God.
Christina Walsh (1750 - 1800)
... and yet there is no written record of her history, so sad for one so spirited! It was a wonderful evening, especially as you read your beautiful poem 'Cariad', thanks Gill! :)
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