These are not entirely me:
Dead men and women helped to shape
The mold which I do not escape:
The words I speak, my written line,
These are not uniquely mine.
For in my heart and in my will
Old ancestors are warring still,
Celt, Roman, Saxon, and all the dead
From whose rich blood my veins are fed
In aspect, gesture, voices, tone,
Flesh of my flesh, bone of my bone
In fields they tilled, I plow the sod,
I walk the mountain paths they trod
And round my daily steps arise
The good and bad of those I comprise.
By Richard Rolle, written over 600 years ago.
William Endean
