Spohr, Six German Songs for Soprano, Clarinet, and Piano, Op. 103

Charlotte Wajnberg (no offense) and some other people perform ...

 Earth lay before me in a spring dream

 Suffused with warmth and light,

 And drunk with joy I wafted through space,

 Blossoms burst forth from my breast;

 Love's springtime awakened in me.

 Now frost shudders through me; in my soul it is night.

 Be still, my heart, and give it no thought:

 This now is reality, the rest was delusion.

 

 Out of sunshine and flowers I built myself

 A bridge through life

 Passing over which, laurel-crowned,

 I devoted myself to the noblest of strivings.

 Man's gratitude was my finest reward;

 The crowd laughs aloud now with impudent scorn.

 Be still, my heart, and give it no thought:

 This now is reality, the rest was delusion.

Good morning.

Telemann, Suite in C major "Hamburger Ebb und Fluth", TWV 55:C3

The Bremer Barockorchester performs the Ouvertüre, great music to accompany walking out on the deck to survey the morning ...

Least.

Wyeth, Jamie, Jenny Whibley Sings, 2008

It was the hour in which objects lose the consistency of shadow that accompanies them during the night and gradually reacquire colors, but seem to cross meanwhile an uncertain limbo, faintly touched, just breathed on by light; the hour in which one is least certain of the world's existence.

Italo Calvino

Breathing.

Monet, Morning Landscape, Giverny, 1888

A SPRING MORNING

The Spring comes in with all her hues and smells,

In freshness breathing over hills and dells;

O’er woods where May her gorgeous drapery flings,

And meads washed fragrant by their laughing springs.

Fresh are new opened flowers, untouched and free

From the bold rifling of the amorous bee.

The happy time of singing birds is come,

And Love’s lone pilgrimage now finds a home;

Among the mossy oaks now coos the dove,

And the hoarse crow finds softer notes for love.

The foxes play around their dens, and bark

In joy’s excess, ’mid woodland shadows dark.

The flowers join lips below; the leaves above;

And every sound that meets the ear is Love.

John Clare

Fun.

Ambition is a path, not a destination, and it is essentially the same path for everybody. No matter what the goal is, the path leads through Pilgrim’s Progress regions of motivation, hard work, persistence, stubbornness, and resilience under disappointment. Unconsidered, merely indulged, ambition becomes a vice; it can turn an man into a machine that knows nothing but how to run. Considered, it can be something else — pathway to the stars, maybe. I suspect that what makes hedonists so angry when they think about overachievers is that the overachievers, without benefit of drugs or orgies, have more fun.

Wallace Stegner, from Crossing to Safety

Thanks, Jess.

Least.

It was the hour in which objects lose the consistency of shadow that accompanies them during the night and gradually reacquire colors, but seem to cross meanwhile an uncertain limbo, faintly touched, just breathed on by light; the hour in which one is least certain of the world's existence.

Italo Calvino, from The Nonexistent Knight & The Cloven Viscount

Least.

It was the hour in which objects lose the consistency of shadow that accompanies them during the night and gradually reacquire colors, but seem to cross meanwhile an uncertain limbo, faintly touched, just breathed on by light; the hour in which one is least certain of the world's existence.

Italo Calvino

Least.

Thompson, Rising, 2011

It was the hour in which objects lose the consistency of shadow that accompanies them during the night and gradually reacquire colors, but seem to cross meanwhile an uncertain limbo, faintly touched, just breathed on by light; the hour in which one is least certain of the world's existence.

Italo Calvino

Jolly.

It was one of those jolly, peaceful mornings that make a chappie wish he'd got a soul or something.

P.G. Wodehouse

Presence.

How sweet the morning air is! See how that one little cloud floats like a pink feather from some gigantic flamingo. Now the red rim of the sun pushes itself over the London cloud-bank. It shines on a good many folk, but on none, I dare bet, who are on a stranger errand than you and I. How small we feel with our petty ambitions and strivings in the presence of the great elemental forces of Nature!

Arthur Conan Doyle

Hours.

I love the empty, silent, dewy, cobwebby hours.

C.S. Lewis

Morning.

Homer, Morning -- The Morning Mist, 1892

Morning.

Blomfield, Coffee Morning, Student Union, University of Edinburgh, 1964

Happy Birthday, Washington

Stuart, George Washington, 1795

George Washington was born on this date in 1732.

Rise early, that by habit it may become familiar, agreeable, healthy, and profitable. It may, for a while, be irksome to do this, but that will wear off; and the practice will produce a rich harvest forever thereafter; whether in public or private walks of life.

George Washington

C-SPAN has Thomas Fleming talking about his book Washington’s Secret War: The Hidden History of Valley Forge.

Least.

Kowalski, Isle au Haut - Morning Fogbank, 2018

It was the hour in which objects lose the consistency of shadow that accompanies them during the night and gradually reacquire colors, but seem to cross meanwhile an uncertain limbo, faintly touched, just breathed on by light; the hour in which one is least certain of the world's existence.

Italo Calvino

Necessary.

Why do we bother with the rest of the day,

the swale of the afternoon,

the sudden dip into evening,

then night with his notorious perfumes,

his many-pointed stars?

This is the best—

throwing off the light covers,

feet on the cold floor,

and buzzing around the house on espresso—

maybe a splash of water on the face,

a palmful of vitamins—

but mostly buzzing around the house on espresso,

dictionary and atlas open on the rug,

the typewriter waiting for the key of the head,

a cello on the radio,

and, if necessary, the windows—

trees fifty, a hundred years old

out there,

heavy clouds on the way

and the lawn steaming like a horse

in the early morning.

Billy Collins, from "Morning"

Steep.

COMPOSED UPON WESTMINSTER BRIDGE, SEPTEMBER 3, 1802

Earth has not any thing to show more fair:

Dull would he be of soul who could pass by

A sight so touching in its majesty:

This City now doth, like a garment, wear

The beauty of the morning; silent, bare,

Ships, towers, domes, theatres, and temples lie

Open unto the fields, and to the sky;

All bright and glittering in the smokeless air.

Never did sun more beautifully steep

In his first splendour, valley, rock, or hill;

Ne'er saw I, never felt, a calm so deep!

The river glideth at his own sweet will:

Dear God! the very houses seem asleep;

And all that mighty heart is lying still!

William Wordsworth

Gordon Lightfoot, "Lazy Mornin'"

Another lazy mornin', I took time to make town 'n stock a pint or two
The most delicious brew
Keepin' up with the Joneses, I hope no one telephones us
I'd take a place in the country, but for now the old back yard
Looks to me like fifty acres of the roundest ground in town

Another lazy mornin', come supper time I'm gonna light my barbecue ...

Best.

Grimshaw, Wintry Moon, 1886

... early morning, when contemplation is best.

Van Morrison

Chunky.