West Wind Blows 16feb2025

This program is sponsored by Bounce Back Recycling, offering a sustainable way to dispose of old furniture and mattresses. The West Wind Blows is a weekly program featuring poetry, song, and story. They discuss a poem by W.B. Yeats called "When You Are Old," expressing unrequited love for Maud Gonne. They also mention Percy Bysshe Shelley, his troubled life, and his poem "Love's Philosophy." They share a story called "The Beach" by Maeve Edwards, reminiscing about childhood summers spent at Dollymount Strand in Dublin. The program concludes with various songs. This program is kindly sponsored by Bounce Back Recycling. Say goodbye to your old furniture and mattress in an affordable, convenient and sustainable way. Call 091-760-877. Hello again and welcome to the West Wind Blows, a weekly program of poetry, song and story. My name is Kathleen Faherty and Bridie Cashin is producer and technician for the program. We have a poem by W.B. Yeats, When You Are Old. This is a poem of unrequited love. It was written for Maud Gonne, the love of his life. However, the love expressed in this poem is a kind of spiritual love. How many loved your moments of glad grace, and loved your beauty with love false or true. And of course, Maud Gonne was very beautiful. The poem goes on, but one man loved the pilgrim soul in you, and loved the sorrows of your changing faith. And of course, that one man was W.B. Yeats, who loved her all during her journey through life and in all her moods and difficulties and joys and sorrows. And as she grew into old age, he loved the sorrows of her changing faith. Anne-Marie McGowan will read When You Are Old by W.B. Yeats. When You Are Old by W.B. Yeats. When you are old and grey and full of sleep, and nodding by the fire, take down this book and slowly read and dream of the soft look your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep. How many loved your moments of glad grace, and loved your beauty with love false or true. But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you, and loved the sorrows of your changing faith. And bending down beside the glowing bars, murmur a little sadly how love fled and paced upon the mountains overhead, and hid his face amid a crowd of stars. And now the purple dusk of twilight time, steals across the meadows of my heart. High up in the sky the little stars twine, always reminding me that we're apart. You wander down the lane and far away, leaving me a song that will not die. Love is now the stardust of yesterday, the music of the years gone by. Sometimes I wonder, I spend the lonely night, dreaming of a song, a melody. Aren't we reverie, and I am once again with you. When our love was new, and each kiss an inspiration. But that was long ago, now my consolation is in the stardust of the sun. Beside the garden wall, when stars are bright, you are in my heart. The nightingale tells his fairy tale, of paradise where roses bloom, though I dream in vain. In my heart it will remain, my stardust melody, the memory of love's refrain. That was Stardust with Natkin Cole. The English poet Percy Bysshe Shelley was born 1792 in Sussex. He attended Oxford University in 1810, but was expelled after only six months for expressing views harmful to the authority of the church. His life from then on was generally unsettled, and often clouded with debts and disappointments. His first wife died tragically. His second wife, Mary Goodwin, also a writer, is remembered most for her novel Frankenstein. Shelley died in 1822 when his boat was capsized in a storm off the coast of Italy. He was only 30 years old at the time. Mary Faherty will read Love's Philosophy by Percy Bysshe Shelley. The fountains mingle with the river, and the river with the ocean. The winds of heaven mix forever with the sweet emotion. Nothing in the world is single. All things, by a law divine, in one spirit meet and mingle. Why not I with thine? See the mountains kiss high heaven, and the waves clasp one another. No sister flower would be forgiven if it disdained its brother. And the sunlight clasps the earth, and the moonbeams kiss the sea. What are all these sweet works worth, if thou kiss not me? When the girl in your arms is the girl in your heart, then you've got everything. When you're holding the dream you've been dreaming you'd hold, you're as rich as a king. So hold her tight and never let her go. Day and night, let her know you love her so. With the love of your life, spend a lifetime of love. Make her yours forevermore. So hold her tight and never let her go. Day and night, let her know you love her so. With the love of your life, spend a lifetime of love. Make her yours forevermore. Make her yours forevermore. And that was Cliff Richard with The Girl in Your Arms. This is Teresa Keneally from the Bella Keneally area, reading a story by Maeve Edwards called The Beach. It's a story of childhood sunny Sundays, when all the family had a day out on Dollymount Strand, off Dublin's Bull Island. The two most beautiful words in the English language, according to Henry James, are summer afternoon. And spending a summer afternoon in your favourite place, must surely rate as one of life's greatest pleasures. It is also said that when you get older, you should go to places where your history is, where you know every pebble along the roadside, every tree along the way. Be with people who know you and where you come from. I am lucky, for I've never moved very far from the place where I grew up, and the friends I had then are the friends I have now. Not four miles from O'Connell Street, on the north side of Dublin lies Bull Island, with its famous wooden bridge, its pristine white sand, its dunes of Marner grass, its spectacular views of Hosehead and Killiney. It was here on this jewel of a beach, that is called Dollymount Strand, that I spent all my childhood summers. Back then on a summer Sunday, the whole of Dublin seemed to head for the coast. Convoys of Morris Miners, Vauxhall Vivas, Volkswagen Beetles, or Ford Anglias would trundle across the wooden bridge and come to a halt close to the sand dunes. Then all four car doors would open simultaneously, and out would pour a melody of children, a mother and father, a baby in a bonnet, and a family dog. The mother of the family would spread a rug on the side of the car facing the sun, and would settle herself down with the Sunday paper and a few cushions taken from the armchairs at home. The father would take up pride of place in his deck chair near the car radio on the driver's side, so he could hear Mihael O'Hare's commentary on the Sunday match. Up and down the beach, other families were setting up home in a similar fashion. We children would change into our elasticated swimming togs, blow up our rubber rings, and run at top speed for the sea. Tension-up steps were taken at the edge as we gauged its coldness, but on Dalai Lamaunt the tide went out so far and took so long to come back in again that on a summer afternoon it was nearly always warm. Joy then when the tide was due in around five o'clock, and we'd spend hours playing ball at the edge of the waves, as it made its slow progress forward, teaching younger siblings to swim and digging large holes for the baby to sit in. After an hour or two, the cry would go up from the children, when are we having our picnic? And eventually the primus stove would be lifted out from its cardboard box in the boot, and pumped energetically to get it going. Soon the tea would be made and we'd cleared the rug of sand and set out the plastic beakers, a bottle of milk, two large parcels of sandwiches wrapped in sliced pan wrapping, hard-boiled eggs, cold sausages, and for afters, a jammed Swiss roll. Nothing tasted so good as that first bite into a moist, slightly soggy tomato and onion sandwich, washed down with a beaker of warm sugary tea. To this day, the taste of tomatoes and onions brings me right back to those sunny Sundays sitting on the red tartan rug with my mother leaning against the car door, my father in his sandals, a knot of handkerchief on his head, my brothers and sisters so young and browned with the sun, and all of us filled with the delight of a day out at the beach. As the sun set in the west and we tired of leaping off the dunes, burying each other up to the neck in sand and had eaten up every fragment of picnic, our mother would call us for the journey home. We'd rub the sand off our bare feet and pile back into the car, grumbling that we weren't ready to go home just yet. The baby, his cheeks flushed from the heat of the day, his small hands sticky with jam and ingrained sand, would nod off on our laps as we headed home, the dog, exhausted, would lie under our feet, contented with a life that allowed him to run free. My memory always plays tricks on me nowadays as I walk along Dollymount Strand, which today proudly flies a blue flag. Is that my sister at the tide line digging a sandcastle, just like the ones we used to build? A seagull feather gracing its turrets, and that golden brown baby splashing in the warm shallows. Is he my brother? I can hear the cries of the children leaping from the dunes as I walk and all of it warms my heart. I have traveled far over the ocean to a land that is wondrous and fair. Out of my Dublin Bay I am dreaming for my heart, it will always be there. When shadows of evening are stealing and the lights of the city are gay, sure the lights that I see in my memory are shining on my Dublin Bay. I have riches and rings on my fingers, but my loneliness I can't disguise. How I long for the love light that lingers in the sunshine of soft Irish eyes. This song from my heart I am singing from a heart that's more lonely each day. Can it be I can only be dreaming of love won by my Dublin Bay. FEBRUARY THOUGHTS A time of looking forward as winter slips away. The crocus lifts her cheerful head and there's a longer day. The new year lies behind us, our resolution's gone. But we will cherish hopes and dreams as time keeps moving on. And soon March winds will herald spring, soft green touch every tree. The daffodils will sway and dance, a joy for all to see. But until then, through frost and fog, spread February gloom. Be optimistic in your heart and watch the springtime bloom. When it's springtime in the Rockies, I'll be coming back to you. Little sweetheart of the mountains, with your bonnie eyes so blue. Once again I'll say I love you, yes I love you. While the birds sing all the day. When it's springtime in the Rockies, and the Rock is far away. MUSIC Once again I'll say I love you, yes I love you. While the birds sing all the day. When it's springtime in the Rockies, and the Rock is far away. And the Rock is far away. And that was When It's Springtime in the Rockies by Slim Whitman. The poet Rainer Maria Rilke was born in 1875 and died in 1926. Rilke is considered to be one of the greatest lyric poets of modern Germany. This Rilke poem, I Live My Life in Widening Rings, is truly inspirational. And the poem is read by Joe McGowan. I live my life in widening rings which spread over earth and sky. I may not ever complete the last one, but that is what I will try. I circle around God, the primordial tower, and I circle ten thousand years long. And I still don't know if I'm a falcon, a storm, or an unfinished song. I Live My Life in Widening Rings by Joe McGowan I live my life in widening rings which spread over earth and sky. I may not ever complete the last one, but that is what I will try. I live my life in widening rings which spread over earth and sky. I may not ever complete the last one, but that is what I will try. I live my life in widening rings which spread over earth and sky. I live my life in widening rings which spread over earth and sky. I live my life in widening rings which spread over earth and sky. I live my life in widening rings which spread over earth and sky. I live my life in widening rings which spread over earth and sky. I live my life in widening rings which spread over earth and sky. I live my life in widening rings which spread over earth and sky. I live my life in widening rings which spread over earth and sky. I live my life in widening rings which spread over earth and sky. I live my life in widening rings which spread over earth and sky. I live my life in widening rings which spread over earth and sky. I live my life in widening rings which spread over earth and sky. I live my life in widening rings which spread over earth and sky. I live my life in widening rings which spread over earth and sky. I live my life in widening rings which spread over earth and sky. I live my life in widening rings which spread over earth and sky. I live my life in widening rings which spread over earth and sky. I live my life in widening rings which spread over earth and sky. I live my life in widening rings which spread over earth and sky. I live my life in widening rings which spread over earth and sky. I live my life in widening rings which spread over earth and sky. I live my life in widening rings which spread over earth and sky. I live my life in widening rings which spread over earth and sky. I live my life in widening rings which spread over earth and sky. I live my life in widening rings which spread over earth and sky. I live my life in widening rings which spread over earth and sky. I live my life in widening rings which spread over earth and sky. I live my life in widening rings which spread over earth and sky. I live my life in widening rings which spread over earth and sky. I live my life in widening rings which spread over earth and sky. I live my life in widening rings which spread over earth and sky. I live my life in widening rings which spread over earth and sky. I live my life in widening rings which spread over earth and sky. I live my life in widening rings which spread over earth and sky. I live my life in widening rings which spread over earth and sky. I live my life in widening rings which spread over earth and sky. I live my life in widening rings which spread over earth and sky. I live my life in widening rings which spread over earth and sky. I live my life in widening rings which spread over earth and sky. I live my life in widening rings which spread over earth and sky. I live my life in widening rings which spread over earth and sky. I live my life in widening rings which spread over earth and sky. I live my life in widening rings which spread over earth and sky. Prayer for the Children of Longing by Paula Meehan A poem commissioned by the Community of Dublin's North Inner City for the lighting of the Christmas tree in Buckingham Street to remember their children who died from drug use. Great tree from the far northern forest, still rich with the sap of the forest, here at the heart of winter, here at the heart of the city, grant us the clarity of ice, the comfort of snow, the cool memories of trees, grant us the forest's silence, the snow's breathless quiet. For one moment to freeze, the scream, the siren, the knock on the door, the needle in its track, the knife in the back. In that silence let us hear the song of the children of longing in that silence let us catch the breath of the children of longing. The echo of their voices through the city streets, the streets that defeated them, that brought them to their knees, the streets that couldn't shelter them, that spellbound them in alleyways, the streets that blew their minds, that led them astray out of reach of our saving, the streets that gave them visions and dreams, that promised them everything, that delivered nothing, the streets that broke their backs, the streets we brought them home to. Let their names be the wind through the branches, let their names be the song of the river, let their names be the holiest prayers. Under the starlight, under the moonlight, in the light of this tree, here at the heart of winter, here at the heart of the city. 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