Watched The Fox and The Hound II with the granddaughter, and she enjoyed the music so much that when it was over I searched for "country harmony" on YouTube and found this group. I'm hooked. Enjoy this one! And look for more, they have such a variety. They mostly do other people's songs,  but have written a few themselves.

   I'm memorizing The Hound Of Heaven, by Francis Thompson. It caught me when I heard Richard Burton read it. No small feat, this, it's 182 lines and I'm about 30 lines into it. But the longer I read and recite it, the more I understand it. I think he's saying that we think if we align with God, we'll be out of sync with the rest of the world - but in fact, the entire Universe is in sync with Him, and if we resist him, we are out of sync with everyone and everything, and utterly alone. Profound.
   Who says the Word of God is finished? The story certainly isn't over, why should the telling of it be? If ever there were words written that were Spirit-inspired, these are some. I think King David himself read this and said, "Whoa. Selah."

THE HOUND OF HEAVEN

Francis Thompson

I fled Him, down the nights and down the days;    I fled Him, down the arches of the years; I fled Him, down the labyrinthine ways    Of my own mind; and in the midst of tears I hid from Him, and under running laughter.              Up vistaed hopes I sped;              And shot, precipitated, Adown Titanic glooms of chasmed fears,    From those strong Feet that followed, followed after.              But with unhurrying chase,              And unperturbèd pace,      Deliberate speed, majestic instancy,              They beat—and a Voice beat              More instant than the Feet—      'All things betray thee, who betrayest Me'.           I pleaded, outlaw-wise, By many a hearted casement, curtained red,    Trellised with intertwining charities; (For, though I knew His love Who followed,              Yet was I sore adread Lest, having Him, I must have naught beside.) But, if one little casement parted wide,    The gust of His approach would clash it to:    Fear wist not to evade, as Love wist to pursue. Across the margent of the world I fled,    And troubled the gold gateway of the stars,    Smiting for shelter on their clanged bars;              Fretted to dulcet jars And silvern chatter the pale ports o' the moon. I said to Dawn: Be sudden—to Eve: Be soon;    With thy young skiey blossom heap me over              From this tremendous Lover— Float thy vague veil about me, lest He see!    I tempted all His servitors, but to find My own betrayal in their constancy, In faith to Him their fickleness to me,    Their traitorous trueness, and their loyal deceit. To all swift things for swiftness did I sue;    Clung to the whistling mane of every wind.           But whether they swept, smoothly fleet,      The long savannahs of the blue;             Or, whether, Thunder-driven,           They clanged his chariot 'thwart a heaven, Plashy with flying lightnings round the spurn o' their feet:—    Fear wist not to evade as Love wist to pursue.              Still with unhurrying chase,              And unperturbed pace,       Deliberate speed, majestic instancy,              Came on the following Feet,              And a Voice above their beat— 'Naught shelters thee, who wilt not shelter Me.' I sought no more after that which I strayed           In face of man or maid; But still within the little children's eyes           Seems something, something that replies, They at least are for me, surely for me! I turned me to them very wistfully; But just as their young eyes grew sudden fair          With dawning answers there, Their angel plucked them from me by the hair. Come then, ye other children, Nature's—share With me’ (said I) 'your delicate fellowship;           Let me greet you lip to lip,           Let me twine with you caresses,               Wantoning           With our Lady-Mother's vagrant tresses,              Banqueting           With her in her wind-walled palace,           Underneath her azured dais,           Quaffing, as your taintless way is,              From a chalice Lucent-weeping out of the dayspring.’              So it was done: I in their delicate fellowship was one— Drew the bolt of Nature's secrecies.           I knew all the swift importings           On the wilful face of skies;            I knew how the clouds arise           Spumèd of the wild sea-snortings;              All that's born or dies           Rose and drooped with; made them shapers Of mine own moods, or wailful divine;           With them joyed and was bereaven.           I was heavy with the even,           When she lit her glimmering tapers           Round the day's dead sanctities.           I laughed in the morning's eyes. I triumphed and I saddened with all weather,           Heaven and I wept together, And its sweet tears were salt with mortal mine: Against the red throb of its sunset-heart           I laid my own to beat,           And share commingling heat; But not by that, by that, was eased my human smart. In vain my tears were wet on Heaven's grey cheek. For ah! we know not what each other says,           These things and I; in sound I speak— Their sound is but their stir, they speak by silences. Nature, poor stepdame, cannot slake my drouth;           Let her, if she would owe me, Drop yon blue bosom-veil of sky, and show me           The breasts o’ her tenderness: Never did any milk of hers once bless              My thirsting mouth.              Nigh and nigh draws the chase,              With unperturbed pace, Deliberate speed, majestic instancy;              And past those noisèd Feet              A voice comes yet more fleet—           'Lo! naught contents thee, who content'st not Me.' Naked I wait Thy love's uplifted stroke! My harness piece by piece Thou has hewn from me,              And smitten me to my knee;           I am defenceless utterly.           I slept, methinks, and woke, And, slowly gazing, find me stripped in sleep. In the rash lustihead of my young powers,           I shook the pillaring hours And pulled my life upon me; grimed with smears, I stand amidst the dust o' the mounded years—My mangled youth lies dead beneath the heap. My days have crackled and gone up in smoke, Have puffed and burst as sun-starts on a stream.           Yea, faileth now even dream The dreamer, and the lute the lutanist; Even the linked fantasies, in whose blossomy twist I swung the earth a trinket at my wrist, Are yielding; cords of all too weak account For earth with heavy griefs so overplussed.           Ah! is Thy love indeed A weed, albeit an amarinthine weed, Suffering no flowers except its own to mount?           Ah! must—           Designer infinite!—Ah! must Thou char the wood ere Thou canst limn with it? My freshness spent its wavering shower i' the dust; And now my heart is as a broken fount, Wherein tear-drippings stagnate, spilt down ever           From the dank thoughts that shiver Upon the sighful branches of my mind.           Such is; what is to be? The pulp so bitter, how shall taste the rind? I dimly guess what Time in mists confounds; Yet ever and anon a trumpet sounds From the hid battlements of Eternity; Those shaken mists a space unsettle, then Round the half-glimpsed turrets slowly wash again.           But not ere him who summoneth           I first have seen, enwound With glooming robes purpureal, cypress-crowned; His name I know and what his trumpet saith. Whether man's heart or life it be which yields           Thee harvest, must Thy harvest-fields           Be dunged with rotten death?              Now of that long pursuit              Comes on at hand the bruit;           That Voice is round me like a bursting sea:           'And is thy earth so marred,           Shattered in shard on shard?           Lo, all things fly thee, for thou fliest Me!           'Strange, piteous, futile thing! Wherefore should any set thee love apart? Seeing none but I makes much of naught' (He said), 'And human love needs human meriting:           How hast thou merited—Of all man's clotted clay the dingiest clot?           Alack, thou knowest not How little worthy of any love thou art! Whom wilt thou find to love ignoble thee,           Save Me, save only Me? All which I took from thee I did but take,           Not for thy harms, But just that thou might'st seek it in My arms.           All which thy child's mistake Fancies as lost, I have stored for thee at home:           Rise, clasp My hand, and come!'    Halts by me that footfall:    Is my gloom, after all, Shade of His hand, outstretched caressingly?    'Ah, fondest, blindest, weakest,    I am He Whom thou seekest! Thou dravest love from thee, who dravest Me.'

   Got our granddaughter for the week - a rambunctious, energetic two-year-old. So I have much less time to devote to here. Or much of anything else!
    Wouldn't trade it for the world....... 

Ode to a Nightingale

BY JOHN KEATS

My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains 

         My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk, 

Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains 

         One minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk: 

'Tis not through envy of thy happy lot, 

         But being too happy in thine happiness,— 

                That thou, light-winged Dryad of the trees 

                        In some melodious plot 

         Of beechen green, and shadows numberless, 

                Singest of summer in full-throated ease. 

O, for a draught of vintage! that hath been 

         Cool'd a long age in the deep-delved earth, 

Tasting of Flora and the country green, 

         Dance, and Provençal song, and sunburnt mirth! 

O for a beaker full of the warm South, 

         Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene, 

                With beaded bubbles winking at the brim, 

                        And purple-stained mouth; 

         That I might drink, and leave the world unseen, 

                And with thee fade away into the forest dim: 

Fade far away, dissolve, and quite forget 

         What thou among the leaves hast never known, 

The weariness, the fever, and the fret 

         Here, where men sit and hear each other groan; 

Where palsy shakes a few, sad, last gray hairs, 

         Where youth grows pale, and spectre-thin, and dies; 

                Where but to think is to be full of sorrow 

                        And leaden-eyed despairs, 

         Where Beauty cannot keep her lustrous eyes, 

                Or new Love pine at them beyond to-morrow. 

Away! away! for I will fly to thee, 

         Not charioted by Bacchus and his pards, 

But on the viewless wings of Poesy, 

         Though the dull brain perplexes and retards: 

Already with thee! tender is the night, 

         And haply the Queen-Moon is on her throne, 

                Cluster'd around by all her starry Fays; 

                        But here there is no light, 

         Save what from heaven is with the breezes blown 

                Through verdurous glooms and winding mossy ways. 

I cannot see what flowers are at my feet, 

         Nor what soft incense hangs upon the boughs, 

But, in embalmed darkness, guess each sweet 

         Wherewith the seasonable month endows 

The grass, the thicket, and the fruit-tree wild; 

         White hawthorn, and the pastoral eglantine; 

                Fast fading violets cover'd up in leaves; 

                        And mid-May's eldest child, 

         The coming musk-rose, full of dewy wine, 

                The murmurous haunt of flies on summer eves. 

Darkling I listen; and, for many a time 

         I have been half in love with easeful Death, 

Call'd him soft names in many a mused rhyme, 

         To take into the air my quiet breath; 

                Now more than ever seems it rich to die, 

         To cease upon the midnight with no pain, 

                While thou art pouring forth thy soul abroad 

                        In such an ecstasy! 

         Still wouldst thou sing, and I have ears in vain— 

                   To thy high requiem become a sod. 

Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird! 

         No hungry generations tread thee down; 

The voice I hear this passing night was heard 

         In ancient days by emperor and clown: 

Perhaps the self-same song that found a path 

         Through the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home, 

                She stood in tears amid the alien corn; 

                        The same that oft-times hath 

         Charm'd magic casements, opening on the foam 

                Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn. 

Forlorn! the very word is like a bell 

         To toll me back from thee to my sole self! 

Adieu! the fancy cannot cheat so well 

         As she is fam'd to do, deceiving elf. 

Adieu! adieu! thy plaintive anthem fades 

         Past the near meadows, over the still stream, 

                Up the hill-side; and now 'tis buried deep 

                        In the next valley-glades: 

         Was it a vision, or a waking dream? 

                Fled is that music:—Do I wake or sleep? 

The Fez

NIGHT
 - Francis William Bourdillon

The night has a thousand eyes,
   And the day but one;
Yet the light of the bright world dies
   With the dying sun.

The mind has a thousand eyes,
   And the heart but one;
Yet the light of a whole life dies
   When love is done.

"And it is said by the Eldar that in water there lives yet the echo of the music of the Ainur (angels) more than in any substance else that is in this earth; and many of the children of Ilúvatar (Elves and Men) hearken still unsated to the voices of the Sea, and yet know not for what they listen." - Ainulindale, The Silmarillion

    
    [inJust-]

BY E. E. CUMMINGS

in Just- 

spring          when the world is mud- 

luscious the little 

lame balloonman 

whistles          far          and wee 

and eddieandbill come 

running from marbles and 

piracies and it's 

spring 

when the world is puddle-wonderful 

the queer 

old balloonman whistles 

far          and             wee 

and bettyandisbel come dancing 

from hop-scotch and jump-rope and 

it's 

spring 

and 

         the 

                  goat-footed 

balloonMan          whistles 

far 

and 

wee

Don't you love when you hear a song that you've known and loved for decades, but this time, for some reason, it sounds as good as it did when you first heard it - no longer worn at the edges from too much listening. Crisp and new and special. 

I've started reading the Silmarillion, by Tolkien. Because
 a) It's high time I got it read.
 b) Ideas and their Consequences, as
     insightful as they are, don't make very good
     bedtime stories. Now I shall be over-
     flowing with poetic (and deep!) quotes.

The prompt for my writing club this month is SWEAT. Seems appropriate, with spring at the door....

Texas Spring

Spring is here – oh, swell.

And soon we're in for summer's hell.

Let's predict how hot it'll get,

And how much weight we'll lose in sweat.

Early morning in cooler climes

Is one of my very favorite times

The grass is cool and dewy wet -

Here at 6 am I'm bathed in sweat.

When I go out to mow the lawn

With as little as decently possible on,

I like to see how far I'll get

Before I'm blinded by my sweat.

Sweat on the forehead, sweat in the hair,

Sweat in the muggy, 100 degree air.

Sweat in the oil we put on for a tan,

Sweat for slicking the leather seats in the van.

Sweat that dries, gluing dirt to our skin,

Sweat that dampens the bed that we're in.

Fogging up my glasses, dripping down my back,

Smelly harbinger of a heat stroke attack.

When autumn comes to my 5-acre spread,

Memories of summer will dance through my head -

Cook-outs and family times I'll never forget,

But what I'll remember most is the sweat.

YOU ARE OLD, FATHER WILLIAM
                              - Lewis Carroll

"You are old, Father William," the young man said,
"And your hair has become very white;
And yet you incessantly stand on your head—
Do you think, at your age, it is right?"

"In my youth," Father William replied to his son,
"I feared it might injure the brain;
But now that I'm perfectly sure I have none,
Why, I do it again and again."

"You are old," said the youth, "As I mentioned before,
And have grown most uncommonly fat;
Yet you turned a back-somersault in at the door—
Pray, what is the reason of that?"

"In my youth," said the sage, as he shook his grey locks,
"I kept all my limbs very supple
By the use of this ointment—one shilling a box—
Allow me to sell you a couple?"

"You are old," said the youth, "And your jaws are too weak
For anything tougher than suet;
Yet you finished the goose, with the bones and the beak—
Pray, how did you manage to do it?"

"In my youth," said his father, "I took to the law,
And argued each case with my wife;
And the muscular strength which it gave to my jaw,
Has lasted the rest of my life."

"You are old," said the youth, "one would hardly suppose
That your eye was as steady as ever;
Yet you balanced an eel on the end of your nose—
What made you so awfully clever?"

"I have answered three questions, and that is enough,"
Said his father; "don't give yourself airs!
Do you think I can listen all day to such stuff?
Be off, or I'll kick you down stairs!"

THE OLD MAN'S COMFORTS AND HOW HE GAINED THEM
                                           - Robert Southey


You are old, Father William, the young man cried,

    The few locks which are left you are grey;

You are hale, Father William, a hearty old man,

    Now tell me the reason I pray.

In the days of my youth, Father William replied,

    I remember'd that youth would fly fast,

And abused not my health and my vigour at first

    That I never might need them at last.

You are old, Father William, the young man cried,

    And pleasures with youth pass away,

And yet you lament not the days that are gone,

    Now tell me the reason I pray.

In the days of my youth, Father William replied,

    I remember'd that youth could not last;

I thought of the future whatever I did,

    That I never might grieve for the past.

You are old, Father William, the young man cried,

    And life must be hastening away;

You are chearful, and love to converse upon death!

    Now tell me the reason I pray.

I am chearful, young man, Father William replied,

    Let the cause thy attention engage;

In the days of my youth I remember'd my God!

    And He hath not forgotten my age.

Learn something new every day! I never knew that the version by Lewis Carroll was not the original. Shoulda known. Next I shall post his version..... :)

I don't know if I could learn well from someone who isn't still learning himself. I don't think I'd want to. 

Lazy Sunday morning music

She looks good here, methinks. :)

SONNET 30
     - Bill Shakespeare

When to the sessions of sweet silent thought
I summon up remembrance of things past,
I sigh the lack of many thing I sought,
And with old woes new wail my dear times' waste:
Then I can drown an eye, unus'd to flow,
For precious friends hid in death's dateless night,
And weep afresh love's long since cancelled woe,
And moan the expense of many a vanished sight:
Then I can grieve at grievances foregone,
And heavily from woe to woe tell o'er
The sad account of fore-bemoaned moan,
Which I pay new as if not paid before.
   But if the while, I think on thee, dear friend,
   All losses are restored and sorrows end.

ODE (We Are The Music Makers)
      - Arthur William Edgar O'Shaughnessy

We are the music-makers,
And we are the dreamers of dreams,
Wandering by lone sea-breakers,
And sitting by desolate streams:
World-losers and world forsakers
On whom the pale moon gleams:
Yet we are the movers and shakers
Of the world for ever, it seems.

With wonderful deathless ditties
We build up the world's great cities.
And out of a fabulous story
We fashion an empire's glory:
One man with a dream, at pleasure,
Shall go forth and conquer a crown;
And three, with a new song's measure
Can trample an empire down.

We in the ages lying,
In the buried past of the earth,
Built Nineveh with our sighing,
And Babel itself with our mirth;
And o'erthrew them with prophesying
To the old of the new world's worth.
For each age is a dream that is dying,
Or one that is coming to birth. 

Been camped out on the couch, sick as a dog, for a week now. Going back and forth between freezing and roasting. Weak and fuzzy-headed, and most of all, coughing. Ugh. I think I'm on the upswing, but mostly hoping.....

Wow. I might be the only one, but I'm reminded of A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. Magical.

"It's blasphemy to drink tea from a paper cup." - Mrs Travers, Saving Mr. Banks

I quite agree.

He just walks off the set. Gotta admire that. 

Oh, yeah. A slower, groovier version.......

They're weak-minded because they're malnourished.

"Most days I wish I'd never met you, because then I could sleep at night, cuz I wouldn't have to walk around with the knowledge that there's someone like you out there." - Professor Lambeau, Good Will Hunting

   One evening, while in a marvelous mood, I wondered out loud to Hubby why on earth people find dirty jokes and those about bodily functions so funny. Then I pondered that maybe it's because we're half angel, half animal, and the angel in us is laughing at the animal. I thought that was as good an explanation as any.
   It seems Mr. C. S. Lewis agrees with me. I just found a passage where he says, "The coarse jokes proclaims that we have here an animal which finds its own animality either objectionable or funny. Unless there had been a quarrel between the spirit and the organism I do not see how this could be. I do not perceive that dogs see anything funny about being dogs: I suspect that angels see nothing funny about being angels."
   Great minds........ So very cool.

   Churchill quoted from this poem on several occasions in 1941 - the last line helped him to emphasize Britain's expectations of her ally in the West. On this day in 1941, the American Lend-Lease Act was passed, which allowed President Roosevelt to provide equipment to Britain, whose reserves were almost totally exhausted.
   In a speech broadcast from Chequers in the spring of 1941, Churchill spoke of how the United States were "very closely bound up with us now" and he recited from Clough's poem, remarking how its sentiments were "apt and appropriate to our fortunes tonight" and would be so judged "wherever the English language is spoken or the flag of freedom flies."

SAY NOT THE STRUGGLE NAUGHT AVAILETH
                                  - Arthur Hugh Clough

Say not the struggle naught availeth,
   The labor and the wounds are vain,
The enemy faints not nor faileth,
   And as things have been, things remain.

If hopes were dupes, fears may be liars;
   It may be, in yon smoke concealed,
Your comrades chase e'en now the fliers,
   And but for you, possess the field.

For while the tired waves, vainly breaking,
   Seem here no painful inch to gain,
Far back through creeks and inlets making
   Comes silent, flooding in, the main,

And not by eastern windows only,
   When daylight comes, comes in the light,
In front the sun climbs slow, how slowly,
   But westward, look, the land is bright,

uh-huh

   Sorry for the silence, peeps, I've been sick. Still sick, but well enough now to be restless.
   I'm contemplating a project that would be laborious, lengthy and time-consuming, for which I would have no support, no accountability, and when finished, no reward or recognition except the immediate gains the project itself promises and the knowledge that I had accomplished it. Wondering if I have what it takes.......

"Only thinking which is disciplined, vigorous, and animated by wonder produces knowledge and wisdom." - Thomas Aquinas College

NOT WAVING BUT DROWNING
                           - Stevie Smith

Nobody heard him, the dead man,
But still he lay moaning:
I was much further out than you thought
And not waving but drowning.

Poor chap, he always loved larking
And now he's dead
It must have been too cold for him his heart gave way,
They said.  

Oh, no, no, no, it was too cold always
(Still the dead one lay moaning)
I was much too far out all my life
And not waving but drowning.               

Here we go!

AS KINGFISHERS CATCH FIRE
                      - Gerard Manley Hopkins

As kingfishers catch fire, dragonflies draw flame;
    As tumbled over rim in roundy wells
Stones ring; like each tucked string tells, each hung bell's
Bow swung finds tongue to fling out broad its name;
Each mortal thing does one thing and the same:
   Deals out that being indoors each one dwells;
   Selves - goes itself; myself it speaks and spells;
Crying What I do is me: for that I came.

I say more: the just man justices;
   Keeps grace: that keeps all his goings graces;
Acts in God's eye what in God's eye he is -
   Christ - for Christ plays in ten thousand places,
Lovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not his
   To the Father through the features of men's faces.

   Fat Tuesday at 602 is going to be marvelous! Come feast and get fat with us! We're having crawfish étouffée, turkey and sausage gumbo, crawfish chowder, Cajun boiled shrimp, jambalaya, redfish topped with crawfish sauce, bread pudding, and sticky date pudding topped with rum sauce. And the full bar. Yum! I may not eat for a week after this.......
  I guess that's the idea......  haha

I hate the idea that if something or someone is not on Facebook it doesn't count.  

The high today is 39F, and tonight's low is 27, in these parts. This may be winter's last hurrah; I will enjoy it. There will be a fire in the wood stove today, and yummy things simmering. Soon I'll begin getting my garden tanks cleared and planted, and my rose bushes cut back. 

When you took off your shades, I squinted for a moment,
As my eyes grew accustomed to the light.

You're the one
Who unclothed his eyes
But I'm the one
Who feels naked.

OMG.
I think I want to memorize this.

"Fear wist not to evade, as Love wist to pursue."

Wow. Wouldn't it be great to read - or better yet, recite this, with a quiet, instrumental version of Pink Floyd's Run Like Hell playing in the background?  Hahaha...... yeah

LOVE
  - George Herbert

Love bad me welcome; yet my soul drew back,
  Guilty of dust and sin.
But quick-eyed Love, observing me grow slack
   From my first entrance in,
Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning
  If I lack'd anything.

"A guest", I answered, "worthy to be here":
  Love said, "You shall be."
"I, the unkind, ungrateful? Ah, my dear,
  I cannot look on Thee."
Love took my hand and smiling did reply,
  "Who made the eyes but I?"

"Truth, Lord; but I have marr'd them; let my shame
  Go where it doth deserve."
"And know you not," says Love, "Who bore the blame?"
  "My dear, then I will serve."
"You must sit down," says Love, "and taste my meat."
  So I did eat.

Hubby has Sundays off now. Happy Me.

Don't you hate when you can't get a song out of your head?
Cute lyrics, tho -
Will I be good? Will I be bad?
Don't be a fool, you fool.
My little flat, I'm turning that
Into a Sunday school
While you're away, I'm here to say
There'll be no iceman there.
Singin' the blues I'm gonna use
Nothin' but Frigidaire.

"Man created in the divine image, the protagonist of a great drama in which his soul was at stake, was replaced by man the wealth-seeking and -consuming animal." - Richard Weaver.