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We're performing several shows in the Canary Islands.

quote by George Duke
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Canary Yellow Canoe

In my canary yellow canoe - my yellow canoe
I want to go tripping in my canary yellow canoe
The eastmain, coppermine, back river too
In my canary yellow canoe
In my canary yellow canoe - yellow canoe
I want to run rivers in my canary yellow canoe
The desmoines river, rupert river, george river too
In my canary yellow canoe
In my canary yellow canoe - mellow yellow canoe
I want to go tripping in my canary yellow canoe
Chebugema, peace river, resolute too
In my canary yellow canoe
In my canary yellow canoe - my elephant too
I want to go tripping in my canary yellow canoe
Churchill, yellowknife, ross river too
In my canary yellow canoe

song performed by Gordon Lightfoot
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Birdhouse In Your Soul

Im your only friend
Im not your only friend
But Im a little glowing friend
But really Im not actually your friend
But I am
Blue canary in the outlet by the light switch
Who watches over you
Make a little birdhouse in your soul
Not to put too fine a point on it
Say Im the only bee in your bonnet
Make a little birdhouse in your soul
I have a secret to tell
From my electrical well
Its a simple message and Im leaving out the whistles and bells
So the room must listen to me
Filibuster vigilantly
My name is blue canary one note* spelled l-i-t-e
My storys infinite
Like the longines symphonette it doesnt rest
Blue canary in the outlet by the light switch
Who watches over you
Make a little birdhouse in your soul
Not to put too fine a point on it
Say Im the only bee in your bonnet
Make a little birdhouse in your soul
Im your only friend
Im not your only friend
But Im a little glowing friend
But really Im not actually your friend
But I am
Theres a picture opposite me
Of my primitive ancestry
Which stood on rocky shores and kept the beaches shipwreck free
Though I respect that a lot
Id be fired if that were my job
After killing jason off and countless screaming argonauts
Bluebird of friendliness
Like guardian angels its always near
Blue canary in the outlet by the light switch
Who watches over you
Make a little birdhouse in your soul
Not to put too fine a point on it
Say Im the only bee in your bonnet
Make a little birdhouse in your soul
(and while youre at it
Keep the nightlight on inside the
Birdhouse in your soul)
Not to put too fine a point on it
Say Im the only bee in your bonnet
Make a little birdhouse in your soul

[...] Read more

song performed by They Might Be Giants
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Curiosity Killed The Cat

I remember so well
Watching a cat at the balcony,
Reaching for my caged canary.
He purred and taunted the canary
And flailed his persnickety paws
In a mad flurry of jousts.

The wind waltzed over the cage
And the dwindling of it
Made the cat’s head writhe from
One flourish after another.
He purred, whirred and gave
Out sighs of desperation
But still he was stern in his feline physique
That smoldered of poise and starvation.

One mad summer, while the Sun
Took photographs of his exhausted self,
The cat finally grasped the beam of
The cage - the canary sang of consummation.
But the next riddle was how to
Open the cage where the canary sat.
The canary continued to croon the
Symphonies of a cat preparing
His canine fangs, his woebegone claws
To consume the canary -

But what the cat did not understand
Was that the canary was bastioned
Adroitly behind these rusting pillars.
The wind gains force, and its savagery
Was ready for a bastinado.
The wind darted across the lingering
Body of the cat as it was hectic
With frantically opening the cage,

Poor cat fell from the balcony,
Plummeted into the city
He made no sound,
Only impressions upon the cage
As the untouched canary
Sang of deceit.

poem by Windsor Guadalupe Jr
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Canary In A Coalmine

First to fall over when the atmosphere is less than perfect
Your sensibilities are shaken by the slightest defect
You live you life like a canary in a coalmine
You get so dizzy even walking in a straight line
You say you want to spend the winter in firenza
Youre so afraid to catch a dose of influenza
You live your life like a canary in a coalmine
You get so dizzy even walking in a straight line
Canary in a coalmine
Now if I tell you that you suffer from delusions
You pay your analyst to reach the same conclusions
You live your life like a canary in a coalmine
You get so dizzy even walking in a straight line
Canary in a coalmine
First to fall over when the atmosphere is less than perfect
Your sensibilities are shaken by the slightest defect
You live your life like a canary in a coalmine
You get so dizzy even walking in a straight line
Canary in a coalmine

song performed by Police
Added by Lucian Velea
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The Three-Decker

"~The three-volume novel is extinct.~"



Full thirty foot she towered from waterline to rail.
It cost a watch to steer her, and a week to shorten sail;
But, spite all modern notions, I found her first and best --
The only certain packet for the Islands of the Blest.

Fair held the breeze behind us -- 'twas warm with lovers' prayers.
We'd stolen wills for ballast and a crew of missing heirs.
They shipped as Able Bastards till the Wicked Nurse confessed,
And they worked the old three-decker to the Islands of the Blest.

By ways no gaze could follow, a course unspoiled of Cook,
Per Fancy, fleetest in man, our titled berths we took
With maids of matchless beauty and parentage unguessed,
And a Church of England parson for the Islands of the Blest.

We asked no social questions -- we pumped no hidden shame --
We never talked obstetrics when the Little Stranger came:
We left the Lord in Heaven, we left the fiends in Hell.
We weren't exactly Yussufs, but -- Zuleika didn't tell.

No moral doubt assailed us, so when the port we neared,
The villain had his flogging at the gangway, and we cheered.
'Twas fiddle in the forc's'le -- 'twas garlands on the mast,
For every one got married, and I went ashore at last.

I left 'em all in couples a-kissing on the decks.
I left the lovers loving and the parents signing cheques.
In endless English comfort by county-folk caressed,
I left the old three-decker at the Islands of the Blest!

That route is barred to steamers: you'll never lift again
Our purple-painted headlands or the lordly keeps of Spain.
They're just beyond your skyline, howe'er so far you cruise
In a ram-you-damn-you liner with a brace of bucking screws.

Swing round your aching search-light -- 'twill show no haven's peace.
Ay, blow your shrieking sirens to the deaf, gray-bearded seas!
Boom out the dripping oil-bags to skin the deep's unrest --
And you aren't one knot the nearer to the Islands of the Blest!

But when you're threshing, crippled, with broken bridge and rail,
At a drogue of dead convictions to hold you head to gale,
Calm as the Flying Dutchman, from truck to taffrail dressed,
You'll see the old three-decker for the Islands of the Blest.

You'll see her tiering canvas in sheeted silver spread;

[...] Read more

poem by Rudyard Kipling
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The Unknown Star

I was born of an unknown star, of a mother who did not know herself-
From the very beginning I was a canary that could not sing and who
Would fall to the ground every time I lifted my wings to fly-
Trapped inside a cage of my own delusions,
I was alone looking upward towards that clouded sky, searching for that unknown star,
Where by chance I could find a place where I would belong-

My mother wept a wide stream of tears
Not to be consoled from the deep pain that tore at her heart-
The day I lost myself to another world, she abandoned me as agony wrenched her soul-
A phantasmal canary lying still at the bottom of my cage-
Hiding behind a rainbow looking for rays of hope,
Trying to deafen the voices only I could hear,

Searching for that unknown star,
I would dance in the rain beneath the faint light of the moon at night
Seeking for myself, that person I could not find, however
All I could find was a shadow upon the wall-

A shadow upon the wall I hardly recognized as myself,
A reflection within a pond which was that stream of my mother’s tears-
Dancing in the rain trying to become somebody,
Somebody famous or a perhaps an angel or a saint,
Trapped inside a cage of my own apparition where dense cloud cover barred me from
That unknown star where I might feel at home-

Looking about me at hillsides I might have tried to climb-all I could see was my shadow.
A shadow upon a hillside or inside, a shadow upon the wall,
A vague reflection within a pool of tears- Seemingly eyes of a ghost staring into mine,
Reading the demonic thoughts that raced inside of my mind-
Born of an unknown star, I had never found a home and
Born of an unknown star, I had never found myself-
Searching inside and outside all I could ever see was
A dark shadow of a lost person with no destiny or direction-

That canary that could not sing or fly, or perhaps a being who
Tried to come to life dancing in the rain beneath the faint moonlight- I became
A shadow dancing beneath the light of that unknown star I could not reach-
Hoping someday I would save the souls of those who despair and expectantly
Someday I would become that canary, but lifting my wings to fly and bursting into song,
Joyfully watching the sunrise as the moon would vanish
Behind disappearing dark clouds of despair.

poem by Claudia Krizay
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Island

Islands call out to me like the highlands that I always see in my dreams of home,
I am never alone when I'm there.
Islands, like so many dreams, are like canyons, but off the main stream.
And there's no one there, the dreamer is always alone.
And the mighty blue ocean keeps rolling on every shore, like the spirit that binds us together,
we are so much more than islands.
Islands belong to the sea like the dark sands of my memory.
When the morning comes they are stepping-stones to the sun.
And the mighty blue ocean keeps rolling on every shore, like the spirit that binds us together,
we are so much more than islands, islands.

song performed by John Denver
Added by Lucian Velea
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The Pearl Diver

Kanzo Makame, the diver, sturdy and small Japanee,
Seeker of pearls and of pearl-shell down in the depths of the sea,
Trudged o'er the bed of the ocean, searching industriously.

Over the pearl-grounds the lugger drifted -- a little white speck:
Joe Nagasaki, the "tender", holding the life-line on deck,
Talked through the rope to the diver, knew when to drift or to check.

Kanzo was king of his lugger, master and diver in one,
Diving wherever it pleased him, taking instructions from none;
Hither and thither he wandered, steering by stars and by sun.

Fearless he was beyond credence, looking at death eye to eye:
This was his formula always, "All man go dead by and by --
S'posing time come no can help it -- s'pose time no come, then no die."

Dived in the depths of the Darnleys, down twenty fathom and five;
Down where by law, and by reason, men are forbidden to dive;
Down in a pressure so awful that only the strongest survive:

Sweated four men at the air pumps, fast as the handles could go,
Forcing the air down that reached him heated and tainted, and slow --
Kanzo Makame the diver stayed seven minutes below;

Came up on deck like a dead man, paralysed body and brain;
Suffered, while blood was returning, infinite tortures of pain:
Sailed once again to the Darnleys -- laughed and descended again!

Scarce grew the shell in the shallows, rarely a patch could they touch;
Always the take was so little, always the labour so much;
Always they thought of the Islands held by the lumbering Dutch --

Islands where shell was in plenty lying in passage and bay,
Islands where divers could gather hundreds of shell in a day.
But the lumbering Dutch in their gunboats they hunted the divers away.

Joe Nagasaki, the "tender", finding the profits grow small,
Said, "Let us go to the Islands, try for a number one haul!
If we get caught, go to prison -- let them take lugger and all!"

Kanzo Makame, the diver -- knowing full well what it meant --
Fatalist, gambler, and stoic, smiled a broad smile of content,
Flattened in mainsail and foresail, and off to the Islands they went.

Close to the headlands they drifted, picking up shell by the ton,
Piled up on deck were the oysters, opening wide in the sun,
When, from the lee of the headland, boomed the report of a gun.

[...] Read more

poem by Andrew Barton Paterson
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South Carolina

The other day my neighbor has a dented bike
Second day he called me from intensive care
Says he needs a picture of the dented bike
For the evidence of what a wreck he had
Accident
Accident
Lift that fork, eat that snail
Garcon summoned, have a new cocktail
Lift that fork, eat that snail
Garcon summoned, have a new cocktail
Crash my bicycle
Crash my bicycle
In a big south carolina wreck
I crash my bicyle
Crash my bicycle
Crash my bicycle
In a big south carolina wreck
I crash my bicyle
And I won some damages and they were punitive
By which I mean the punishment was damaging
It crushed my head
It crushed my head
Garcon, wheres my drink?
Wreck!
Observe the front wheel spinning upside down
Wreck!
The red reflector fragments strewn around
Wreck!
The back wheels o is now a letter d
Wreck!
I was an i and now I am a v
Lift that fork, eat that snail
Garcon summoned, have a new cocktail
Lift that fork, eat that snail
Garcon summoned, have a new cocktail
Crash my bicycle
Crash my bicycle
In a big south carolina wreck
I crash my bicyle
Crash my bicycle
Crash my bicycle
In a big south carolina wreck
I crash my bicyle
If I had to do it all again, buy* bicycle
If I had to do it, I would crash my bicycle
Id crush my head
Collect the bread
Crash my bicycle
Move along folks
Push her back there, move along

[...] Read more

song performed by They Might Be Giants
Added by Lucian Velea
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~ Namaskar ~ Hello ~ Bonjour ~

~ Namaskar ~ Hello ~ Bonjour ~
Ms. Nivedita
UK
12 September 2010

[Today is my Birth Day. I congratulate/acknowledge all supports, loves and blessings in my poetic sojourn by the Hon’ble Memembers of PH ~ niv]

~ Namaskar ~ Hello ~ Bonjour ~

Poetic noetic fizzy dish
Of my BD whisk wish
Its guided message
Assuring ace assuage.

Not an unguided pean
Me to be own n’ dawn
Yeah…may seem strange
Explore my wee range
Why not psychically prepare
Me to primp n’ pamper
Yummy yummy innumery
Creamy woozy quaggy canary
Jockey jaunt me with Ferrari
I’m wee Nivy Nivy Dearie!

~ Namaskar ~ Hello ~ Bonjour ~

===
Glossary with humility I’m giving what I tried to express:
[1] Namaskar ~ Salutation in Bengali
[2] Bonjour [Fr] ~ Good day good morning
[3] BD ~ Birth Day
[4] Whisk ~ Nimbly
[5] Pean ~ Hymn of thank [ancient Greece]
[6] Dawn [Verb] ~ Enter one's emotions
[7] Canary ~ Historical sweet wine [Canary Island]

~~
Copyright reserved by author

poem by Ms. Nivedita Bagchi Spc. Uk.
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A Canary, And Peanut Butter, And Jelly, Sandwitch.

I once ate a sandwich made of peanut-butter and jelly...
This sandwich, by someone, tasted quite rotten, and smelly.

Into my stomach, uneasily, it went down...
To my face, was sadly, put a frown.

I went to the hospital to have my stomach pumped, where I met a sailor...
Who obviously, had a bad tailor.

You might say, 'that this lad, was a seaman'...
But-for the Navy, he worked, and so-he was no, free man.

This seaman, could not swim...
You might say 'that he joined, on a whim'.

This non-swimming seaman, had a cat...
That was known by all, to eat mice, dogs, or even a bat.

One day this cat, ate a bat, that was owned by a witch...
This witch, got quite angry, at the cat that ate her bat, and
was acting like, a ticked off, bitch.

This witch, turned this cat, into a canary...
How frightening to this canary, this seemed as scary.

Now, this canary, bird...
Got eaten by another cat, and now, was nothing more,
than a rug stained, cat-splattered, turd.

poem by Michael Gale
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Islands

(mike oldfield)
Producer for bonnie: mike oldfield
Recorded in 1987 for mike oldfields album islands, lyrics taken from careful listening.
Islands
From the first time we saw
We could wait for this moment
Like rocks on the shore
We could never be closer somehow
For the moment that lasts
Is this moment now
When the nights on fire
Oh, will you keep the candle-light burning
Hold onto your hearts desire
(hearts on fire)
When you see one bird into the wind
Another ones turning
And the two can fly much higher
(higher)
Chorus:
We are islands
But never too far
We are islands
And I need your light tonight
And I need your light tonight...(x2)
Islands
Never been to before
And we climb so high
To where the wild birds soar
Theres a new path
That we found just today
I was lost in the forest
And you showed me the way
When the nights on fire
Oh, will you keep the candle-light burning
Hold onto your hearts desire
(hearts on fire)
When you see one bird into the wind
Another ones turning
And the two can fly much higher
(higher)
Chorus x 4

song performed by Bonnie Tyler
Added by Lucian Velea
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Islands

This song appears on four albums, and was first released on the seasons of the heart album, and has also been released on the earth songs, the john denver collection - sunshine on my shoulder an
Very best of john denver (single cd) albums.
Islands call out to me
Like the highlands that I always see
In my dreams of home
I am never alone when I am there
Islands like so many dreams
Are like canyons but off the main stream
And theres no one there
The dreamer is always alone
And the mighty blue ocean
Keeps rolling on every shore
Like the spirit that binds us together
We are so much more than islands
Islands belong to the sea
Like the dark sands of my memory
When the morning comes
They are stepping stones to the sun
And the mighty blue ocean
Keeps rolling on every shore
Like the spirit that binds us together
We are so much more than islands
Words and music by john denver

song performed by John Denver
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Ballade Of The Southern Cross

Fair islands of the silver fleece,
Hoards of unsunned, uncounted gold,
Whose havens are the haunts of Peace,
Whose boys are in our quarrel bold;
OUR bolt is shot, our tale is told,
Our ship of state in storms may toss,
But ye are young if we are old,
Ye Islands of the Southern Cross!

Ay, WE must dwindle and decrease,
Such fates the ruthless years unfold;
And yet we shall not wholly cease,
We shall not perish unconsoled;
Nay, still shall Freedom keep her hold
Within the sea's inviolate fosse,
And boast her sons of English mould,
Ye Islands of the Southern Cross!

All empires tumble--Rome and Greece -
Their swords are rust, their altars cold!
For us, the Children of the Seas,
Who ruled where'er the waves have rolled,
For us, in Fortune's books enscrolled,
I read no runes of hopeless loss;
Nor--while YE last--our knell is tolled,
Ye Islands of the Southern Cross!

ENVOY.

Britannia, when thy hearth's a-cold,
When o'er thy grave has grown the moss,
Still Rule Australia shall be trolled
In Islands of the Southern Cross!

poem by Andrew Lang
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A Proadway Pageant

OVER the western sea, hither from Niphon come,
Courteous, the swart-cheek'd two-sworded envoys,
Leaning back in their open barouches, bare-headed, impassive,
Ride to-day through Manhattan.

Libertad!
I do not know whether others behold what I behold,
In the procession, along with the nobles of Asia, the errand-
bearers,
Bringing up the rear, hovering above, around, or in the ranks
marching;
But I will sing you a song of what I behold, Libertad.

When million-footed Manhattan, unpent, descends to her pavements; 10
When the thunder-cracking guns arouse me with the proud roar I love;
When the round-mouth'd guns, out of the smoke and smell I love, spit
their salutes;
When the fire-flashing guns have fully alerted me--when heaven-clouds
canopy my city with a delicate thin haze;
When, gorgeous, the countless straight stems, the forests at the
wharves, thicken with colors;
When every ship, richly drest, carries her flag at the peak;
When pennants trail, and street-festoons hang from the windows;
When Broadway is entirely given up to foot-passengers and foot-
standers--when the mass is densest;
When the façades of the houses are alive with people--when eyes gaze,
riveted, tens of thousands at a time;
When the guests from the islands advance--when the pageant moves
forward, visible;
When the summons is made--when the answer that waited thousands of
years, answers; 20
I too, arising, answering, descend to the pavements, merge with the
crowd, and gaze with them.

Superb-faced Manhattan!
Comrade Americanos!--to us, then, at last, the Orient comes.

To us, my city,
Where our tall-topt marble and iron beauties range on opposite
sides--to walk in the space between,
To-day our Antipodes comes.

The Originatress comes,
The nest of languages, the bequeather of poems, the race of eld,
Florid with blood, pensive, rapt with musings, hot with passion,
Sultry with perfume, with ample and flowing garments, 30
With sunburnt visage, with intense soul and glittering eyes,
The race of Brahma comes!

[...] Read more

poem by Walt Whitman
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The Task: Book VI. -- The Winter Walk at Noon

There is in souls a sympathy with sounds;
And as the mind is pitch’d the ear is pleased
With melting airs, or martial, brisk, or grave:
Some chord in unison with what we hear
Is touch’d within us, and the heart replies.
How soft the music of those village bells,
Falling at intervals upon the ear
In cadence sweet, now dying all away,
Now pealing loud again, and louder still,
Clear and sonorous, as the gale comes on!
With easy force it opens all the cells
Where Memory slept. Wherever I have heard
A kindred melody, the scene recurs,
And with it all its pleasures and its pains.
Such comprehensive views the spirit takes,
That in a few short moments I retrace
(As in a map the voyager his course)
The windings of my way through many years.
Short as in retrospect the journey seems,
It seem’d not always short; the rugged path,
And prospect oft so dreary and forlorn,
Moved many a sigh at its disheartening length.
Yet, feeling present evils, while the past
Faintly impress the mind, or not at all,
How readily we wish time spent revoked,
That we might try the ground again, where once
(Through inexperience, as we now perceive)
We miss’d that happiness we might have found!
Some friend is gone, perhaps his son’s best friend,
A father, whose authority, in show
When most severe, and mustering all its force,
Was but the graver countenance of love:
Whose favour, like the clouds of spring, might lower,
And utter now and then an awful voice,
But had a blessing in its darkest frown,
Threatening at once and nourishing the plant.
We loved, but not enough, the gentle hand
That rear’d us. At a thoughtless age, allured
By every gilded folly, we renounced
His sheltering side, and wilfully forewent
That converse, which we now in vain regret.
How gladly would the man recall to life
The boy’s neglected sire! a mother too,
That softer friend, perhaps more gladly still,
Might he demand them at the gates of death.
Sorrow has, since they went, subdued and tamed
The playful humour; he could now endure
(Himself grown sober in the vale of tears)
And feel a parent’s presence no restraint.
But not to understand a treasure’s worth

[...] Read more

poem by William Cowper
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A poem, on the rising glory of America

LEANDER.
No more of Memphis and her mighty kings,
Or Alexandria, where the Ptolomies.
Taught golden commerce to unfurl her falls,
And bid fair science smile: No more of Greece
Where learning next her early visit paid,
And spread her glories to illume the world,
No more of Athens, where she flourished,
And saw her sons of mighty genius rise
Smooth flowing Plato, Socrates and him
Who with resistless eloquence reviv'd
The Spir't of Liberty, and shook the thrones
Of Macedon and Persia's haughty king.
No more of Rome enlighten'd by her beams,
Fresh kindling there the fire of eloquence,
And poesy divine; imperial Rome!
Whose wide dominion reach'd o'er half the globe;
Whose eagle flew o'er Ganges to the East,
And in the West far to the British isles.
No more of Britain, and her kings renown'd,
Edward's and Henry's thunderbolts of war;
Her chiefs victorious o'er the Gallic foe;
Illustrious senators, immortal bards,
And wise philosophers, of these no more.
A Theme more new, tho' not less noble claims
Our ev'ry thought on this auspicious day
The rising glory of this western world,
Where now the dawning light of science spreads
Her orient ray, and wakes the muse's song;
Where freedom holds her sacred standard high,
And commerce rolls her golden tides profuse
Of elegance and ev'ry joy of life.

ACASTO.
Since then Leander you attempt a strain
So new, so noble and so full of fame;
And since a friendly concourse centers here
America's own sons, begin O muse!
Now thro' the veil of ancient days review
The period fam'd when first Columbus touch'd
The shore so long unknown, thro' various toils,
Famine and death, the hero made his way,
Thro' oceans bestowing with eternal storms.
But why, thus hap'ly found, should we resume
The tale of Cortez, furious chief, ordain'd
With Indian blood to dye the sands, and choak
Fam'd Amazonia's stream with dead! Or why,
Once more revive the story old in fame,

[...] Read more

poem by Hugh Henry Brackenridge
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Evangeline: A Tale of Acadie

This is the forest primeval. The murmuring pines and the hemlocks,
Bearded with moss, and in garments green, indistinct in the twilight,
Stand like Druids of eld, with voices sad and prophetic,
Stand like harpers hoar, with beards that rest on their bosoms.
Loud from its rocky caverns, the deep-voiced neighboring ocean
Speaks, and in accents disconsolate answers the wail of the forest.

This is the forest primeval; but where are the hearts that beneath it
Leaped like the roe, when he hears in the woodland the voice of the huntsman
Where is the thatch-roofed village, the home of Acadian farmers,--
Men whose lives glided on like rivers that water the woodlands,
Darkened by shadows of earth, but reflecting an image of heaven?
Waste are those pleasant farms, and the farmers forever departed!
Scattered like dust and leaves, when the mighty blasts of October
Seize them, and whirl them aloft, and sprinkle them far o'er the ocean
Naught but tradition remains of the beautiful village of Grand-Pre.

Ye who believe in affection that hopes, and endures, and is patient,
Ye who believe in the beauty and strength of woman's devotion,
List to the mournful tradition still sung by the pines of the forest;
List to a Tale of Love in Acadie, home of the happy.

PART THE FIRST

I

In the Acadian land, on the shores of the Basin of Minas,
Distant, secluded, still, the little village of Grand-Pre
Lay in the fruitful valley. Vast meadows stretched to the eastward,
Giving the village its name, and pasture to flocks without number.
Dikes, that the hands of the farmers had raised with labor incessant,
Shut out the turbulent tides; but at stated seasons the flood-gates
Opened, and welcomed the sea to wander at will o'er the meadows.
West and south there were fields of flax, and orchards and cornfields
Spreading afar and unfenced o'er the plain; and away to the northward
Blomidon rose, and the forests old, and aloft on the mountains
Sea-fogs pitched their tents, and mists from the mighty Atlantic
Looked on the happy valley, but ne'er from their station descended
There, in the midst of its farms, reposed the Acadian village.
Strongly built were the houses, with frames of oak and of hemlock,
Such as the peasants of Normandy built in the reign of the Henries.
Thatched were the roofs, with dormer-windows; and gables projecting
Over the basement below protected and shaded the doorway.
There in the tranquil evenings of summer, when brightly the sunset
Lighted the village street and gilded the vanes on the chimneys,
Matrons and maidens sat in snow-white caps and in kirtles
Scarlet and blue and green, with distaffs spinning the golden
Flax for the gossiping looms, whose noisy shuttles within doors

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poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
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Salut Au Monde

O TAKE my hand, Walt Whitman!
Such gliding wonders! such sights and sounds!
Such join'd unended links, each hook'd to the next!
Each answering all--each sharing the earth with all.

What widens within you, Walt Whitman?
What waves and soils exuding?
What climes? what persons and lands are here?
Who are the infants? some playing, some slumbering?
Who are the girls? who are the married women?
Who are the groups of old men going slowly with their arms about each
other's necks?
What rivers are these? what forests and fruits are these?
What are the mountains call'd that rise so high in the mists?
What myriads of dwellings are they, fill'd with dwellers?

Within me latitude widens, longitude lengthens;
Asia, Africa, Europe, are to the east--America is provided for in the
west;
Banding the bulge of the earth winds the hot equator,
Curiously north and south turn the axis-ends;
Within me is the longest day--the sun wheels in slanting rings--it
does not set for months;
Stretch'd in due time within me the midnight sun just rises above the
horizon, and sinks again;
Within me zones, seas, cataracts, plants, volcanoes, groups,
Malaysia, Polynesia, and the great West Indian islands.

What do you hear, Walt Whitman?

I hear the workman singing, and the farmer's wife singing;
I hear in the distance the sounds of children, and of animals early
in the day;
I hear quick rifle-cracks from the riflemen of East Tennessee and
Kentucky, hunting on hills;
I hear emulous shouts of Australians, pursuing the wild horse;
I hear the Spanish dance, with castanets, in the chestnut shade, to
the rebeck and guitar;
I hear continual echoes from the Thames;
I hear fierce French liberty songs;
I hear of the Italian boat-sculler the musical recitative of old
poems;
I hear the Virginia plantation-chorus of negroes, of a harvest night,
in the glare of pine-knots;
I hear the strong baritone of the 'long-shore-men of Mannahatta;
I hear the stevedores unlading the cargoes, and singing;
I hear the screams of the water-fowl of solitary north-west lakes;
I hear the rustling pattering of locusts, as they strike the grain
and grass with the showers of their terrible clouds;
I hear the Coptic refrain, toward sundown, pensively falling on the

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poem by Walt Whitman
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With The Copenhagen Climate Summit Flop

With the Copenhagen Climate Summit flop it cannot be denied
That the last hope of survival for many oceanic islands has died
Doomed to be swallowed by the rising sea
The politics of greed through nationalism the bane of humanity,
For the inhabitants of small ocean islands the future seems bleak indeed
Forsaken by the leaders of the World's most powerful Nations in their time of need
The painful reality they have come to realize
That they have to leave their islands as the sea levels rise
The so called Copenhagen agreement just an idle boast
Those who have contributed least to carbon emissions are those who will suffer most
The millions living in Third World Countries and the inhabitants of Oceanic Islands will sadly lose out
Of a bleak future for millions of poor people there can be little doubt
And all due to the politics of human greed
Of our own demise we may be sowing the seed.

poem by Francis Duggan
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