{"id":9662,"date":"2023-07-09T18:03:54","date_gmt":"2023-07-09T17:03:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/?p=9662"},"modified":"2023-07-09T18:03:54","modified_gmt":"2023-07-09T17:03:54","slug":"poetry-music-upon-the-hearth-tolkien","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/?p=9662","title":{"rendered":"POETRY\/MUSiC: Upon The Hearth, Tolkien"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
Upon the hearth the fire is red,
Beneath the roof there is a bed;
But not yet weary are our feet,
Still round the corner we may meet
A sudden tree or standing stone
That none have seen but we alone.
  Tree and flower and leaf and grass,
  Let them pass! Let them pass!
  Hill and water under sky,
  Pass them by! Pass them by!

Still round the corner there may wait
A new road or a secret gate,
And though we pass them by today,
Tomorrow we may come this way
And take the hidden paths that run
Towards the Moon or to the Sun.
  Apple, thorn, and nut and sloe,
  Let them go! Let them go!
  Sand and stone and pool and dell,
  Fare you well! Fare you well!

Home is behind, the world ahead,
And there are many paths to tread
Through shadows to the edge of night,
Until the stars are all alight.
Then world behind and home ahead,
We'll wander back to home and bed.
  Mist and twilight, cloud and shade,
  Away shall fade! Away shall fade!
  Fire and lamp, and meat and bread,
  And then to bed! And then to bed!<\/pre>\n\n\n\n
In a fairly recent post about reading Tolkien, I said I much preferred his prose to his poetry. But I then posted about (?), a poem I adore, from The Lord of the Rings. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Another fabulous poem from the same work is Upon The Hearth. I don\u2019t know if that\u2019s the official name of the poem? But it\u2019s what I call it. And it\u2019s the title of the version so brilliantly set to a gorgeous simple tune by Stephen Oliver for the BBC R4 radio adaption (c. 1980?).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I\u2019ve always wanted to do a version for guitar and voice. And I\u2019ve attempted to do several times. But never with any success. Until today. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
For some reason I decided I should try it using one of my favourite open-tunings; an open-C that Nick Drake uses on such songs as Pink Moon and Which Will. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
And, with a degree of effort, I soon came up with some guitar parts that I think might eventually work. I\u2019m definitely not there yet. But at least I\u2019m on the way!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Upon the hearth the fire is red,Beneath the roof there is a bed;But not yet weary are our feet,Still round the corner we may meetA sudden tree or standing stoneThat none have seen but we alone. Tree and flower and leaf and grass, Let them pass! Let them pass! Hill and water under sky, Pass … <\/p>\n
Continue reading “POETRY\/MUSiC: Upon The Hearth, Tolkien”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paGwUa-2vQ","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9662"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9662"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9662\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9662"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9662"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9662"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}