Jeremy Irons Reads ‘Minstrel’s Song’

Jeremy Irons was in attendance at Carols by Candlelight, at St. Luke’s Church in London, in support of the Cystic Fibrosis Trust, on Thursday 14 December 2017.

Jeremy read the poem Minstrel’s Song, by Ted Hughes.

Click on the audio player below to listen to Jeremy’s reading:

Minstrel’s Song by Ted Hughes

(Ted Hughes writes about a minstrel who fell asleep in the stable where Joseph and Mary come to rest.)

I’ve just had an astounding dream as I lay in the straw.
I dreamed a star fell on to the straw beside me
And lay blazing. Then when I looked up
I saw a bull come flying through a sky of fire
And on its shoulders a huge silver woman
Holding the moon. And afterwards there came
A donkey flying through that same burning heaven
And on its shoulders a colossal man
Holding the sun. Suddenly I awoke
And saw a bull and a donkey kneeling in the straw,
And the great moving shadows of a man and a woman—
I say they were a man and a woman but
I dare not say what I think they were. I did not dare to look.
I ran out here into the freezing world
Because I dared not look. Inside that shed.

A star is coming this way along the road.
If I were not standing upright, this would be a dream.
A star the shape of a sword of fire, point-downward,
Is floating along the road. And now it rises.
It is shaking fire on to the roofs and the gardens.
And now it rises above the animal shed
Where I slept ’til the dream woke me. And now
The star is standing over the animal shed.