Now.

'Tis Autumn.  The weekend begins now ...

"Hang care!" exclaimed he. "This is a delicious evening; the wine has a finer relish here than in the house, and the song is more exciting and melodious under the tranquil sky than in the close room, where the sound is stifled. Come, let us have a bacchanalian chant—let us, with old Sir Toby, make the welkin dance and rouse the night-owl with a catch! I am right merry. Pass the bottle, and tune your voices—a catch, a catch! The lights will be here anon." 

Charles Ollier, from "The Haunted Manor-House of Paddington" 

For best results, listen to these ...

The euphony transformed me and inundated my soul in a roguish countenance, the likes of which I had know well in younger days. Such impishness soon drove out the complaints of the day. 

Umberto Limongiello

October.

What a grand and glorious October ...

Goin’.

And I'm goin' down

All the way

Leap.

AUGUST 15

I await the end of August and the murder of September.

I am here, tardy Autumn, waiting for you. I’ve prepared you a wheat porridge and lit a fire. Come with your wind and sweep away the shameless sun. Lift its hand from my shoulders.

Summer lies heavily on my chest. But my white hand swears by Autumn, and readies the saddle for its wretched horses. Autumn considers my idea then implements it: rows of stones ringing the hillside, and scattered clouds climbing the slope of the sky. Nothing more than this, nothing more.

Of course, you could add a burst of lightning to shatter my bones and the bones of the world.

You were all mistaken. You thought that horses live on the hills of Spring.

Autumn’s hills are the horses’ residence. The scent of rain excites them, their nostrils flare, then they leap over stone walls toward the summit, to graze on the edges of clouds.

Zakaria Mohammed

Thank you, Courtney.

Music.

Wyeth (Jamie), Blueberry Mulch, 1980

TO AUTUMN

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,

   Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;

Conspiring with him how to load and bless

   With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;

To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees,

   And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;

      To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells

   With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,

And still more, later flowers for the bees,

Until they think warm days will never cease,

      For summer has o'er-brimm'd their clammy cells.

Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?

   Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find

Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,

   Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;

Or on a half-reap'd furrow sound asleep,

   Drows'd with the fume of poppies, while thy hook

      Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers:

And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep

   Steady thy laden head across a brook;

   Or by a cyder-press, with patient look,

      Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours.

Where are the songs of spring? Ay, Where are they?

   Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,—

While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,

   And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;

Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn

   Among the river sallows, borne aloft

      Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;

And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;

   Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft

   The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft;

      And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.

John Keats

Hilton, John Keats, 1822

It struck me what Quality went to form a Person of Achievement, especially in Literature, and which Shakespeare possessed so enormously - I mean Negative Capability, that is, when someone is capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason.

John Keats, from a letter to his brothers, 21 December 1817

Horror-Struck.

Kelley, Just Then He Saw the Goblin Rising in His Stirrups, and in the Very Act of Hurling his Head at Him, 1991

The hair of the affrighted pedagogue rose upon his head with terror. What was to be done? To turn and fly was now too late; and besides, what chance was there of escaping ghost or goblin, if such it was, which could ride upon the wings of the wind? Summoning up, therefore, a show of courage, he demanded in stammering accents, “Who are you?” He received no reply. He repeated his demand in a still more agitated voice. Still there was no answer. Once more he cudgelled the sides of the inflexible Gunpowder, and, shutting his eyes, broke forth with involuntary fervor into a psalm tune. Just then the shadowy object of alarm put itself in motion, and with a scramble and a bound stood at once in the middle of the road. Though the night was dark and dismal, yet the form of the unknown might now in some degree be ascertained. He appeared to be a horseman of large dimensions and mounted on a black horse of powerful frame. He made no offer of molestation or sociability, but kept aloof on one side of the road, jogging along on the blind side of old Gunpowder, who had now got over his fright and waywardness.

Ichabod, who had no relish for this strange midnight companion, and bethought himself of the adventure of Brom Bones with the Galloping Hessian, now quickened his steed in hopes of leaving him behind. The stranger, however, quickened his horse to an equal pace. Ichabod pulled up, and fell into a walk, thinking to lag behind; the other did the same. His heart began to sink within him; he endeavored to resume his psalm tune, but his parched tongue clove to the roof of his mouth and he could not utter a stave. There was something in the moody and dogged silence of this pertinacious companion that was mysterious and appalling. It was soon fearfully accounted for. On mounting a rising ground, which brought the figure of his fellow-traveller in relief against the sky, gigantic in height and muffled in a cloak, Ichabod was horror-struck on perceiving that he was headless! but his horror was still more increased on observing that the head, which should have rested on his shoulders, was carried before him on the pommel of the saddle. His terror rose to desperation, he rained a shower of kicks and blows upon Gunpowder, hoping by a sudden movement to give his companion the slip; but the spectre started full jump with him. Away, then, they dashed through thick and thin, stones flying and sparks flashing at every bound. Ichabod’s flimsy garments fluttered in the air as he stretched his long lank body away over his horse’s head in the eagerness of his flight.

They had now reached the road which turns off to Sleepy Hollow; but Gunpowder, who seemed possessed with a demon, instead of keeping up it, made an opposite turn and plunged headlong down hill to the left. This road leads through a sandy hollow shaded by trees for about a quarter of a mile, where it crosses the bridge famous in goblin story, and just beyond swells the green knoll on which stands the whitewashed church.

As yet the panic of the steed had given his unskillful rider an apparent advantage in the chase; but just as he had got halfway through the hollow the girths of the saddle gave away and he felt it slipping from under him. He seized it by the pommel and endeavored to hold it firm, but in vain, and had just time to save himself by clasping old Gunpowder round the neck, when the saddle fell to the earth, and he heard it trampled under foot by his pursuer. For a moment the terror of Hans Van Ripper’s wrath passed across his mind, for it was his Sunday saddle; but this was no time for petty fears; the goblin was hard on his haunches, and (unskilled rider that he was) he had much ado to maintain his seat, sometimes slipping on one side, sometimes on another, and sometimes jolted on the high ridge of his horse’s back-bone with a violence that he verily feared would cleave him asunder.

An opening in the trees now cheered him with the hopes that the church bridge was at hand. The wavering reflection of a silver star in the bosom of the brook told him that he was not mistaken. He saw the walls of the church dimly glaring under the trees beyond. He recollected the place where Brom Bones’ ghostly competitor had disappeared. “If I can but reach that bridge,” thought Ichabod, “I am safe.” Just then he heard the black steed panting and blowing close behind him; he even fancied that he felt his hot breath. Another convulsive kick in the ribs, and old Gunpowder sprang upon the bridge; he thundered over the resounding planks; he gained the opposite side; and now Ichabod cast a look behind to see if his pursuer should vanish, according to rule, in a flash of fire and brimstone. Just then he saw the goblin rising in his stirrups, and in the very act of hurling his head at him. Ichabod endeavored to dodge the horrible missile, but too late. It encountered his cranium with a tremendous crash; he was tumbled headlong into the dust, and Gunpowder, the black steed, and the goblin rider passed by like a whirlwind.

Washington Irving, from "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow"

Happy Birthday, Keats

Haydon, Life Mask of John Keats, 1816

WRITTEN on TOP of the BEN NEVIS

Read me a lesson, Muse, and speak it loud
Upon the top of Nevis, blind in mist!
I look into the chasms, and a shroud
Vapourous doth hide them - just so much I wist
Mankind do know of hell; I look o'erhead,
And there is sullen mist, - even so much
Mankind can tell of heaven; mist is spread
Before the earth, beneath me, - even such,
Even so vague is man's sight of himself!
Here are the craggy stones beneath my feet, -
Thus much I know that, a poor witless elf,
I tread on them, - that all my eye doth meet
Is mist and crag, not only on this height,
But in the world of thought and mental might! 

John Keats, born on this day in 1795

Snatch.

Wyeth, Bonfire, 1993

Keep your eyes open

And prick up your ears

Rehearse your loudest cry.

There's folk out there

Who would do you harm

So I'll sing you no lullaby.

There's a lock on the window;

There's a chain on the door:

A big dog in the hall.

But there's dragons and beasties

Out there in the night

To snatch you if you fall.

Jethro Tull, from "No Lullabye," off Heavy Horses

Unseen.

Coates, Robin Good-Fellow, 1639

HALLOWEEN

Out I went into the meadow, 

Where the moon was shining brightly, 

And the oak-tree’s lengthening shadows 

On the sloping sward did lean; 

For I longed to see the goblins, 

And the dainty-footed fairies, 

And the gnomes, who dwell in caverns, 

But come forth on Halloween. 

“All the spirits, good and evil, 

Fay and pixie, witch and wizard, 

On this night will sure be stirring," 

Thought I, as I walked along; 

“And if Puck, the merry wanderer, 

Or her majesty, Titania, 

Or that Mab who teases housewives 

If their housewifery be wrong, 

Should but condescend to meet me”— 

But my thoughts took sudden parting, 

For I saw, a few feet from me, 

Standing in the moonlight there, 

A quaint, roguish little figure, 

And I knew ‘twas Puck, the trickster, 

By the twinkle of his bright eyes 

Underneath his shaggy hair. 

Yet I felt no fear of Robin, 

Salutation brief he uttered, 

Laughed and touched me on the shoulder, 

And we lightly walked away; 

And I found that I was smaller, 

For the grasses brushed my elbows, 

And the asters seemed like oak-trees, 

With their trunks so tall and gray. 

Swiftly as the wind we traveled, 

Till we came unto a garden, 

Bright within a gloomy forest, 

Like a gem within the mine; 

And I saw, as we grew nearer, 

That the flowers so blue and golden 

Were but little men and women, 

Who amongst the green did shine. 

But ‘twas marvelous the resemblance 

Their bright figures bore to blossoms, 

As they smiled, and danced, and courtesied, 

Clad in yellow, pink and blue; 

That fair dame, my eyes were certain, 

Who among them moved so proudly, 

Was my moss-rose, while her ear-rings 

Sparkled like the morning dew. 

Here, too, danced my pinks and pansies, 

Smiling, gayly, as they used to 

When, like beaux bedecked and merry, 

They disported in the sun; 

There, with meek eyes, walked a lily, 

While the violets and snow-drops 

Tripped it with the lordly tulips: 

Truant blossoms, every one. 

Then spoke Robin to me, wondering: 

“These blithe fairies are the spirits 

Of the flowers which all the summer 

Bloom beneath its tender sky; 

When they feel the frosty fingers 

Of the autumn closing round them, 

They forsake their earthborn dwellings, 

Which to earth return and die, 

“As befits things which are mortal. 

But these spirits, who are deathless, 

Care not for the frosty autumn, 

Nor the winter long and keen; 

But, from field, and wood, and garden, 

When their summer’s tasks are finished, 

Gather here for dance and music, 

As of old, on Halloween.” 

Long, with Puck, I watched the revels, 

Till the gray light of the morning 

Dimmed the luster of Orion, 

Starry sentry overhead; 

And the fairies, at that warning, 

Ceased their riot, and the brightness 

Faded from the lonely forest, 

And I knew that they had fled. 

Ah, it ne’er can be forgotten, 

This strange night I learned the secret— 

That within each flower a busy 

Fairy lives and works unseen 

Seldom is ‘t to mortals granted 

To behold the elves and pixies, 

To behold the merry spirits, 

Who come forth on Halloween.

Arthur Peterson

Invasion.

On this day, at this hour, in 1938.

Run.

Dawkins, The Carnival Comes to Town, Maryland, n/d

When I was three my mother snuck me in and out of movies two or three times a week. My first film was Lon Chaney in The Hunchback of Notre Dame. I suffered permanent curvature of the spine and of my imagination that day a long time ago in 1923.  From that hour on, I knew a kindred and wonderfully grotesque compatriot of the dark when I saw one. I ran off to see all the Chaney films again and again to be deliciously frightened. The Phantom of the Opera stood astride my life with his scarlet cape.  And when it wasn't the Phantom it was the terrible hand that gestured from behind the bookcase in The Cat and the Canary, bidding me to come find more darkness hid in books.

I was in love, then, with monsters and skeletons and circuses and carnivals and dinosaurs and, at last, the red planet, Mars. 

From these primitive bricks I have built a life and a career. By my staying in love with all of these amazing things, all of the good things in my existence have come about.  

In other words, I was not embarrassed at circuses. Some people are. Circuses are loud, vulgar, and smell in the sun. By the time many people are fourteen or fifteen, they have been divested of their loves, their ancient and intuitive tastes, one by one, until when they reach maturity there is no fun left, no zest, no gusto, no flavor. Others have criticized, and they have criticized themselves, into embarrassment. When the circus pulls in at five of a dark cold summer morn, and the calliope sounds, they do not rise and run, they turn in their sleep, and life passes by.

Ray Bradbury, from Zen in the Art of Writing: Essays on Creativity

Perceiver.

Steve's pointing to Moriarty again ...

It is yourself as perceiver of the world, not the world, that you should be attempting to change.

From Dreamtime

Gonna.

Like a wheel

Gonna spin it

Mouton.

de Troy, Charles Mouton, 1690

Thanks for the inspiration, Kurt.

Tied.

Wyeth, Pumpkin Hill, 1977

There’s witchcraft and hidden meaning there. Halloween and all that is strangely tied into it. For me, the paintings have that eerie feeling of goblins and witches out riding on broomsticks — damp rotting leaves and moisture — smell of make-up — as a child, the smell inside of a pumpkin when a candle is lit — the feel of your face under a mask walking down a road in the moonlight. I love all that, because then I don’t exist anymore.

Andrew Wyeth

Filling.

I love it when a cover is better than the original.

Thanks, Kurt.

Abide.

Chenoweth, Untitled, 1972

WHAT I DO IS ME —FOR THAT I CAME

for Gerard Manley Hopkins

What I do is me—for that I came.

What I do is me!

For that I came into the world!

So said Gerard;

So said that gentle Manley Hopkins.

In his poetry and prose he saw the Fates that chose

Him in genetics, then set him free to find his way

Among the sly electric printings in his blood.

God thumbprints thee! he said.

Within your hour of birth

He touches hand to brow, He whorls and softly stamps

The ridges and the symbols of His soul above your eyes!

But in that selfsame hour, full born and shouting

Shocked pronouncements of one's birth,

In mirrored gaze of midwife, mother, doctor

See that Thumbprint fade and fall away in flesh

So, lost, erased, you seek a lifetime's days for it

And dig deep to find the sweet instructions there

Put by when God first circuited and printed thee to

life:

"Go hence! do this! do that! do yet another thing!

This self is yours! Be it!"

And what is that?! you cry at hearthing breast,

Is there no rest? No, only journeying to be yourself.

And even as the Birthmark vanishes, in seashell ear

Now fading to a sigh, His last words send you in the

world:

"Not mother, father, grandfather are you.

Be not another. Be the self I signed you in your blood.

I swarm your flesh with you. Seek that.

And, finding, be what no one else can be.

I leave you gifts of Fate most secret; find no other's Fate,

For if you do, no grave is deep enough for your despair

No country far enough to hide your loss.

I circumnavigate each cell in you

Your merest molecule is right and true.

Look there for destinies indelible and fine

And rare.

Ten thousand futures share your blood each instant;

Each drop of blood a cloned electric twin of you.

Put by when God first circuited and printed thee to

life:

"Go hence! do this! do that! do yet another thing!

This self is yours! Be it!"

And what is that?! you cry at hearthing breast,

Is there no rest? No, only journeying to be yourself.

And even as the Birthmark vanishes, in seashell ear

Now fading to a sigh, His last words send you in the

world:

"Not mother, father, grandfather are you.

Be not another. Be the self I signed you in your blood.

I swarm your flesh with you. Seek that.

And, finding, be what no one else can be.

I leave you gifts of Fate most secret; find no other's Fate,

For if you do, no grave is deep enough for your despair

No country far enough to hide your loss.

I circumnavigate each cell in you

Your merest molecule is right and true.

Look there for destinies indelible and fine

And rare.

Ten thousand futures share your blood each instant;

Each drop of blood a cloned electric twin of you.

In merest wound on hand read replicas of what I

planned

and knew

Before your birth, then hid it in your heart.

No part of you that does not snug and hold and hide

The self that you will be if faith abide.

What you do is thee. For that I gave you birth.

Be that. So be the only you that's truly you on Earth."

Ray Bradbury

Prowl.

When the midnight strikes in the belfry dark

And the white goose quakes at the fox’s bark

We saddle the horse that is hayless, oatless

Hoofless and pranceless, kickless and coatless

We canter off for a midnight prowl

Whoo-hoo-hoo, says the hook-eared owl.

John Masefield

Happy Birthday, Adams

Blyth, John Adams, 1766

The very Ground of our Liberties, is the freedom of Elections. Every Man has in Politicks as well as Religion, a Right to think and speak and Act for himself. No man either King or Subject, Clergyman or Layman has any Right to dictate to me who the Person I shall choose to for my Legislator and Ruler. I must judge for myself, but how can I judge, how can any Man judge, unless his Mind has been opened and enlarged by Reading. A Man who can read, will find in his Bible, in the common sermon Books that common People have by them and even in the Almanack and Newspapers, Rules and observations,

that will enlarge his Range of Thought, and enable him the better to judge who has and who has not that Integrity of Heart, and that Compass of Knowledge and Understanding, which form the Statesman. 

John Adams, born on this day in 1735, from a diary entry dated August 1, 1761 

Often.

Dore, Rabbits Heading to the Forest, 1872

A person often meets his destiny on the road he took to avoid it.

Jean de la Fontaine

Best.

He rides his black steed through the countryside

And whenever he stops a mortal man dies.

He’s the Angel of Death and worthy of dread;

Dressed all in black and lacking a head.

In his left hand is a spine that he’ll use as a whip;

In his right hand a scythe that will cut to the quick.

He rides his black steed through the countryside

If you chance to observe him you may be struck blind

And still think yourself lucky that he left you behind.

If he pulls on the reins and he finds you outdoors

Your heart will stop dead and will beat nevermore.

There are buckets of blood where the Dullahan rides.

On all Hallows Eve you had best be inside.

John F. McCullagh

Dream.

Homer, The Pumpkin Patch, 1878

"Jack-o'-Lantern, Jack-o'-Lantern,

Tell me where you hide by day?"

"In the cradle where the vapours

Dream the sunlit hours away."

"Jack-o'-Lantern, Jack-o'-Lantern,

Who rekindles you at night?"

"Any firefly in the meadow

Lends a Jack-o'-Lantern light."

John B. Tabb

Ain't.

Don't need reason

Don't need rhyme

Ain't nothin' that I'd rather do

Released.

RUSH released Exit ... Stage Left on this day in 1981.

"La Villa Strangiato" ...

Believe.

Happy Birthday, Hayley

Holloway, William Hayley, 1745 - 1820. Poet, 1786

THE HERMIT'S DOG

Of dogs who sav'd a living friend,

    Most nobly, ye have read:

  Now to a nobler still attend,

    A guardian of the dead.

  As o'er wild Alpine scenes I stray'd,

    Not far from that retreat,

  Where Bruno, with celestial aid,

    First plann'd his sacred seat.

  An anchorite of noble mien,

    Attracted my regard;

  Majestic as that savage scene,

    Or as a Cambrian bard.

  He to no silent dome belongs,

    The rock is his domain;

  It echoes to his nightly songs

    Devotion's lonely strain.

  His mansion is a tranquil grot,

    Form'd in the living stone:

  My view of the sequester'd spot,

    I owe to chance alone.

  For happening near his cell to rove,

    Enamour'd of the wild;

  I heard within a piny grove

    What seem'd a plaintive child.

  The distant cry so struck my ear,

    I hasten'd to the ground,

  But saw surpris'd, as I drew near,

    The author of the sound.

  No human form, yet one I thought,

    With human feelings fill'd,

  And from his tongue, by nature taught,

    Strange notes of sorrow thrill'd.

  Unseen myself, I clearly saw

    A dog that couchant moan'd;

  He struck the hard earth with his paw,

    Then look'd at Heaven, and groan'd!

  With silent caution I drew near,

    To mark this friend of man,

  Expressing grief in sobs so clear,

    It through my bosom ran!

  The noble beast was black as jet,

    And as a lion large;

  He look'd as on a tombstone set,

    To hold the dead in charge.

  Grand was his visage, round his neck

    Broad silver rings he wore;

  These rings, that his dark body deck,

    The cross of Malta bore.

  I gaz'd, but soon my steps, tho' soft,

    Announced a stranger near;

  The brave beast bounded up aloft,

    Nor was I free from fear.

  But soon his master's voice represt

    And call'd him to his side:

  And soon I was the hermit's guest,

    He was my guard and guide.

  My own intrusion to excuse,

    The wond'rous dog I prais'd,

  Whose milder mien my eye reviews,

    Delighted and amaz'd!

  "If I disturb thy calm retreat,

    Divinely calm indeed,

  The noble servant at thy feet,

    May for my pardon plead."

  "That noble servant in my sight

    Whom strength and grace adorn,

  Announces, if I read aright,

    A master nobly born."

  The sire replied, with graceful bend,

    "No not my servant, he!

  A noble independent friend,

    He deigns to live with me!"

  "But, stranger, if you kindly rest,

    His story you shall hear,

  And all that makes my sable guest,

    Most singularly dear."

  "Here it has been my chosen lot,

    Some awful years to spend!

  Few months have pass'd, since near this spot

    I gain'd this signal friend."

  "This friend, with whom to live and die,

    Is now my dearest aim;

  He likes the world no more than I,

    And Hero is his name."

  "Some two miles off, as near a wood,

    Of deepest gloom I stray'd;

  Struck by strange sounds, I wond'ring stood,

    They echoed from the shade."

  "First like a noise in troubled dreams,

    But soon distinct I heard,

  A dog's triumphant bark, and screams,

    That spoke a dying bird."

  "A bird of loud portentous note,

    One of the vulture race,

  Which shepherds will to death devote,

    In sanguinary chace."

  "I thought some shepherd's joy to share,

    And hurried to the sound:

  To what I had expected there

    Far different scene I found."

  "A man, of blood-bespotted vest,

    I saw upon the earth;

  And Malta's cross upon his breast,

    Spoke him of noble birth."

  "Misfortune long had press'd him sore;

    I know not how he died;

  He had been dead two days or more,

    When I his corse descried."

  "Him, as their prey, two vultures seek,

    With ravenous rage abhorr'd;

  But Hero guarded from their beak,

    The visage of his lord!"

  "When first my eyes on Hero glanc'd,

    One vulture he had slain:

  The second scar'd as I advanced,

    Flew off in fearful pain."

  "Enchanted with a guard so brave,

    So faithful to the dead:

  The wounded dog to soothe and save,

    With beating heart I sped."

  "He lick'd my hand, by me carest,

    But him with grief I saw

  Half famish'd, and his gallant breast

    Gor'd by the vulture's claw!"

  "Tho' anxious o'er his wounds I bend;

    By kindness or by force,

  I could not tempt this generous friend.

    To quit the pallid corse!"

  "The body to my cell I bear;

    This mourner with it moved;

  Then he submitted to my care,

    And all my aid approv'd."

  "In the soft stone, that's near my cell,

    I soon entomb'd the dead;

  With stone above I shield him well,

    And laurels round I spread."

  "Oft to the spot with mournful praise,

    The mindful Hero springs,

  And in such notes, as he can raise,

    A requiem he sings."

  "Dear faithful dog! if man to me

    Had half thy virtue shewn,

  From social life I should not flee,

    To roam the wild alone!"

  "No! not alone, nor yet in woe,

    While here thy virtues shine,

  For I defy the world to shew

    Associate like to mine!"

  The dog, he now press'd to his heart,

    Then utter'd this desire;

  "Stranger if thine a poet's art,

    Let Hero wake thy lyre!"

  His wish was kind--may love so true.

    Ne'er want its wishes long:

  Thus from his fond suggestion grew,

    This tributary song.

William Hayley, born on this day in 1745

Be.

Askin' nothin'

Leave me be

Silver-White.

Jacobs, Jack Frost, n/d

JACK FROST

The door was shut, as doors should be,

 Before you went to bed last night;

Yet Jack Frost has got in, you see,

 And left your window silver-white.

He must have waited till you slept;

 And not a single word he spoke,

But pencilled o’er the panes and crept

 Away again before you woke.

And now you cannot see the hills

 Nor fields that stretch beyond the lane;

But there are fairer things than these

 His fingers traced on every pane.

Rocks and castles towering high;

 Hills and dales, and streams and fields;

And knights in armor riding by,

 With nodding plumes and shining shields.

And here are little boats, and there

 Big ships with sails spread to the breeze;

And yonder, palm trees waving fair

 On islands set in silver seas,

And butterflies with gauzy wings;

 And herds of cows and flocks of sheep;

And fruit and flowers and all the things

 You see when you are sound asleep.

For, creeping softly underneath

 The door when all the lights are out,

Jack Frost takes every breath you breathe,

 And knows the things you think about.

He paints them on the window-pane

 In fairy lines with frozen steam;

And when you wake you see again

 The lovely things you saw in dream.

Gabriel Setoun

Lost.

EVENING WALK

You give the appearance of listening

To my thoughts, o trees,

Bent over the road I am walking

On a late summer evening

When every one of you is a steep staircase

The night is descending.

 

The leaves like my my mother’s lips

Forever trembling, unable to decide,

Fore there’s a bit of wind,

And it’s like hearing voices,

Or a mouth full of muffled laughter,

A huge dark mouth we can all fit in

Suddenly covered by a hand.

 

Everything quiet. Light

Of some other evening strolling ahead,

Long-ago evening of long dresses,

Pointy shoes, silver cigarettes cases.

Happy heart, what heavy steps you take

As you hurry after them in the thickening

shadows.

 

The sky above still blue.

The nightbirds like children

Who won’t come to dinner.

Lost children singing to themselves.

Charles Simic

Smell.

Trick-or-Treat

Smell my feet

Give me something

Good to eat ...

Happy Birthday, Downing

K.K. Downing was born on this day in 1951.

"Devil's Child"...

None.  None ... more black.

Ever.

Nature, which governs the whole, will soon change all things which thou seest, and out of their substance will make other things, and again other things from the substance of them, in order that the world may be ever new.  Substance is like a river in continual flow; the energies undergo constant changes and do work in infinite variety. There is hardly anything that stands still or remains still.  Observe constantly that all things take place by change, and accustom thyself to consider that the nature of the universe loves nothing so much as to change the things which are and to make new things like them.

Marcus Aurelius, from Meditations

Gentleman-Like.

Rockwell, Ichabod Crane, 1937

The schoolmaster is generally a man of some importance in the female circle of a rural neighborhood, being considered a kind of idle, gentleman-like personage of vastly superior taste and accomplishments to the rough country swains, and, indeed, inferior in learning only to the parson. His appearance, therefore, is apt to occasion some little stir at the tea-table of a farmhouse and the addition of a supernumerary dish of cakes or sweetmeats, or, peradventure, the parade of a silver tea-pot. Our man of letters, therefore, was peculiarly happy in the smiles of all the country damsels. How he would figure among them in the churchyard between services on Sundays, gathering grapes for them from the wild vines that overrun the surrounding trees; reciting for their amusement all the epitaphs on the tombstones; or sauntering, with a whole bevy of them, along the banks of the adjacent mill-pond, while the more bashful country bumpkins hung sheepishly back, envying his superior elegance and address.

From his half-itinerant life, also, he was a kind of travelling gazette, carrying the whole budget of local gossip from house to house, so that his appearance was always greeted with satisfaction. He was, moreover, esteemed by the women as a man of great erudition, for he had read several books quite through, and was a perfect master of Cotton Mather’s History of New England Witchcraft, in which, by the way, he most firmly and potently believed.

He was, in fact, an odd mixture of small shrewdness and simple credulity. His appetite for the marvellous and his powers of digesting it were equally extraordinary, and both had been increased by his residence in this spellbound region. No tale was too gross or monstrous for his capacious swallow. It was often his delight, after his school was dismissed in the afternoon, to stretch himself on the rich bed of clover bordering the little brook that whimpered by his school-house, and there con over old Mather’s direful tales until the gathering dusk of the evening made the printed page a mere mist before his eyes. Then, as he wended his way by swamp and stream and awful woodland to the farmhouse where he happened to be quartered, every sound of Nature at that witching hour fluttered his excited imagination—the moan of the whip-poor-will from the hillside; the boding cry of the tree-toad, that harbinger of storm; the dreary hooting of the screech-owl, or the sudden rustling in the thicket of birds frightened from their roost. The fire-flies, too, which sparkled most vividly in the darkest places, now and then startled him as one of uncommon brightness would stream across his path; and if, by chance, a huge blockhead of a beetle came winging his blundering flight against him, the poor varlet was ready to give up the ghost, with the idea that he was struck with a witch’s token. His only resource on such occasions, either to drown thought or drive away evil spirits, was to sing psalm tunes; and the good people of Sleepy Hollow, as they sat by their doors of an evening, were often filled with awe at hearing his nasal melody, “in linked sweetness long drawn out,” floating from the distant hill or along the dusky road.

Another of his sources of fearful pleasure was to pass long winter evenings with the old Dutch wives as they sat spinning by the fire, with a row of apples roasting and spluttering along the hearth, and listen to their marvellous tales of ghosts and goblins, and haunted fields, and haunted brooks, and haunted bridges, and haunted houses, and particularly of the headless horseman, or Galloping Hessian of the Hollow, as they sometimes called him. He would delight them equally by his anecdotes of witchcraft and of the direful omens and portentous sights and sounds in the air which prevailed in the earlier times of Connecticut, and would frighten them woefully with speculations upon comets and shooting stars, and with the alarming fact that the world did absolutely turn round and that they were half the time topsy-turvy.

But if there was a pleasure in all this while snugly cuddling in the chimney-corner of a chamber that was all of a ruddy glow from the crackling wood-fire, and where, of course, no spectre dared to show its face, it was dearly purchased by the terrors of his subsequent walk homewards. What fearful shapes and shadows beset his path amidst the dim and ghastly glare of a snowy night! With what wistful look did be eye every trembling ray of light streaming across the waste fields from some distant window! How often was he appalled by some shrub covered with snow, which, like a sheeted spectre, beset his very path! How often did he shrink with curdling awe at the sound of his own steps on the frosty crust beneath his feet, and dread to look over his shoulder, lest he should behold some uncouth being tramping close behind him! And how often was he thrown into complete dismay by some rushing blast howling among the trees, in the idea that it was the Galloping Hessian on one of his nightly scourings!

Washington Irving, from "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow"

Enough.

It is enough when a single note is beautifully played.

Arvo Pärt

Happy Birthday, Thomas

If I'd been a cowboy, it might've ended well.

Somewhere on the ramble, I'm sure I'd have to sell

My guns along the highway. My coins to the table

To make a gambler's double, I'd double debts to pay.

Prob'ly shrink and slink away, It mightn't've ended well.

What If I'd been a sailor? I think it might've ended well.

From August to May

For a searat of man drifting through eternal blue, aboard the finest Debris.

I might've called the shanties. From daybreak to storm's set, lines stay Taught, over rhythm unbroken.

But, oh, there's a schism unspoken, a mighty calling of the lee.

An absentminded Pirate, unaccustomed to the sea;

To the land, a traitor. I think it mightn't've ended well.

What might've worked for me? What might've ended well?

Soldier, to bloody sally forth through hell?

Teacher of glorious stories to tell?

Man of gold, or stores to sell?

Lover to a gentle belle?

Maybe a camel;

A seashell.

What mightn't've been a life where it mightn't've ended well?

Dylan Thomas, born on this day in 1914

Josquin, Benedicta es caelorum Regina

Harry Christophers leads The Sixteen ...

Essential.

It may perhaps be thought superfluous to offer arguments to prove the utility of the UNION, a point, no doubt, deeply engraved on the hearts of the great body of the people in every state, and one which, it may be imagined, has no adversaries. But the fact is, that we already hear it whispered in the private circles of those who oppose the new constitution, that the Thirteen States are of too great extent for any general system, and that we must of necessity resort to separate confederacies of distinct portions of the whole. This doctrine will, in all probability, be gradually propagated, till it has votaries enough to countenance its open avowal. For nothing can be more evident, to those who are able to take an enlarged view of the subject, than the alternative of an adoption of the constitution, or a dismemberment of the Union. It may, therefore, be essential to examine particularly the advantages of that Union, the certain evils, and the probable dangers, to which every state will be exposed from its dissolution. This shall accordingly be done.

Publius, from "Federalist No.1," published on this day in 1787

Happy Birthday, Roosevelt

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.

Theodore Roosevelt, born on this day in 1858, from his speech at the Sorbonne, Paris, April 23, 1910

Deep-Seeing.

THE HAUNTED HOUSE

I seem like one

Who treads alone

   Some banquet-hall deserted,

Whose lights are fled,

Whose garlands dead,

   And all but me departed.

           —Thomas Moore, “Oft in the Stilly Night (Scotch Air)”

See’st thou yon gray gleaming hall,

Where the deep elm-shadows fall?

Voices that have left the earth

     Long ago,

Still are murmuring round its hearth,

     Soft and low:

Ever there;—yet one alone

Hath the gift to hear their tone.

Guests come thither, and depart,

Free of step, and light of heart;

Children, with sweet visions blessed,

In the haunted chambers rest;

One alone unslumbering lies

When the night hath sealed all eyes,

One quick heart and watchful ear,

Listening for those whispers clear.

 

See’st thou where the woodbine-flowers

O’er yon low porch hang in showers?

Startling faces of the dead,

     Pale, yet sweet,

One lone woman’s entering tread

     There still meet!

Some with young, smooth foreheads fair,

Faintly shining through bright hair;

Some with reverend locks of snow—

All, all buried long ago!

All, from under deep sea-waves,

Or the flowers of foreign graves,

Or the old and bannered aisle,

Where their high tombs gleam the while;

Rising, wandering, floating by,

Suddenly and silently,

Through their earthly home and place,

But amidst another race.

 

Wherefore, unto one alone,

Are those sounds and visions known?

Wherefore hath that spell of power

     Dark and dread,

On her soul, a baleful dower,

     Thus been shed?

Oh! in those deep-seeing eyes,

No strange gift of mystery lies!

She is lone where once she moved,

Fair, and happy, and beloved!

Sunny smiles were glancing round her,

Tendrils of kind hearts had bound her;

Now those silver chords are broken,

Those bright looks have left no token;

Not one trace on all the earth,

Save her memory of their mirth.

She is lone and lingering now,

Dreams have gathered o’er her brow,

Midst gay songs and children’s play,

She is dwelling far away;

Seeing what none else may see—

Haunted still her place must be!

Felicia Dorothea Hemans

Thank you, Walter.

Light.

van Gogh, Still life with a Plate of Onions, 1889

AT the KITCHEN TABLE

Not a flock of stories,

not usually,

but a few that arrive at dusk,

in pairs, quietly

creating themselves

in the feathery light.

And rarely with fancy plumage

of blue or green or red

but plain, as of clay or wood,

with a plain little song.

Theirs are the open wings

we light our table by.

Ted Kooser