Song of the Day - 21st June

Today's Song of the Day is one I have been looking forward to sharing with you as it is one of my favourites.

Today is the midsummer solstice (in the Northern hemisphere anyway), the longest day and the shortest night. The word ‘solstice’ comes from the Latin words for sun (sol) and to stand (sistere). It is also known as "Litha", which is derived from the Anglo-Saxon word for "midsummer”. It's the time of year when the position of the rising or setting sun stands still in its movement along the horizon.

The summer solstice has been recognised and celebrated since prehistoric times. Stonehenge in Wiltshire, UK, was built to align with the sun on the solstices. On the summer solstice, the sun rises behind the Heel Stone in the north-east part of the horizon and its first rays shine into the heart of Stonehenge. Even today, people often gather at Stonehenge to mark the summer solstice, echoing the joyous festivities of our prehistoric ancestors.

The poem I have chosen to mark this ancient observance is called Of Midsummer Days and Nights by William Ernest Henley, a lush, rich jubilation in words of the beauties and joys of nature at midsummer.

William Ernest Henley (1849-1903) was a British poet, writer, critic and editor. Though he wrote several books of poetry, Henley is remembered most often for his 1875 poem "Invictus", the poem that inspired Nelson Mandela to persevere through hardship. Henley lost his leg to tuberculosis of the bone. A friend of Robert Louis Stevenson, this "... great, glowing, massive-shouldered fellow with a big red beard and a crutch"*, would go on to inspire the creation of the character of Long John Silver in Stevenson's Treasure Island.

* Lloyd Osbourne, Stevenson's step-son.

 

Ballade (Double Refrain) Of Midsummer Days And Nights - To W. H.

By William Ernest Henley

With a ripple of leaves and a tinkle of streams

The full world rolls in a rhythm of praise,

And the winds are one with the clouds and beams -

Midsummer days! Midsummer days!

The dusk grows vast; in a purple haze,

While the West from a rapture of sunset rights,

Faint stars their exquisite lamps upraise -

Midsummer nights! O midsummer nights!

The wood's green heart is a nest of dreams,

The lush grass thickens and springs and sways,

The rathe wheat rustles, the landscape gleams -

Midsummer days! Midsummer days!

In the stilly fields, in the stilly ways,

All secret shadows and mystic lights,

Late lovers murmur and linger and gaze -

Midsummer nights! O midsummer nights!

There's a music of bells from the trampling teams,

Wild skylarks hover, the gorses blaze,

The rich, ripe rose as with incense steams -

Midsummer days! Midsummer days!

A soul from the honeysuckle strays,

And the nightingale as from prophet heights

Sings to the Earth of her million Mays -

Midsummer nights! O midsummer nights!

Envoy

And it's O, for my dear and the charm that stays -

Midsummer days! Midsummer days!

It's O, for my Love and the dark that plights -

Midsummer nights! O midsummer nights!