Harmonious Powers with Nature work On sky, earth, river, lake, and sea: Sunshine and storm, whirlwind and breeze All in one duteous task agree.
Once did I see a slip of earth, By throbbing waves long undermined, Loosed from its hold; — how no one knew But all might see it float, obedient to the wind.
Might see it, from the mossy shore Dissevered float upon the Lake, Float, with its crest of trees adorned On which the warbling birds their pastime take.
Here, where the world is quiet; Here, where all trouble seems Dead winds' and spent waves' riot In doubtful dreams of dreams; I watch the green field growing For reaping folk and sowing, For harvest-time and mowing, A sleepy world of streams.
I am tired of tears and laughter, And men that laugh and weep; Of what may come hereafter For men that sow to reap: I am weary of days and hours, Blown buds of barren flowers,
Late, late yestreen I saw the new Moon, With the old Moon in her arms; And I fear, I fear, my Master dear! We shall have a deadly storm. (Ballad of Sir Patrick Spence) I Well! If the Bard was weather-wise, who made The grand old ballad of Sir Patrick Spence, This night, so tranquil now, will not go hence
Of Chesterton, In the County of Huntingdon, Esquire How blessed is he, who leads a Country Life, Unvex’d with anxious Cares, and void of Strife! Who studying Peace, and shunning Civil Rage, Enjoy’d his Youth, and now enjoys his Age:
AN ANATOMY OF THE WORLD Wherein, by occasion of the untimely death of Mistress Elizabeth Drury, the frailty and the decay of this whole world is represented THE FIRST ANNIVERSARY When that rich soul which to her heaven is gone, Whom all do celebrate, who know they have one (For who is sure he hath a soul, unless It see, and judge, and follow worthiness,
Nature’s first green is gold, Her hardest hue to hold. Her early leaf’s a flower; But only so an hour. Then leaf subsides to leaf. So Eden sank to grief, So dawn goes down to day. Nothing gold can stay.
Happy Birthday Kenneth Koch/Feb 27 We went to all those places where they restore sadness and joy and call it art. We were piloted by Auden who became Unbearably acrimonious when we dropped off Senghor into the steamy skies of his beloved West Africa. The termites and ants
1 The white butterfly in the park is being read by many. I love that cabbage-moth as if it were a fluttering corner of truth itself!
At dawn the running crowds set our quiet planet in motion. Then the park fills with people. To each one, eight faces polished like jade, for all situations, to avoid making mistakes. To each one, there's also the invisible face reflecting "something you don't talk about." Something that appears in tired moments and is as rank as a gulp of viper schnapps with its long scaly aftertaste.
There is no radical shift of light or redwings calling areas of marsh their territories yet, nor plovers probing for copepods. Only a yellow front-end loader laying out a new berm on the beach, from tubes too heavy to be called hoses, its audience one man and his protesting dog. No frosted
Were’t aught to me I bore the canopy, With my extern the outward honouring, Or laid great bases for eternity, Which proves more short than waste or ruining; Have I not seen dwellers on form and favour Lose all, and more, by paying too much rent, For compound sweet forgoing simple savour, Pitiful thrivers, in their gazing spent?
Unlike the ashes that make their home with hot coals, snails prefer moist earth. Go on: they advance while gluing themselves to it with their entire bodies. They carry it, they eat it, they shit it. They go through it, it goes through them. It’s the best kind of interpenetration, as between tones, one passive and one active. The passive bathes and nourishes the active, which overturns the other while it eats.
(There is more to be said about snails. First of all their immaculate clamminess. Their sangfroid. Their stretchiness.)
One can scarcely conceive of a snail outside its shell and unmoving. The moment it rests it sinks down deep into itself. In fact, its modesty obliges it to move as soon as it has shown its nakedness and revealed its vulnerable shape. The moment it’s exposed, it moves on.
During periods of dryness they withdraw into ditches where it seems their bodies are enough to maintain their dampness. No doubt their neighbors there are toads and frogs and other ectothermic animals. But when they come out again they don’t move as quickly. You have to admire their willingness to go into the ditch, given how hard it is for them to come out again.
Note also that though snails like moist soil, they have no affection for places that are too wet such as marshes or ponds. Most assuredly they prefer firm earth, as long as it’s fertile and damp.
They are fond as well of moisture-rich vegetables and green leafy plants. They know how to feed on them leaving only the veins, cutting free the most tender leaves. They are hell on salads.
What are these beings from the depths of the ditches? Though snails love many of their trenches’ qualities they have every intention of leaving. They are in their element but they are also wanderers. And when they emerge into the daylight onto firm ground their shells will preserve their vagabond’s hauteur.
It must be a pain to have to haul that trailer around with them everywhere, but they never complain and in the end they are happy about it. How valuable, after all, to be able to go home any time, no matter where you may find yourself, eluding all intruders. It must be worth it.
Ne Rubeam, Pingui donatus Munere (Horace, Epistles II.i.267) While you, great patron of mankind, sustain The balanc'd world, and open all the main; Your country, chief, in arms abroad defend, At home, with morals, arts, and laws amend;
’T was merry Christmas when he came, Our little boy beneath the sod; And brighter burned the Christmas flame, And merrier sped the Christmas game, Because within the house there lay A shape as tiny as a fay— The Christmas gift of God! In wreaths and garlands on the walls The holly hung its ruby balls, The mistletoe its pearls; And a Christmas tree’s fantastic fruits Woke laughter like a choir of flutes From happy boys and girls. For the mirth, which else had swelled as shrill As a school let loose to its errant will,
I first discovered what was killing these men. I had three sons who worked with their father in the tunnel: Cecil, aged 23, Owen, aged 21, Shirley, aged 17. They used to work in a coal mine, not steady work for the mines were not going much of the time. A power Co. foreman learned that we made home brew, he formed a habit of dropping in evenings to drink, persuading the boys and my husband —
Upon a lonely mountain, there lived two hermits who worshipped God and loved one another.
Now these two hermits had one earthen bowl, and this was their only possession.
One day an evil spirit entered into the heart of the older hermit and he came to the younger and said, “It is long that we have lived together. The time has come for us to part. Let us divide our possessions.”
Then the younger hermit was saddened and he said, “It grieves me, Brother, that thou shouldst leave me. But if thou must needs go, so be it,” and he brought the earthen bowl and gave it to him saying, “We cannot divide it, Brother, let it be thine.”
Then the older hermit said, “Charity I will not accept. I will take nothing but mine own. It must be divided.”
And the younger one said, “If the bowl be broken, of what use would it be to thee or to me? If it be thy pleasure let us rather cast a lot.”
But the older hermit said again, “I will have but justice and mine own, and I will not trust justice and mine own to vain chance. The bowl must be divided.”
Then the younger hermit could reason no further and he said, “If it be indeed thy will, and if even so thou wouldst have it let us now break the bowl.”
But the face of the older hermit grew exceedingly dark, and he cried, “O thou cursed coward, thou wouldst not fight.”
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