Dear Heart, How Like You This Read Online Free PDF

parts of those great and engrossing stories. During those afternoons when we acted out the Iliad , I well remember that Anne could never decide if she wanted to play the part of a man or a woman, though she did have a liking and portrayed very well the mad and vision-tormented Kassandra. My heart aches, remembering Anna, so innocent and happy, with her black hair flying loosely around face and shoulders, running hither and thither, clothed in a long, old piece of blue cloth, crying out, “Flee! Flee! Flee! The Greeks are coming! The Greeks are coming!”
    These tales of long ago fuelled my imagination, keeping it ablaze and eternally hungry for more fuel to feed this fire well and truly alight. Probably because of these stories I became more and more aware of what I truly wanted to accomplish in my life. Yea, even as a tiny boy, my greatest desire was to shape, when I reached manhood, a magnificent work such as Homer’s, and thus be remembered forever and a day. Aye—how high do aim the young!
    Our good priest was very much my mentor in my firm decision to take up the mantle of a bard. One day he and I talked about my longing to become a poet of note. Walking back together towards Hever Castle, Father Stephen said, “I’m not surprised to hear that you want to be a poet, Tom. You are always scribbling when you should be attending to your other studies. Indeed, you have a condition known in Latin as cacoethes di scribendi . My boy, can you remember your lessons and tell me what that means?”
    I thought hard for a moment before crying in triumph, “A mania for scribbling, Father!”
    “Yea, lad. That you have, that you have! Young Thomas, I am glad you desire to be a poet. Plato thought very highly of them—as do I. But do try to write good poetry, Tom. Nothing upsets my digestion more, my dear boy, than reading bad poetry!”
    I started to speed up my pace as his huge bulk began to descend expeditiously down the hill before us.
    “Father Stephen, what is good poetry?”
    “What questions you children ask me!” He paused to catch his rasping breath, and looked at me with a wide grin.
    “My boy,” the priest replied, beginning the descent once more, “I believe strongly that any worthwhile poetry will always strike a responsive chord in the person hearing it. Whether as if soft breaths on a standing-harp or a shiver running up and down your backbone. Perhaps, Tom,” he now said, looking straight at me as he stopped at the bottom of the hill to wait for me to catch up to him, “the poem could even be a compelling call—something you cannot avoid—calling you to some kind of action. Aye, my boy. There are poems that to me have been as if battle cries.
    “My lad, always remember this:” Father Stephen continued, as we walked side by side along the narrow lanes taking us back to the castle. “Plato’s overall message in his discussions regarding poetry is that true poetry, like music, comes from the evolved soul, and the evolvement of the soul depends entirely on the growth of a person’s inner being. Remember, Tom,” the Priest asked then, “how Jesus told us that ‘Man does not live by bread alone’ but requires spiritual nourishment to truly live?”
    “Yea, Father,” I said, trying hard to keep up with him, physically as well as intellectually.
    “Tom, also remember true poetry comes from what is inside of you, something that is drawn out from the deep springs of your very soul. Furthermore, I believe with all my heart that the composition of poetry is simply one of the many ways we have to be true children of God. The rendering of a true poem, my dear boy, is man doing as his God did when he created us.”
    Father Stephen stopped. All I seemed to hear was his loud breathing as he leant his body upon a huge oak tree. He looked up at the unclouded sky, smiling as if reflecting upon something truly beautiful yet also mysterious. His attention, just as quickly, returned to me.
    “I feel so strongly