Now westlin winds and slaught'ring guns ( Read more... )

Tomorrow I move from Mountain House.  I'm sitting on the stairs procrastinating with my laptop.  I've lived here for one year as of June 1, but I've spent so much time traveling or away during daylight that it doesn't feel nearly that long.  I'd say "I'll miss the place," but the fact is I expect to be too busy even to think about it.  The place ( Read more... )

(rushthatspeaks has been posting a travelogue of art and culture from a recent trip to Florence.  Highly recommended reading.  Consequently, I have had this poem stuck in my head the past few days, and I thought I'd share it with you all.  Welcome to Browning the art lover.)

The morn when first it thunders in March,
     The eel in the pond gives a leap, they say;
( Read more... )

Dr. Samuel Johnson wrote this verse.

I put my hat upon my head
And walked into the Strand,
And there I met another man
Whose hat was in his hand.

Thus demolishing, as he thought, the appeal of ballad-derived poetry.  I don't like Johnson much.  But somewhere, I've read a continuation of the poem, and something called it to mind recently.  I can't find ( Read more... )

From here.  I want to find a tune for this.

*

THE murmur of the mourning ghost
   That keeps the shadowy kine,
'O Keith of Ravelston,
   The sorrows of thy line!'

( Read more... )

I'm sure I must have posted this before, but it's high time I did so again.

*

But most by Numbers judge a Poet's song ( Read more... )

I woke up with this poem stuck in my head. * Take this kiss upon the brow! And, in parting from you now, Thus much let me avow-- You are not wrong, who deem That my days have been a dream; Yet if hope has flown away In a night, or in a day, In a vision, or in none, Is it therefore the less gone? All that we see or seem ( Read more... )

Welcome to the Goth-O-Matic (TM) Poem Generator.  Interested in birthing your own bastard of diabolically morose proportion?  There's nothing simpler.

Yesterday, asakiyume  and family came to visit me at Mountain House and we swam in the river.  I loved this so much that all I can say are things like "It was beautiful!" but fortunately Asakiyume wrote about it here.

Yesterday night, I went to see an outdoor production of The Winter's Tale.  It didn't have a bear!  The bear was played by some recorded ( Read more... )

Tell me a story, Father, please do;
I've kissed Mama, and I've said my prayers,
And I've bade good night to the soft pussy cat
And the little gray mouse that lives under the stairs.

Tell me a story, Father, please do,
Of power-crazed vampires of monstrous size,
Of hordes of malevolent man-eating crabs,
And pea-green zombies with X-ray eyes.

--poem by ( Read more... )