"How does the water Come down at Lodore?" My little boy asked me Thus, once on a time; And moreover he tasked me To tell him in rhyme. Anon, at the word, There first came one daughter, And then came another, To second and third The request of their brother, And to hear how the water Comes down at Lodore, With its rush and its roar, As many a time
I don’t belong in this century—who does? In my time, summer came someplace in June— The cutbanks blazing with roses, the birds brazen, and the astonished Pastures frisking with young calves . . . That was in the country— I don’t mean another country, I mean in the country: And the country is lost. I don’t mean just lost to me, Nor in the way of metaphorical loss—it’s lost that way too—
I heard a child, a little under four years old, when asked what was meant by being in good spirits, answer, “It is laughing, talking, and kissing.” —CHARLES DARWIN, The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals 1.WALDORF-ASTORIA EUPHORIA, THE JOY OF BIG CITIES
King Francis was a hearty king, and loved a royal sport, And one day as his lions fought, sat looking on the court; The nobles filled the benches, and the ladies in their pride, And 'mongst them sat the Count de Lorge, with one for whom he sighed: And truly 'twas a gallant thing to see that crowning show, Valour and love, and a king above, and the royal beasts below.
Ramped and roared the lions, with horrid laughing jaws; They bit, they glared, gave blows like beams, a wind went with their paws; With wallowing might and stifled roar they rolled on one another; Till all the pit with sand and mane was in a thunderous smother; The bloody foam above the bars came whisking through the air; Said Francis then, "Faith, gentlemen, we're better here than there."
De Lorge's love o'erheard the King, a beauteous lively dame
Why are the things that have no death The ones with neither sight nor breath! Eternity is thrust upon A bit of earth, a senseless stone. A grain of dust, a casual clod Receives the greatest gift of God. A pebble in the roadway lies— It never dies.
I The everlasting universe of things Flows through the mind, and rolls its rapid waves, Now dark—now glittering—now reflecting gloom— Now lending splendour, where from secret springs The source of human thought its tribute brings Of waters—with a sound but half its own, Such as a feeble brook will oft assume, In the wild woods, among the mountains lone, Where waterfalls around it leap for ever, Where woods and winds contend, and a vast river Over its rocks ceaselessly bursts and raves.
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