The goldenrod is yellow, The corn is turning brown, The trees in apple orchards With fruit are bending down.
quote by Helen Hunt Jackson
Added by Lucian Velea
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Seasonable Retour-Knell
SEASONABLE RETOUR KNELL
Variations on a theme...
SEASONABLE ROUND ROBIN ROLE REVERSALS
Author notes
A mirrored Retourne may not only be read either from first line to last or from last to first as seen in the mirrors, but also by inverting the first and second phrase of each line, either rhyming AAAA or ABAB for each verse. thus the number of variations could be multiplied several times.- two variations on the theme have been included here but could have been extended as in SEASONABLE ROUND ROBIN ROLE REVERSALS robi03_0069_robi03_0000
In respect of SEASONABLE ROUND ROBIN ROLE REVERSALS
This composition has sought to explore linguistic potential. Notes and the initial version are placed before rather than after the poem.
Six variations on a theme have been selected out of a significant number of mathematical possibilities using THE SAME TEXT and a reverse mirror for each version. Mirrors repeat the seasons with the lines in reverse order.
For the second roll the first four syllables of each line are reversed, and sense is retained both in the normal order of seasons and the reversed order as well... The 3rd and 4th variations offer ABAB rhyme schemes retaining the original text. The 5th and 6th variations modify the text into rhyming couplets.
Given the linguistical structure of this symphonic composition the score could be read in inversing each and every line and each and every hemistitch. There are minor punctuation differences between versions.
One could probably attain sonnet status for each of the four seasons and through partioning in 3 groups of 4 syllables extend the possibilites ad vitam.
Seasonable Round Robin Roll Reversals
robi03_0069_robi03_0000 QXX_DNZ
Seasonable Retour-Knell
robi03_0070_robi03_0069 QXX_NXX
26 March 1975 rewritten 20070123
lllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll lllllllllllllllllll
For previous version see below
_______________________________________
SPRING SUMMER
Life is at ease Young lovers long
Land under plough; To hold their dear;
Whispering trees, Dewdrops among,
Answering cow. Bold, know no fear.
Blossom, the bees, Life full of song,
Burgeoning bough; Cloudless and clear;
Soft-scented breeze, Days fair and long,
Spring warms life now. Summer sends cheer.
AUTUMN WINTER
Each leaf decays, Harvested sheaves
Each life must bow; And honeyed hives;
Our salad days Trees stripped of leaves,
Are ending now. Jack Frost has knives.
Fruit heavy lays Time, Prince of thieves,
Bending the bough, - Onward he drives,
[...] Read more
poem by Jonathan Robin
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The Georgics
GEORGIC I
What makes the cornfield smile; beneath what star
Maecenas, it is meet to turn the sod
Or marry elm with vine; how tend the steer;
What pains for cattle-keeping, or what proof
Of patient trial serves for thrifty bees;-
Such are my themes.
O universal lights
Most glorious! ye that lead the gliding year
Along the sky, Liber and Ceres mild,
If by your bounty holpen earth once changed
Chaonian acorn for the plump wheat-ear,
And mingled with the grape, your new-found gift,
The draughts of Achelous; and ye Fauns
To rustics ever kind, come foot it, Fauns
And Dryad-maids together; your gifts I sing.
And thou, for whose delight the war-horse first
Sprang from earth's womb at thy great trident's stroke,
Neptune; and haunter of the groves, for whom
Three hundred snow-white heifers browse the brakes,
The fertile brakes of Ceos; and clothed in power,
Thy native forest and Lycean lawns,
Pan, shepherd-god, forsaking, as the love
Of thine own Maenalus constrains thee, hear
And help, O lord of Tegea! And thou, too,
Minerva, from whose hand the olive sprung;
And boy-discoverer of the curved plough;
And, bearing a young cypress root-uptorn,
Silvanus, and Gods all and Goddesses,
Who make the fields your care, both ye who nurse
The tender unsown increase, and from heaven
Shed on man's sowing the riches of your rain:
And thou, even thou, of whom we know not yet
What mansion of the skies shall hold thee soon,
Whether to watch o'er cities be thy will,
Great Caesar, and to take the earth in charge,
That so the mighty world may welcome thee
Lord of her increase, master of her times,
Binding thy mother's myrtle round thy brow,
Or as the boundless ocean's God thou come,
Sole dread of seamen, till far Thule bow
Before thee, and Tethys win thee to her son
With all her waves for dower; or as a star
Lend thy fresh beams our lagging months to cheer,
Where 'twixt the Maid and those pursuing Claws
A space is opening; see! red Scorpio's self
His arms draws in, yea, and hath left thee more
Than thy full meed of heaven: be what thou wilt-
For neither Tartarus hopes to call thee king,
[...] Read more
Turning Japanese
Ive got your picture
Of me and you
You wrote, I love you.
I love you, too
I sit there staring when theres nothing else to do
Oh, its in color
Your hair is brown
Your eyes are hazel
And soft as clouds
I often kiss you when theres no one else around
Ive got your picture, got your picture
Id like a million of em over myself
I want a doctor to take your picture
So I can look at you from inside as well
Youve got me turning up, Im turning down, Im turning in, and Im turning round
Im turning japanese, I think Im turning japanese, I really think so
Turning japanese, I think Im turning japanese, I really think so
Turning japanese, I think Im turning japanese, I really think so
Turning japanese, I think Im turning japanese, I really think so
Ive got your picture, Ive got your picture
Id like a million of them over myself
I want a doctor to take your picture
So I can look at you from inside as well
Youve got me turning up, Im turning down, Im turning in, and Im turning round
Im turning japanese, I think Im turning japanese, I really think so
Turning japanese, I think Im turning japanese, I really think so
Turning japanese, I think Im turning japanese, I really think so
Turning japanese, I think Im turning japanese, I really think so
No sex, no drugs, no wine, no women
No fun, no sin, no you, no wonder its dark
Everyone around me is a total stranger
Everyone avoids me like a cyclone ranger
Everyone
Thats why Im turning japanese, I think Im turning japanese, I really think so
Turning japanese, I think Im turning japanese, I really think so
Turning japanese, I think Im turning japanese, I really think so
Turning japanese, I think Im turning japanese, I really think so
Turning japanese, I think Im turning japanese, I really think so
Turning japanese, I think Im turning japanese, I really think so
(think so, think so, think so)
Turning japanese, I think Im turning japanese, I really think so
Turning japanese, I think Im turning japanese, I really think so
(think so, think so, think so...)
song performed by Liz Phair
Added by Lucian Velea
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Paradise Lost: Book 09
No more of talk where God or Angel guest
With Man, as with his friend, familiar us'd,
To sit indulgent, and with him partake
Rural repast; permitting him the while
Venial discourse unblam'd. I now must change
Those notes to tragick; foul distrust, and breach
Disloyal on the part of Man, revolt,
And disobedience: on the part of Heaven
Now alienated, distance and distaste,
Anger and just rebuke, and judgement given,
That brought into this world a world of woe,
Sin and her shadow Death, and Misery
Death's harbinger: Sad talk!yet argument
Not less but more heroick than the wrath
Of stern Achilles on his foe pursued
Thrice fugitive about Troy wall; or rage
Of Turnus for Lavinia disespous'd;
Or Neptune's ire, or Juno's, that so long
Perplexed the Greek, and Cytherea's son:
If answerable style I can obtain
Of my celestial patroness, who deigns
Her nightly visitation unimplor'd,
And dictates to me slumbering; or inspires
Easy my unpremeditated verse:
Since first this subject for heroick song
Pleas'd me long choosing, and beginning late;
Not sedulous by nature to indite
Wars, hitherto the only argument
Heroick deem'd chief mastery to dissect
With long and tedious havock fabled knights
In battles feign'd; the better fortitude
Of patience and heroick martyrdom
Unsung; or to describe races and games,
Or tilting furniture, imblazon'd shields,
Impresses quaint, caparisons and steeds,
Bases and tinsel trappings, gorgeous knights
At joust and tournament; then marshall'd feast
Serv'd up in hall with sewers and seneshals;
The skill of artifice or office mean,
Not that which justly gives heroick name
To person, or to poem. Me, of these
Nor skill'd nor studious, higher argument
Remains; sufficient of itself to raise
That name, unless an age too late, or cold
Climate, or years, damp my intended wing
Depress'd; and much they may, if all be mine,
Not hers, who brings it nightly to my ear.
The sun was sunk, and after him the star
Of Hesperus, whose office is to bring
[...] Read more
poem by John Milton
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1777
I
The Trumpet-Vine Arbour
The throats of the little red trumpet-flowers are wide open,
And the clangour of brass beats against the hot sunlight.
They bray and blare at the burning sky.
Red! Red! Coarse notes of red,
Trumpeted at the blue sky.
In long streaks of sound, molten metal,
The vine declares itself.
Clang! -- from its red and yellow trumpets.
Clang! -- from its long, nasal trumpets,
Splitting the sunlight into ribbons, tattered and shot with noise.
I sit in the cool arbour, in a green-and-gold twilight.
It is very still, for I cannot hear the trumpets,
I only know that they are red and open,
And that the sun above the arbour shakes with heat.
My quill is newly mended,
And makes fine-drawn lines with its point.
Down the long, white paper it makes little lines,
Just lines -- up -- down -- criss-cross.
My heart is strained out at the pin-point of my quill;
It is thin and writhing like the marks of the pen.
My hand marches to a squeaky tune,
It marches down the paper to a squealing of fifes.
My pen and the trumpet-flowers,
And Washington's armies away over the smoke-tree to the Southwest.
'Yankee Doodle,' my Darling! It is you against the British,
Marching in your ragged shoes to batter down King George.
What have you got in your hat? Not a feather, I wager.
Just a hay-straw, for it is the harvest you are fighting for.
Hay in your hat, and the whites of their eyes for a target!
Like Bunker Hill, two years ago, when I watched all day from the house-top
Through Father's spy-glass.
The red city, and the blue, bright water,
And puffs of smoke which you made.
Twenty miles away,
Round by Cambridge, or over the Neck,
But the smoke was white -- white!
To-day the trumpet-flowers are red -- red --
And I cannot see you fighting,
But old Mr. Dimond has fled to Canada,
And Myra sings 'Yankee Doodle' at her milking.
The red throats of the trumpets bray and clang in the sunshine,
And the smoke-tree puffs dun blossoms into the blue air.
II
[...] Read more
poem by Amy Lowell
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Adam: A Sacred Drama. Act 2.
SCENE I. -- CHORUS OF ANGELS Singing.
Now let us garlands weave
Of all the fairest flowers,
Now at this early dawn,
For new-made man, and his companion dear;
Let all with festive joy,
And with melodious song,
Of the great Architect
Applaud this noblest work,
And speak the joyous sound,
Man is the wonder both of Earth and Heaven.
FIRST Angel.
Your warbling now suspend,
You pure angelic progeny of God,
Behold the labour emulous of Heaven!
Behold the woody scene,
Decked with a thousand flowers of grace divine;
Here man resides, here ought he to enjoy
In his fair mate eternity of bliss.
SECOND Angel.
How exquisitely sweet
This rich display of flowers,
This airy wild of fragrance,
So lovely to the eye,
And to the sense so sweet.
THIRD Angel.
O the sublime Creator,
How marvellous his works, and more his power!
Such is the sacred flame
Of his celestial love,
Not able to confine it in himself,
He breathed, as fruitful sparks
From his creative breast,
The Angels, Heaven, Man, Woman, and the World.
FOURTH Angel.
Yes, mighty Lord! yes, hallowed love divine!
Who, ever in thyself completely blest,
Unconscious of a want,
Who from thyself alone, and at thy will,
Bright with beignant flames,
Without the aid of matter or of form,
[...] Read more
poem by William Cowper
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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
[...] Read more
poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
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Adam: A Sacred Drama. Act 3.
SCENE I.-- Adam and Eve.
Oh, my beloved companion!
Oh thou of my existence,
The very heart and soul!
Hast thou, with such excess of tender haste,
With ceaseless pilgrimage,
To find again thy Adam,
Thus solitary wandered?
Behold him! Speak! what are thy gentle orders?
Why dost thou pause? what ask of God? what dost thou?
Eve. Adam, my best beloved!
My guardian and my guide!
Thou source of all my comfort, all my joy!
Thee, thee alone I wish,
And in these pleasing shades
Thee only have I sought.
Adam. Since thou hast called thy Adam,
(Most beautiful companion),
The source and happy fountain of thy joy;
Eve, if to walk with me
It now may please thee, I will show thee love,
A sight thou hast not seen;
A sight so lovely, that in wonder thou
Wilt arch thy graceful brow.
Look thou, my gentle bride, towards that path,
Of this so intricate and verdant grove,
Where sit the birds embowered;
Just there, where now, with soft and snowy plumes,
Two social doves have spread their wings for flight,
Just there, thou shalt behold, (oh pleasing wonder),
Springing amid the flowers,
A living stream, that with a winding course
Flies rapidly away;
And as it flies, allures
And tempts you to exclaim, sweet river, stay!
Hence eager in pursuit
You follow, and the stream, as it it had
Desire to sport with you,
Through many a florid, many a grassy way,
Well known to him, in soft concealment flies:
But when at length he hears,
You are afflicted to have lost his sight,
He rears his watery locks, and seems to say,
Gay with a gurgling smile,
'Follow! ah, follow still my placid course!
If thou art pleased with me, with thee I sport.
And thus with sweet deceit he leads you on
[...] Read more
poem by William Cowper
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Georgic 1
What makes the cornfield smile; beneath what star
Maecenas, it is meet to turn the sod
Or marry elm with vine; how tend the steer;
What pains for cattle-keeping, or what proof
Of patient trial serves for thrifty bees;-
Such are my themes.
O universal lights
Most glorious! ye that lead the gliding year
Along the sky, Liber and Ceres mild,
If by your bounty holpen earth once changed
Chaonian acorn for the plump wheat-ear,
And mingled with the grape, your new-found gift,
The draughts of Achelous; and ye Fauns
To rustics ever kind, come foot it, Fauns
And Dryad-maids together; your gifts I sing.
And thou, for whose delight the war-horse first
Sprang from earth's womb at thy great trident's stroke,
Neptune; and haunter of the groves, for whom
Three hundred snow-white heifers browse the brakes,
The fertile brakes of Ceos; and clothed in power,
Thy native forest and Lycean lawns,
Pan, shepherd-god, forsaking, as the love
Of thine own Maenalus constrains thee, hear
And help, O lord of Tegea! And thou, too,
Minerva, from whose hand the olive sprung;
And boy-discoverer of the curved plough;
And, bearing a young cypress root-uptorn,
Silvanus, and Gods all and Goddesses,
Who make the fields your care, both ye who nurse
The tender unsown increase, and from heaven
Shed on man's sowing the riches of your rain:
And thou, even thou, of whom we know not yet
What mansion of the skies shall hold thee soon,
Whether to watch o'er cities be thy will,
Great Caesar, and to take the earth in charge,
That so the mighty world may welcome thee
Lord of her increase, master of her times,
Binding thy mother's myrtle round thy brow,
Or as the boundless ocean's God thou come,
Sole dread of seamen, till far Thule bow
Before thee, and Tethys win thee to her son
With all her waves for dower; or as a star
Lend thy fresh beams our lagging months to cheer,
Where 'twixt the Maid and those pursuing Claws
A space is opening; see! red Scorpio's self
His arms draws in, yea, and hath left thee more
Than thy full meed of heaven: be what thou wilt-
For neither Tartarus hopes to call thee king,
Nor may so dire a lust of sovereignty
E'er light upon thee, howso Greece admire
[...] Read more
poem by Publius Vergilius Maro
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Georgic 2
Thus far the tilth of fields and stars of heaven;
Now will I sing thee, Bacchus, and, with thee,
The forest's young plantations and the fruit
Of slow-maturing olive. Hither haste,
O Father of the wine-press; all things here
Teem with the bounties of thy hand; for thee
With viny autumn laden blooms the field,
And foams the vintage high with brimming vats;
Hither, O Father of the wine-press, come,
And stripped of buskin stain thy bared limbs
In the new must with me.
First, nature's law
For generating trees is manifold;
For some of their own force spontaneous spring,
No hand of man compelling, and possess
The plains and river-windings far and wide,
As pliant osier and the bending broom,
Poplar, and willows in wan companies
With green leaf glimmering gray; and some there be
From chance-dropped seed that rear them, as the tall
Chestnuts, and, mightiest of the branching wood,
Jove's Aesculus, and oaks, oracular
Deemed by the Greeks of old. With some sprouts forth
A forest of dense suckers from the root,
As elms and cherries; so, too, a pigmy plant,
Beneath its mother's mighty shade upshoots
The bay-tree of Parnassus. Such the modes
Nature imparted first; hence all the race
Of forest-trees and shrubs and sacred groves
Springs into verdure.
Other means there are,
Which use by method for itself acquired.
One, sliving suckers from the tender frame
Of the tree-mother, plants them in the trench;
One buries the bare stumps within his field,
Truncheons cleft four-wise, or sharp-pointed stakes;
Some forest-trees the layer's bent arch await,
And slips yet quick within the parent-soil;
No root need others, nor doth the pruner's hand
Shrink to restore the topmost shoot to earth
That gave it being. Nay, marvellous to tell,
Lopped of its limbs, the olive, a mere stock,
Still thrusts its root out from the sapless wood,
And oft the branches of one kind we see
Change to another's with no loss to rue,
Pear-tree transformed the ingrafted apple yield,
And stony cornels on the plum-tree blush.
Come then, and learn what tilth to each belongs
According to their kinds, ye husbandmen,
And tame with culture the wild fruits, lest earth
[...] Read more
poem by Publius Vergilius Maro
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What Smith Knew About Farming
There wasn't two purtier farms in the state
Than the couple of which I'm about to relate;--
Jinin' each other--belongin' to Brown,
And jest at the edge of a flourishin' town.
Brown was a man, as I understand,
That allus had handled a good 'eal o' land,
And was sharp as a tack in drivin' a trade--
For that's the way most of his money was made.
And all the grounds and the orchards about
His two pet farms was all tricked out
With poppies and posies
And sweet-smellin' rosies;
And hundreds o' kinds
Of all sorts o' vines,
To tickle the most horticultural minds
And little dwarf trees not as thick as your wrist
With ripe apples on 'em as big as your fist:
And peaches,--Siberian crabs and pears,
And quinces--Well! ANY fruit ANY tree bears;
And th purtiest stream--jest a-swimmin' with fish,
And--JEST O'MOST EVERYTHING HEART COULD WISH!
The purtiest orch'rds--I wish you could see
How purty they was, fer I know it 'ud be
A regular treat!--but I'll go ahead with
My story! A man by the name o' Smith--
(A bad name to rhyme,
But I reckon that I'm
Not goin' back on a Smith! nary time!)
'At hadn't a soul of kin nor kith,
And more money than he knowed what to do with,--
So he comes a-ridin' along one day,
And HE says to Brown, in his offhand way--
Who was trainin' some newfangled vines round a bay-
Winder--'Howdy-do--look-a-here--say:
W hat'll you take fer this property here?--
I'm talkin' o' leavin' the city this year,
And I want to be
Where the air is free,
And I'll BUY this place, if it ain't too dear!'--
Well--they grumbled and jawed aroun'--
'I don't like to part with the place,' says Brown;
'Well,' says Smith, a-jerkin' his head,
'That house yonder--bricks painted red--
Jest like this'n--a PURTIER VIEW--
Who is it owns it?' 'That's mine too,'
Says Brown, as he winked at a hole in his shoe,
'But I'll tell you right here jest what I KIN do:--
If you'll pay the figgers I'll sell IT to you.,'
Smith went over and looked at the place--
Badgered with Brown, and argied the case--
[...] Read more
poem by James Whitcomb Riley
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The Ballad Of Go-go Brown
If thats why they call him go-go brown
Hed say (? )
If thats why some people put him down
Hed say it costs his name as go-go brown
All the girls in town
Used to follow him around
Go-go brown
Go-go brown
All the boys would sing
Were gonna make this go-go king
Go-go brown
Go-go brown
Go-go brown is the smartest guy by far
A brand new girlfriend and a brand new car
The girls all thought that he was heaven-sent
one day this boy will be a president
All the church bells ring
When that go-go used to sing
Go-go brown
Go-go brown
Here the people say
hes gonna be someone someday
Go-go brown
Go-go brown
Then one day some bad men came to call
And go-go knew its time to take a fall
Hes been smoking since the age of ten
He took some crack, he sold some smack
And now hes in the pen
All the girls in town
Used to follow him around
Go-go brown
Go-go brown
All the boys would sing
Were gonna make this go-go king
Go-go brown
Go-go brown
He raised them all
Yes he do
He faced the wall
Yes he did
He stood tall
Yes he do
Who did he let down
Just one man thats go-go brown (? )
All the church bells ring
When that go-go used to sing
Go-go brown
Go-go brown
Here the people say
[...] Read more
song performed by Heaven 17
Added by Lucian Velea
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Thurso’s Landing
I
The coast-road was being straightened and repaired again,
A group of men labored at the steep curve
Where it falls from the north to Mill Creek. They scattered and hid
Behind cut banks, except one blond young man
Who stooped over the rock and strolled away smiling
As if he shared a secret joke with the dynamite;
It waited until he had passed back of a boulder,
Then split its rock cage; a yellowish torrent
Of fragments rose up the air and the echoes bumped
From mountain to mountain. The men returned slowly
And took up their dropped tools, while a banner of dust
Waved over the gorge on the northwest wind, very high
Above the heads of the forest.
Some distance west of the road,
On the promontory above the triangle
Of glittering ocean that fills the gorge-mouth,
A woman and a lame man from the farm below
Had been watching, and turned to go down the hill. The young
woman looked back,
Widening her violet eyes under the shade of her hand. 'I think
they'll blast again in a minute.'
And the man: 'I wish they'd let the poor old road be. I don't
like improvements.' 'Why not?' 'They bring in the world;
We're well without it.' His lameness gave him some look of age
but he was young too; tall and thin-faced,
With a high wavering nose. 'Isn't he amusing,' she said, 'that
boy Rick Armstrong, the dynamite man,
How slowly he walks away after he lights the fuse. He loves to
show off. Reave likes him, too,'
She added; and they clambered down the path in the rock-face,
little dark specks
Between the great headland rock and the bright blue sea.
II
The road-workers had made their camp
North of this headland, where the sea-cliff was broken down and
sloped to a cove. The violet-eyed woman's husband,
Reave Thurso, rode down the slope to the camp in the gorgeous
autumn sundown, his hired man Johnny Luna
Riding behind him. The road-men had just quit work and four
or five were bathing in the purple surf-edge,
The others talked by the tents; blue smoke fragrant with food
and oak-wood drifted from the cabin stove-pipe
And slowly went fainting up the vast hill.
Thurso drew rein by
a group of men at a tent door
And frowned at them without speaking, square-shouldered and
heavy-jawed, too heavy with strength for so young a man,
He chose one of the men with his eyes. 'You're Danny Woodruff,
[...] Read more
poem by Robinson Jeffers
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Cyder: Book I
-- -- Honos erit huic quoq; Pomo? Virg.
What Soil the Apple loves, what Care is due
To Orchats, timeliest when to press the Fruits,
Thy Gift, Pomona, in Miltonian Verse
Adventrous I presume to sing; of Verse
Nor skill'd, nor studious: But my Native Soil
Invites me, and the Theme as yet unsung.
Ye Ariconian Knights, and fairest Dames,
To whom propitious Heav'n these Blessings grants,
Attend my Layes; nor hence disdain to learn,
How Nature's Gifts may be improv'd by Art.
And thou, O Mostyn, whose Benevolence,
And Candor, oft experienc'd, Me vouchsaf'd
To knit in Friendship, growing still with Years,
Accept this Pledge of Gratitude and Love.
May it a lasting Monument remain
Of dear Respect; that, when this Body frail
Is moulder'd into Dust, and I become
As I had never been, late Times may know
I once was blest in such a matchless Friend.
Who-e'er expects his lab'ring Trees shou'd bend
With Fruitage, and a kindly Harvest yield,
Be this his first Concern; to find a Tract
Impervious to the Winds, begirt with Hills,
That intercept the Hyperborean Blasts
Tempestuous, and cold Eurus nipping Force,
Noxious to feeble Buds: But to the West
Let him free Entrance grant, let Zephyrs bland
Administer their tepid genial Airs;
Naught fear he from the West, whose gentle Warmth
Discloses well the Earth's all-teeming Womb,
Invigorating tender Seeds; whose Breath
Nurtures the Orange, and the Citron Groves,
Hesperian Fruits, and wafts their Odours sweet
Wide thro' the Air, and distant Shores perfumes.
Nor only do the Hills exclude the Winds:
But, when the blackning Clouds in sprinkling Show'rs
Distill, from the high Summits down the Rain
Runs trickling; with the fertile Moisture chear'd,
The Orchats smile; joyous the Farmers see
Their thriving Plants, and bless the heav'nly Dew.
Next, let the Planter, with Discretion meet,
The Force and Genius of each Soil explore;
To what adapted, what it shuns averse:
[...] Read more
poem by John Arthur Phillips
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The Gathering of the Brown-Eyed
The brown eyes came from Asia, where all mystery is true,
Ere the masters of Soul Secrets dreamed of hazel, grey, and blue;
And the Brown Eyes came to Egypt, which is called the gypsies’ home,
And the Brown Eyes went from Egypt and Jerusalem to Rome.
There was strife amongst the Brown Eyes for the false things and the true;
There was war amongst the Brown Eyes for the old gods and the new;
But the old gods live for ever, and their goddesses are bright
In the temples of Old Passions with the Brown Eyes of the White.
The Brown Eyes east, by Africa, they saw and conquered Spain,
And the Brown Eyes marched as Christians till a Brown Eye met a Dane,
The Dane had Brown-Eyed children who in blue eyes took delight—
And a son of blue-eyed sailors, brown-eyed, reads the stars to-night.
Oh, Knowledge from Old Deserts, where the great stars rocked the world!
Oh, courage from grim seaboards, where the Viking ships were hurled!
The clear skin of the Norseman, and the desert strength and sight,
The power to fathom mankind, and the glorious gift to write!
We can look in souls of women, aye! and let them know we do;
We can fix the false eyes earthward; we can meet and match the true;
We can startle Voice from Silence, and from Darkness flash the Light—
And the eyes to fathom Asia are the Brown Eyes of the White.
There’s a legend in the nations that all Brown Eyes once were true,
But were taught in love and warfare by the sinful shades of blue;
There’s a story amongst sinners that all Brown Eyes once were kind,
Till the Steel-Blue struck the Red-Fire in a hatred that was blind.
But the Brown Eyes are the saddest at the death of Love and Truth.
And the Brown Eyes are the grandest and the dreamiest of Youth.
They have risen in rebellion unto leadership sublime—
And the grey-eyed queens of women loved, and love them for all time!
Brown Eyes never married Brown Eyes but unhappiness held sway,
For the real mates of the Brown Eyes have for ever been the grey.
But though Brown Eyes quarrel hotly, though their very souls be wrenched,
Never Blue-Eye wronged a Brown-Eye but the Brown-Eye was avenged!
Through the breadth of wide Australia, waiting desert-like and vast,
We have sent our Brown-Eyed children, who are multiplying fast.
Patriots, picture-writers, sages, fill the Brown-Eyed rolls to-night—
’Tis the gathering from all ages of the Brown-Eyed of the White.
poem by Henry Lawson
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The Four Seasons : Summer
From brightening fields of ether fair disclosed,
Child of the Sun, refulgent Summer comes,
In pride of youth, and felt through Nature's depth:
He comes attended by the sultry Hours,
And ever fanning breezes, on his way;
While, from his ardent look, the turning Spring
Averts her blushful face; and earth, and skies,
All-smiling, to his hot dominion leaves.
Hence, let me haste into the mid-wood shade,
Where scarce a sunbeam wanders through the gloom;
And on the dark-green grass, beside the brink
Of haunted stream, that by the roots of oak
Rolls o'er the rocky channel, lie at large,
And sing the glories of the circling year.
Come, Inspiration! from thy hermit-seat,
By mortal seldom found: may Fancy dare,
From thy fix'd serious eye, and raptured glance
Shot on surrounding Heaven, to steal one look
Creative of the Poet, every power
Exalting to an ecstasy of soul.
And thou, my youthful Muse's early friend,
In whom the human graces all unite:
Pure light of mind, and tenderness of heart;
Genius, and wisdom; the gay social sense,
By decency chastised; goodness and wit,
In seldom-meeting harmony combined;
Unblemish'd honour, and an active zeal
For Britain's glory, liberty, and Man:
O Dodington! attend my rural song,
Stoop to my theme, inspirit every line,
And teach me to deserve thy just applause.
With what an awful world-revolving power
Were first the unwieldy planets launch'd along
The illimitable void! thus to remain,
Amid the flux of many thousand years,
That oft has swept the toiling race of men,
And all their labour'd monuments away,
Firm, unremitting, matchless, in their course;
To the kind-temper'd change of night and day,
And of the seasons ever stealing round,
Minutely faithful: such the All-perfect hand!
That poised, impels, and rules the steady whole.
When now no more the alternate Twins are fired,
And Cancer reddens with the solar blaze,
Short is the doubtful empire of the night;
And soon, observant of approaching day,
The meek'd-eyed Morn appears, mother of dews,
At first faint-gleaming in the dappled east:
Till far o'er ether spreads the widening glow;
And, from before the lustre of her face,
[...] Read more
poem by James Thomson
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Wild Wild Party In The Loquat Tree
Out in the back by the grape stake fence
Is a place where nature makes so much sense
All the creatures livin in harmony
Its a wild wild party in the loquat tree
Fuzzies and furries run walk or fly
Havin a feast beneath a clear blue sky
Animals comin from miles around
To bounce the branch and shake the loquat down
The squirrel and the sparrow and the mouse and the bee
All havin a party in the loquat tree
Eatin all the yellow fruit they can see
Its a wild wild party in the loquat tree
Peckin at em pickin at em hidin em away
Savin em up for a rainy day
No matter how big no matter how small
Theres more than enough theres plenty for all
The squirrel and the sparrow and the mouse and the bee
All havin a party in the loquat tree
Eatin all the yellow fruit they can see
Its a wild wild party in the loquat tree
Chatter chirp squeak buzz
Chatter chirp squeak buzz
Chatter chirp squeak buzz
Chatter chirp squeak buzz
Every little loquat holds the seed
For a brand-new baby loquat tree
One o these seeds may find its way
To a place in the sun and then someday
The squirrel and the sparrow and the mouse and the bee
All havin a party in the loquat tree
Eatin all the yellow fruit they can see
Its a wild wild party in the loquat tree
The squirrel and the sparrow and the mouse and the bee
All havin a party in the loquat tree
Eatin all the yellow fruit they can see
(eatin all the yellow fruit)
Its a wild wild party in the loquat tree
(eatin all the yellow fruit)
The squirrel and the sparrow and the mouse and the bee
(eatin all the yellow fruit)
[havin a party]
All havin a party in the loquat tree
(eatin all the yellow fruit)
[in the loquat tree]
Eatin all the yellow fruit they can see
(eatin all the yellow fruit)
[havin a party]
Its a wild wild party in the loquat tree
(eatin all the yellow fruit)
[in the loquat tree]
[...] Read more
song performed by Indigo Girls
Added by Lucian Velea
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Narrative And Dramatic The Wanderings Of Oisin
BOOK I
S. Patrick. You who are bent, and bald, and blind,
With a heavy heart and a wandering mind,
Have known three centuries, poets sing,
Of dalliance with a demon thing.
Oisin. Sad to remember, sick with years,
The swift innumerable spears,
The horsemen with their floating hair,
And bowls of barley, honey, and wine,
Those merry couples dancing in tune,
And the white body that lay by mine;
But the tale, though words be lighter than air.
Must live to be old like the wandering moon.
Caoilte, and Conan, and Finn were there,
When we followed a deer with our baying hounds.
With Bran, Sceolan, and Lomair,
And passing the Firbolgs' burial-motmds,
Came to the cairn-heaped grassy hill
Where passionate Maeve is stony-still;
And found On the dove-grey edge of the sea
A pearl-pale, high-born lady, who rode
On a horse with bridle of findrinny;
And like a sunset were her lips,
A stormy sunset on doomed ships;
A citron colour gloomed in her hair,
But down to her feet white vesture flowed,
And with the glimmering crimson glowed
Of many a figured embroidery;
And it was bound with a pearl-pale shell
That wavered like the summer streams,
As her soft bosom rose and fell.
S. Patrick. You are still wrecked among heathen dreams.
Oisin. 'Why do you wind no horn?' she said
'And every hero droop his head?
The hornless deer is not more sad
That many a peaceful moment had,
More sleek than any granary mouse,
In his own leafy forest house
Among the waving fields of fern:
The hunting of heroes should be glad.'
'O pleasant woman,' answered Finn,
'We think on Oscar's pencilled urn,
And on the heroes lying slain
[...] Read more
poem by William Butler Yeats
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The Four Seasons : Autumn
Crown'd with the sickle and the wheaten sheaf,
While Autumn, nodding o'er the yellow plain,
Comes jovial on; the Doric reed once more,
Well pleased, I tune. Whate'er the wintry frost
Nitrous prepared; the various blossom'd Spring
Put in white promise forth; and Summer-suns
Concocted strong, rush boundless now to view,
Full, perfect all, and swell my glorious theme.
Onslow! the Muse, ambitious of thy name,
To grace, inspire, and dignify her song,
Would from the public voice thy gentle ear
A while engage. Thy noble cares she knows,
The patriot virtues that distend thy thought,
Spread on thy front, and in thy bosom glow;
While listening senates hang upon thy tongue,
Devolving through the maze of eloquence
A roll of periods, sweeter than her song.
But she too pants for public virtue, she,
Though weak of power, yet strong in ardent will,
Whene'er her country rushes on her heart,
Assumes a bolder note, and fondly tries
To mix the patriot's with the poet's flame.
When the bright Virgin gives the beauteous days,
And Libra weighs in equal scales the year;
From Heaven's high cope the fierce effulgence shook
Of parting Summer, a serener blue,
With golden light enliven'd, wide invests
The happy world. Attemper'd suns arise,
Sweet-beam'd, and shedding oft through lucid clouds
A pleasing calm; while broad, and brown, below
Extensive harvests hang the heavy head.
Rich, silent, deep, they stand; for not a gale
Rolls its light billows o'er the bending plain:
A calm of plenty! till the ruffled air
Falls from its poise, and gives the breeze to blow.
Rent is the fleecy mantle of the sky;
The clouds fly different; and the sudden sun
By fits effulgent gilds the illumined field,
And black by fits the shadows sweep along.
A gaily chequer'd heart-expanding view,
Far as the circling eye can shoot around,
Unbounded tossing in a flood of corn.
These are thy blessings, Industry! rough power!
Whom labour still attends, and sweat, and pain;
Yet the kind source of every gentle art,
And all the soft civility of life:
Raiser of human kind! by Nature cast,
Naked, and helpless, out amid the woods
And wilds, to rude inclement elements;
With various seeds of art deep in the mind
[...] Read more
poem by James Thomson
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Sweet Bonnie Brown
Sweet bonnie brown, looking like a baby
Coming down all over me
She looked real good, like a real nice lady
Coming down all over me
Sweet bonnie brown (sweet bonnie brown)
Sweet bonnie brown (sweet bonnie brown)
Sweet bonnie brown (sweet bonnie brown)
Oh, roll me over, like Im coming home
Well, she looked really like another ...
Coming down all over me
She looked real good, like a real low lady
Coming down all over me, yeah
Sweet bonnie brown (sweet bonnie brown)
Sweet bonnie brown (sweet bonnie brown)
Sweet bonnie brown (sweet bonnie brown)
She looked real good, like I know she would
Ive been loving mary-ann so long
Do-do-do-do, do-do-do-do
And every time I see her, you know, I go too long
Do-do-do-do, do-do-do-do
Well, I aint lying, baby, I aint crying
Ive been this way for a long, long time, wow, wow ...
Sweet bonnie brown, looking like a baby
Coming down all over me
She looked real good, just like a real low lady
Coming down all over me
Sweet bonnie brown (sweet bonnie brown)
Sweet bonnie brown (sweet bonnie brown)
Sweet bonnie brown (sweet bonnie brown)
She looked real good, like I know she would
Oh, wow, Im up on a pony, spending all my money
Dont you come on after me
Oh, she looked real good, just like a real low lady
Coming down all over me, oh
Sweet bonnie brown
Oh, sweet bonnie brown
Oh, sweet bonnie brown
She looked real good, like I know she would, oh, oh
Oh, Ive been loving mary-lou, but so long
Do-do-do-do, do-do-do-do
Everytime I know her I ....
Do-do-do-do, do-do-do-do
Well I like baby, I aint crying
Ive been this way for a long, long, long this time, oh
Wow, wow, oh, baby ...
song performed by Velvet Underground
Added by Lucian Velea
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