Donavon Riley reads and discusses Richard Rolle's 14th-century poem:
The limbs that move, the eyes that see,
these are not entirely me;
Dead men and women helped to shape,
the mold that I do not escape;
The words I speak, the 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;
Around my daily steps arise - the good,
the bad - those I comprise.
by Richard Rolle c 1300 - 1349
