Walk of the Week - BALLYNACARRIGA CASTLE AND LOUGH

Walk to castle greeted by a locked door

Last week, while sheltering from a shower, I looked up at the skeletal trees above me and was reminded of William Shakespeare’s sonnet, “That time of year, thou may’st in me behold/ When yellow leaves, or none, or few do hang/ Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,/ Bare ruin’d choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.”

Shakespeare may well have been a young man when he wrote it. Poets are often liars; to lie felicitously, in the cause of truth, is a necessary attribute of their art. Leafless and silent trees are perfect metaphors for old age, but clearly, the birds singing in Will’s head were far from silent. His message was that love proves itself true by strengthening even as its object is fast fading. The closing line is “This thou perceiv’st, which makes thy love more strong, To love that well, which thou must leave ere long.”