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Back in March at one of the Bristol Anglo Hellenic Society’s wonderfully quirky, esoteric and not to mention very tasty evenings we had a talk about Percy Bysshe Shelley’s version of Homer’s poem ‘Hymn to Hermes’, though he had ltalianized it somewhat into the Hymn to Mercury (the Roman equivalent of the ancient Greek god Hermes). At the time I was motivated to write some kind of poem inspired by Shelley’s work, though perhaps the accompanying glass of retsina helped at the time.

Hermes was always one of my favourites of the Greek gods being the god of amongst other things travellers and athletes.  Not sure if it was cool as a teenager to have a favourite Greek god, but never mind it was the 70s and 80s and I tell myself that things were different then.

Over this Summer during warm evenings in the garden I have returned with much enjoyment and what has felt like verbal gymnastics to this inspiration.  Although I have followed Shelley’s eight line Ottava Rima rhyming scheme of ABABABCC, I have restricted my poem to just the 3 stanzas rather than the original 97.

 

Song of Hermes

Hermes, messenger across these lands far and wide
Your winged feet carry you along without delay
Bringing messages from where the gods reside
You travel through distant realms by night and day
Across the barrier where the heavens and earth divide
Is it a message for us here that brings you this way
Or must your divine, winged sandals of gold
Take you far away before your message can be retold

But wait, for I see that in your arms you bear
Your lyre, wrought from the silent tortoise shell
Crafted with divine skill and without compare
So now come and sit here awhile and dwell
For we have food and wine aplenty to share
And all we ask is that you have stories to tell
Of your wanderings among men on earth
And from the Olympian heights of your birth

And after if it pleases you then take up your lyre
And let the tortoise shell sing with music again
That inspires our spirit and lights within us a fire
Which no cascades of water can possibly restrain
So let your fingers play as the heavens desire
And that only those born of the gods can attain
Then as you softly play the final strings
I’ll bid you farewell on your fleet-footed wings