Posted by Vale
I was at a service a little while ago that included this lovely tribute from a wife to a husband:
To My Dear Loving Husband – Anne Bradstreet
If ever two were one, then surely we.
If ever man were lov’d by wife, then thee.
If ever wife was happy in a man,
Compare with me, ye woman, if you can.
Prise thy love more than whole mines of gold,
Or all riches that the East doth hold.
My love is such that rivers cannot quench,
Nor aught but love from thee give recompense.
Thy love is such I can no way repay.
The heavens reward thee manifold, I pray.
Then while we live, in love let’s so persever
That when we live no more, we may live ever
Complicated and moving, we were hardly prepared for the husband’s favorite song that followed, though the mischief on the face of the widow might have warned us.
Vale: Ebb Tide is…well strangely moving! Reminds of a theme at a recent funeral when a father explained his son’s belief that we are like waves. We appear briefly, then disappear, yet we still exist albeit in a different form. And, more importantly to the young man’s family, we never stop being a part of the whole of existence.
Gerry Colonna is a new one to me – described in WIKI as a caterwauling comedian nitwit! Sounds like you had a proper character there Vale – loved it!
Writers: Sigman/Maxwell
First the tide rushes in
Plants a kiss on the shore
Then rolls out to sea
And the sea is very still once more
So I rush to your side
Like the oncoming tide
With one burning thought
Will your arms open wide
At last we’re face to face
And as we kiss through an embrace
I can tell, I can feel
You are love, you are real
Really mine
In the rain, in the dark, in the sun
Like the tide at its ebb
I’m at peace in the web
Of your arms
Glad you both enjoyed Ebb Tide. In the service, for most of the people there, it was such a sharp, and unexpected contrast to the high flown conceits of the poem – like a last private joke shared.
The song takes me straight back to the fifties – of Goon Shows, Ying Tong Tiddle I Po and Seller’s ‘Bal-ham Gateway to the South’. Deeply evocative. Queerly moving. A world quite lost to us.