La Maison des Mots - October 2025
Summer’s End…
View over the Loire at La Charité
Are you familiar with the poem: Monday’s Child?
Well, you may be, and if not, look it up. Just so you know, I am Saturday’s Child – born hungry at high noon - and yes, these past months I have been working hard for my living!
It is good work; for my life long, it has always has been good work. I have thoroughly enjoyed my labours this past season. I hosted guests from Finland, Germany, England, Netherlands, United States, France, and Canada. My last guests for this year are about to depart, and I will enjoy a break with time to return to the garden, but I will miss folks coming and going. So will Minette. Who knows ? I may receive last minute requests for those who like to hunker down with their stylos and books, wander about the river and forest sporting weather appropriate vetements, then returning home to enjoy warming fires, candle light, and boeuf a la Bourguignonne.
I love this poem which I discovered many years ago and read often. At this moment, more than ever, this poem resonates my reasons for being here - doing what I do.
I share with you a poem by William Butler Yeats, written in 1889
The Stolen Child
Where dips the rocky highland
Of Sleuth Wood in the lake,
There lies a leafy island
Where flapping herons wake
The drowsy water-rats’
There we’ve hid our faery vats,
Full of Berries
And of reddest stolen cherries.
~~~
Come away, O human child! To the waters and the wild – With a faery, hand in hand, For the world’s more full of weeping than you can understand.
~~~
Where the wave of moonlight glosses
The dim grey sands with light,
Far off by furthest Rosses
We foot it all the night,
Weaving olden dances,
Mingling hands and mingling glances
Till the moon has taken flight;
To and fro we leap
And chase the frothy bubbles,
While the world is full of troubles
And is anxious in its sleep.
~~~
Come away, O human child! To the waters and the wild – With a faery, hand in hand, For the world’s more full of weeping than you can understand.
~~~
Where the wandering water gushes
From the hills above Glen-Car,
In pools among the rushes
That scarce could bathe a star,
We seek for slumbering trout
And whispering in their ears
Give them unquiet dreams;
Leaning softly out
From ferns that drop their tears
Over the young streams.
~~~
Come away, O human child! To the waters and the wild – With a faery, hand in hand, For the world’s more full of weeping than you can understand.
~~~
Away with us he’s going,
The solemn-eyed:
He’ll hear no more the lowing
Of the calves on the warm hillside
Or the kettle on the hob
Sing peace into his breast,
Or see the brown mice bob
Round and round the oatmeal-chest.
~~~
For he comes, the human child, To the waters and the wild – With a faery, hand in hand, From a world more full of weeping than he can understand.
~~~
My good wishes to you all, as you Autumn in the style that suits you best.
- Barbara-jo et Minette