Appreciation

Auntie did you feel no pain
Falling from that willow tree?
Could you do it, please again
‘Cos my friend here didn’t see.

Life is real! Life is earnest!
And the grave is not its goal;
Dust thou art, to dust returnest,
Was not spoken of the soul.

Patience has its limits. Take it too far, and it’s cowardice.

Thunderstorm

I control the thunder ruining Days.
Hiring A
Big Marching Band to
Create my Praise.
But today I
am weary And
so i’ll just let you play

(age 9) posted with permission

Joys That Sting

To take the old walks alone, or not at all,
To order one pint where I ordered two,
To think of, and then not to make, the small
Time-honoured joke (senseless to all but you);

To laugh (oh, one’ll laugh), to talk upon
Themes that we talked upon when you were there,
To make some poor presence of going on,
Be kind to one’s old friends, and seem to care,

While no one (O God) through the years will say
The simplest, common word in just your way.

If you’re able to be yourself, then you have no competition. All you have to do is get closer and closer to that essence.

Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune without the words,
And never stops at all.

If one looks at something nine hundred and ninety nine times one is perfectly safe, if however one looks for the thousandth time one is in frightful danger of seeing things for the first time!

Why grab possessions like thieves, or divide them like socialists, when you can ignore them like wise men?

I have never met a man so ignorant that I couldn’t learn something from him.

Holy Sonnets – V

I am a little world made cunningly
Of elements, and an angelic sprite;
But black sin hath betrayed to endless night
My worlds both parts, and (oh!) both parts must die.
You which beyond that heaven which was most high
Have found new spheres, and of new lands can write,
Pour new seas in mine eyes, that so I might
Drown my world with my weeping earnestly,
Or wash it if it must be drowned no more:
But oh it must be burnt! alas the fire
Of lust and envy have burnt it heretofore,
And made it fouler: Let their flames retire,
And burn me, O Lord, with a fiery zeal
Of Thee and Thy house, which doth in eating heal

Rave on John Donne, rave on thy Holy fool
Down through the weeks of ages
In the moss borne dark dank pools
Rave on, down through the industrial revolution
Empiricism, atomic and nuclear age
Rave on down through time and space down through the corridors
Rave on words on printed page
Rave on, you left us infinity
And well pressed pages torn to fade.

How do you have a good idea? Have a lot of ideas and keep the good ones.

The fishermen know that the sea is dangerous and the storms terrible, but they have never found these dangers sufficient reason for remaining ashore.

Spring is sprung
The grass is rizz
I wonder where the birdies is
The birdies is upon the wing
No, that’s absurd
The wing should be upon the bird.

Just living is not enough… One must have sunshine, freedom, and a little flower.

When we try to anchor ourselves to any point, it wavers and leaves us; and if we pursue it, it eludes our grasp and vanishes forever. Nothing stands still for us. This is our natural condition, yet it is completely contrary to our inclination.

Some people achieve their humility by prayer and fasting, some by great charitable works. My own method is to behave in public like a complete moron every three months or so.

Arrival 1946

The boat docked in Liverpool.
From the train Tariq stared
at an unbroken line of washing
from the North West to Euston.

These are strange people, he thought
an Empire, and all this washing,
the underwear, the Englishmen’s garden.
It was Monday, and very sharp.

Lose this day loitering; t’will be the same old story tomorrow, and the next day more dilatory … Each indecision brings its own delays and days are lost lamenting o’er lost days … What you can do or think you can, begin it–boldness has genius, power and magic in it.

It is what we know already that often prevents us from learning.

Impromptu on Charles II

God bless our good and gracious King,
Whose promise none relies on.
Who never said a foolish thing,
Nor ever did a wise one

Friendship is…the sort of love one can imagine between angels.

Almost all absurdity of conduct arises from the imitation of those whom we cannot resemble.

Hippocratic Oath

I swear by Apollo the physician, and Aesculapius, and Health, and All-heal, and all the gods and goddesses, that, according to my ability and judgment, I will keep this Oath and this stipulation- to reckon him who taught me this Art equally dear to me as my parents, to share my substance with him, and relieve his necessities if required; to look upon his offspring in the same footing as my own brothers, and to teach them this art, if they shall wish to learn it, without fee or stipulation; and that by precept, lecture, and every other mode of instruction, I will impart a knowledge of the Art to my own sons, and those of my teachers, and to disciples bound by a stipulation and oath according to the law of medicine, but to none others. I will follow that system of regimen which, according to my ability and judgment, I consider for the benefit of my patients, and abstain from whatever is deleterious and mischievous. I will give no deadly medicine to any one if asked, nor suggest any such counsel; and in like manner I will not give to a woman a pessary to produce abortion. With purity and with holiness I will pass my life and practice my Art. I will not cut persons laboring under the stone, but will leave this to be done by men who are practitioners of this work. Into whatever houses I enter, I will go into them for the benefit of the sick, and will abstain from every voluntary act of mischief and corruption; and, further from the seduction of females or males, of freemen and slaves. Whatever, in connection with my professional practice or not, in connection with it, I see or hear, in the life of men, which ought not to be spoken of abroad, I will not divulge, as reckoning that all such should be kept secret. While I continue to keep this Oath unviolated, may it be granted to me to enjoy life and the practice of the art, respected by all men, in all times! But should I trespass and violate this Oath, may the reverse be my lot!

A Wanderer’s Song

A wind’s in the heart of me, a fire’s in my heels,
I am tired of brick and stone and rumbling wagon-wheels;
I hunger for the sea’s edge, the limit of the land,
Where the wild old Atlantic is shouting on the sand.

Oh I’ll be going, leaving the noises of the street,
To where a lifting foresail-foot is yanking at the sheet;
To a windy, tossing anchorage where yawls and ketches ride,
Oh I’l be going, going, until I meet the tide.

And first I’ll hear the sea-wind, the mewing of the gulls,
The clucking, sucking of the sea about the rusty hulls,
The songs at the capstan at the hooker warping out,
And then the heart of me’ll know I’m there or thereabout.

Oh I am sick of brick and stone, the heart of me is sick,
For windy green, unquiet sea, the realm of Moby Dick;
And I’ll be going, going, from the roaring of the wheels,
For a wind’s in the heart of me, a fire’s in my heels.

Drawing on my fine command of the English language, I said nothing.

It is not the function of our Government to keep the citizen from falling into error; it is the function of the citizen to keep the Government from falling into error.

A rose, by any other name, as sweet would smell;
a rhododendron, by any other name, would be easier to spell.

If a man has good corn, or wood, or boards, or pigs to sell, or can make better chairs or knives, crucibles, or church organs, than anybody else, you will find a broad, hard-beaten road to his house, tho it be in the woods.