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Sunday, September 26, 2010

This, that and the other!


Four Queens Find Lancelot Sleeping, Frank Cowper

I fulfilled one of my ambitions today which was to try my hand at archery.  I shot a bow and arrow at the Rathmoylyon fair.  It was a lovely autumn afternoon and evening.  I loved trying to control the strength in my right arm when holding the arrow back.  I had three shots for 2 euro and scored 9 out 30.  Of course I'd like to try it again.  In fact I'd love to own my own bow.

I also got to do some writing this morning and worked on my sonnets.  I wrote a new one called The Isle of Apples as I am still interested in Arthurian legend.  I want to write another sonnet based on the legends.  I had a vision earlier which I hope to convert into poetry later, or during the week about it. 

Boyne Berries 8 is being launched in the Castle Arch Hotel in Trim on Thursday night at 8pm.  I hope to attend and read my poem The Fall which is being published in it.

Autumn Leaves, Kenneth Leech


4 comments:

  1. Oh dangerous business that. I read somewhere that the pull on an English longbow was said to be 100 lbs. Welsh yew! Why did they call it English?
    FM.

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  2. Isn't there a poem about shooting an arrow and it landed, I know not where?

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  3. Yes Peter I found it online:

    The Arrow and the Song

    I shot an arrow into the air,
    It fell to earth, I knew not where;
    For, so swiftly it flew, the sight
    Could not follow it in its flight.

    I breathed a song into the air,
    It fell to earth, I knew not where;
    For who has sight so keen and strong,
    That it can follow the flight of song?

    Long, long afterward, in an oak
    I found the arrow, still unbroke;
    And the song, from beginning to end,
    I found again in the heart of a friend.

    Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

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  4. Hi Frank maybe because the English used it predominantly or because Wales was then under their rule? I don't know to be honest.

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