Poetry Corner: Elizabeth Barrett Browning revisited

An old school friend comments on Facebook, “I need more poetry.” Well, here’s some …

Back when I started this blog, I included among the topics that I would be covering “bits of grammar and Victorian poetry.” I haven’t done too badly on the grammar side, but much of the poetry has diverged into 20^th century song lyrics. But today I’m returning to the roots of the blog. My very first Poetry Corner featured one of Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s Sonnets from the Portuguese, and I’m returning to that well for another drink.

Elizabeth Barrett was raised in a protected environment by parents who would be considered strict even by Victorian standards. She was sickly most of her life, she seldom left her bedroom, let alone the house, and one of the restrictions her father placed upon her was that she would never get married. That changed when she and Robert Browning fell in love with each other. They exchanged correspondence in secret, and eventually they were married secretly. Sonnets from the Portuguese grew out of the poems that she wrote to him in secret.

Most readers are familiar with sonnet XLIII, which begins with the line, “How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.” However, they’re all moving. Here is one that speaks to me:

Sonnets from the Portuguese XXVI
Elizabeth Barrett Browning

I lived with visions for my company
Instead of men and women, years ago,
And found them gentle mates, nor thought to know
A sweeter music than they played to me.
But soon their trailing purple was not free
Of this world’s dust, their lutes did silent grow,
And I myself grew faint and blind below
Their vanishing eyes. Then thou didst come—to be,
Belovèd, what they seemed. Their shining fronts,
Their songs, their splendour (better, yet the same,
As river-water hallowed into fonts),
Met in thee, and from out thee overcame
My soul with satisfaction of all wants;
Because God’s gifts put man’s best dreams to shame.

Poetry Corner: Tom Jones

Some great performers are never forgotten …

The guy who does the weather on the noon television news that I often watch has a holiday for every day of the year. It was through his broadcast that I first heard of National Cat Herders Day, the official holiday of Five O'Clock Somewhere.

So today I was watching the weather report, and learned that today is Remember September Day. Nice.

I'm sure this holiday was inspired by the song "Try to Remember" from the musical The Fantasticks. The original singer of this song was Jerry Orbach, whom most people knew as the wisecracking Detective Lenny Briscoe on the television series Law & Order. But long before that show ever hit the airwaves, Orbach had a successful career on Broadway. The Fantasticks premiered on May 3, 1960, with Orbach in a leading role.

Here are the lyrics for the song, written by Tom Jones:

TRY TO REMEMBER Lyrics

Music: Harvey Schmidt
Lyrics: Tom Jones
Book: Tom Jones
Premiere: Tuesday, May 3, 1960

Try to remember the kind of September
When life was slow and oh, so mellow.
Try to remember the kind of September
When grass was green and grain was yellow.
Try to remember the kind of September
When you were a tender and callow fellow.
Try to remember, and if you remember,
Then follow.

Follow, follow, follow, follow, follow,
Follow, follow, follow, follow.

Try to remember when life was so tender
That no one wept except the willow.
Try to remember when life was so tender
That dreams were kept beside your pillow.
Try to remember when life was so tender
That love was an ember about to billow.
Try to remember, and if you remember,
Then follow.

Follow, follow, follow, follow, follow,
Follow, follow, follow, follow.

Follow, follow, follow, follow, follow,
Follow, follow, follow, follow.

Follow, follow, follow, follow, follow,
Follow, follow, follow, follow.

Deep in December, it's nice to remember,
Although you know the snow will follow.
Deep in December, it's nice to remember,
Without a hurt the heart is hollow.
Deep in December, it's nice to remember,
The fire of September that made us mellow.
Deep in December, our hearts should remember
And follow.

Thanks to STL Lyrics for the words.

Poetry Corner: Walt Kelly

Look up and to the north …

Gerald is making coffee, preparing to go sit on a mountaintop with a friend and watch for the aurora.

Normally, we don't get auroras in New Mexico – we're too far south. But NASA has reported a massive coronal mass ejection (CME) from the sun. In plain English, that means that there is an unusually strong wave of ionized particles headed our way. These particles interact with the Earth's magnetic field to create the glowing displays known as auroras.

The peak of the first wave is supposed to be about 1 a.m. MDT. Gerald's ham-radio friends are already reporting a high level of electromagnetic activity, and he's hoping not only to see the aurora but to photograph it – he does have a good camera for that sort of thing, as his pictures of Earthshine during last summer's eclipse attest.

I can recall one time when I actually did see an aurora in New Mexico. It was faint, and I'm sure it could never compare to the spectacular displays that folks further north can see. It was September, and the sun was in a phase of high activity. The high-school astronomy club had a star party (if I remember correctly, it was to look at a comet) in the very small hours of the morning. We saw very faint wispy glowing streaks, in pale yellow and green. It was not exactly spectacular, but it was an aurora – in New Mexico.

In honor of the aurora, here is Walt Kelly, the creator of the Pogo Possum comic strip:

Oh, roar a roar for Nora,
Nora Alice in the night.
For she has seen Aurora
Borealis burning bright.

A furore for our Nora!
And applaud Aurora seen!
Where, throughout the summer, has
Our Borealis been?

For more about the CME, check out NASA's official announcement.

Poetry Corner: Tom Lehrer

One more echo from the class reunion

I grew up in an extremely odd place. In many ways, it was like a military base, since just about everybody there came from someplace else, and to a certain extent, it was metaphorically distant from the surrounding communities. Many areas are not open to the public, and even away from the lab, what was formerly military-base-style housing is readily visible in many parts of the town.

But then, there were other ways in which it was not so much like a military base. For one thing, the place has, I have been told, the highest per capita ratio of PhDs of any community in the world. For a while, there was a Nobel physics laureate living across the street from me. The high school's football and basketball teams were perpetually struggling, but our chess team, soccer team, and band always brought home the trophies. The graduating class prior to mine had 11 National Merit finalists, which seems impressive until one learns that my own graduating class had 36.

I am talking, of course, about Los Alamos.

Once upon a time, the satirist/songwriter Tom Lehrer worked at Los Alamos. As he had previously done at Harvard, he ended up writing a song about the place, in the style of a classic cowboy ballad: "The Wild West is Where I Want to Be." This song is soon to be given new life, as the Los Alamos barbershop group, of which my dad is a member, is preparing a barbershop version of it – Lehrer himself has given permission to create the new arrangement and might – just maybe – show up at the performance of the premiere.

Here is Lehrer's own introduction to the piece, and its lyrics, courtesy of sing365.com:

The Wild West Is Where I Want To Be Lyrics
Artist(Band):Tom Lehrer

Now if I may indulge in a bit of personal history, a few years ago I worked for a while at the Los Alamos scientific laboratory in New Mexico. I had a job there as a spy. No, I guess you know that the staff out there at that time was composed almost exclusively of spies... of one persuasion or another. And, while I was out there, I came to realize how much the Wild West had changed since the good old days of Wyatt Earp and Home on the Range, and here then is a modern cowboy ballad commemorating that delightful metamorphosis called The Wild West Is Where I Wanna Be.

Along the trail you'll find me lopin'
Where the spaces are wide open,
In the land of the old A.E.C. (yea-hah!)
Where the scenery's attractive,
And the air is radioactive,
Oh, the wild west is where I wanna be.

Mid the sagebrush and the cactus,
I'll watch the fellas practice
Droppin' bombs through the clean desert breeze.
I'll have on my sombrero,
And of course I'll wear a pair o'
Levis over my lead B.V.D.'s.

Ah will leave the city's rush,
Leave the fancy and the plush,
Leave the snow and leave the slush
And the crowds.
Ah will seek the desert's hush,
Where the scenery is lush,
How I long to see the mush-
room clouds.

'Mid the yuccas and the thistles
I'll watch the guided missiles,
While the old F.B.I. watches me. (yea-hah!)
Yes, I'll soon make my appearance
(Soon as I can get my clearance),
'Cause the wild west is where I wanna be.

Now I need to get back to grading those papers …

Poetry Corner: Anonymous

Boy, does Anonymous put out a lot of good stuff …

It was a week ago today that a dear friend and sailor was lost at Elephant Butte Lake. For his fellow sailors and also for his family, this has been a very rough time. I generally hate the word "closure," as it gets so over-used, but in this case, that's the word that best describes what we're all waiting for. As the search continues, we're all in a sort of agonizing limbo.

A relative of mine posted a verse of poetry by Author Unknown on my Facebook wall that really captured what I felt. When I went on the Internet to find more about it, I found that the verse came from a longer poem, and there are dozens of variations on it out there. This is one that I like.

If Tears Could Build A Stairway

If tears could build a stairway
And memories were a lane
We would walk right up to heaven
And bring you back again

No farewell words were spoken
No time to say goodbye
You were gone before we knew it
And only God knows why

Our hearts still ache in sadness
And secret tears still flow
What it meant to lose you
No one can ever know

But now we know you want us
To mourn for you no more
To remember all the happy times
Life still has much in store

Since you'll never be forgotten
We pledge to you today
A hallowed place within our hearts
Is where you'll always stay

Fair winds, Marty.

Sending the Old Man Home

While this song may be about a sailor rather than a soldier, the sentiment is the same ...

We laid the Old Soldier to rest this morning. It was a simple ceremony, the way he wanted it -- no fancy church service or procession to the cemetery, just a graveside service with no frills. Thanks to the American Legion, he had an honor guard of other old soldiers to fire a 21-gun salute and blow Taps on a bugle for him.

We shared stories of his adventures during the war, and generally remembered him and the way he was -- he went through the Great Depression and World War II, and he never considered anything after that to be anything important. He just went about his way.

In honor of the Old Soldier, let us remember all of the veterans of that war.

Sending the old man home

By: Jimmy Buffett

1979

They're sendin' the old man home

Back where the buffalo roam

Out in the Pacific, they say he was the best

Now he's in his "civies", headin' home like all the rest

He'll never forget Rosa Lee

Or sleepless nights he fought upon the sea

He'll only have the memories

Or great books by James Jones

'cause they're sendin' the old man home

Faraway (faraway)

Faraway (faraway)

Another life so very far away

They'll tear down the officers clubs

And write off the overdue subs

So let's drink to their memories

Our heroes and our pals

To those crazy navy flyers

To those swell Hawaiian gals

The sailors will dance in the street

Then they'll mothball the whole damn fleet

We'll only have the picture books

Of land, and sea, and foam

'cause they're sendin' the old man home

He'll only have his memories

Or great books by James Jones

'cause they're sendin' the old man home

(Thanks to metrolyrics.com for the words.)

FOCS best of 2009

Nothing stands out, but there were a few posts that were okay

Captain JP has issued, not a challenge, but at least a suggestion to his fellow bloggers. While he's digesting the surfeit of holiday foods (especially the mince pies), he'd like to read the best of what we have written over the past year.

I will have to admit, 2009 didn't have the same sorts of high points that 2008 did. Instead, the year started on a low note, with somebody deciding to celebrate the New Year by vandalizing our truck, and it got lower from there. The first post of the year, I started with a tagline "I sure hope 2009 is better than 2008 was," but that didn't happen. Instead, it was worse.

There was my major computer crash in January that caused me to lose just about everything, since the backup files had somehow become corrupted and wouldn't load. There were Internet access problems caused by a squabble between my ISP and the bigger telecom company from which it bought services. There was the flu that I caught in March, which left me with a lingering cough that just wouldn't go away – I'm pretty sure I was one of the first people in the country to get H1N1, which hadn't even been identified yet but which is characterized by a horrible cough. Pat's dad in South Texas has been in deteriorating health, and so Pat has been dealing with a lot of headaches trying to take care of him from a distance. My work obligations kept us from being able to go on the solar eclipse cruise that most of the rest of the family took to celebrate my parents' 50^th wedding anniversary. We've had issues with vehicles needing repairs that we can't afford. And our home in Albuquerque got burglarized again, a near repeat of the 2007 incident, except that these burglars didn't take anything of great sentimental value – the previous burglars took care of that. Finally, there are some other issues that we don't want to go into detail on in the blog, but that have made life miserable.

Still, there were some blog posts that seem worth noting, so here I offer my top 10 blog posts for the year, in the order they appeared on the blog:

1. We started the year with two great days on the water.
   
2. I had fun with a little bit of fiction titled "This is Awkward," which became the inspiration for a writing project.
   
3. Tillerman issued a writing challenge to write a list, and I came up with ten lame or not-so-lame excuses not to get to the lake, triggered by a fit of pique at Zorro for letting me down the previous weekend.
   
4. I converted one of my better classroom lectures, on logical fallacies, into a blog post.
   
5. I issued a writing challenge to readers to come up with light bulb jokes about sailors, and the results were great.
   
6. In response to another Tillerman writing challenge, I wrote a review of the short film Pirates of the White Sand, a fun romp from the Duke City Shootout film festival.
   
7. I had another sailing experience with Zorro, involving moonlight under spinnaker and other such excitement.
   
8. Then, during National Novel Writing Month, I got to write a scene that recreated my first experience of an Etchells racing sailboat.
   
9. I noted a bit of irony over Thanksgiving weekend in Arizona.
   
10. I let my scholarly side out for a discussion of Plato's "Phaedrus."
    

So there you have it: the best of Five O'Clock Somewhere for 2009. Maybe next year there will be more fun things to choose from, and less gloom and doom.

Poetry Corner: Ralph Blane

Maybe I should stop calling this Poetry Corner and start calling it Song Lyrics Corner …

This year has not been a good one for our family. Some of the setbacks have been covered on this blog, such as the burglary just before Thanksgiving (I just realized that one of the DVDs the burglars stole was How the Grinch Stole Christmas; how's that for irony?). Other disasters have been of a nature not suitable to share here. Suffice it to say we have had annus horribilis, but without the public scrutiny that Buckingham Palace has to endure.

So my iTunes played Judy Garland singing "Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas," from the 1944 movie Meet Me In St. Louis. It's not just the song itself; it's the way she sings it, with a sort of pleading, desperate hope that next year will be better. "We'll have to muddle through somehow." When Frank Sinatra later recorded the song, he changed that line to something more optimistic, and that became the words everybody knows. But Garland just seemed to be singing to me directly, and her words and her delivery are all the more meaningful.

It was hard to find the original (as Garland sang them) lyrics online … I finally found them at sing365.com. Actually, these aren't the true original lyrics; the song was written the year before for soldiers fighting in World War II, and those lyrics had a reference to maybe not even living until next year. Garland insisted on changing that line for the movie. She was, after all, singing comforting words to a distressed 7-year-old.

Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas
Ralph Blane

Have yourself a merry little Christmas
Let your heart be light
Next year all our troubles will be
out of sight
Have yourself a merry little Christmas
Make the yule-tide gay
Next year all our troubles will be
miles away
Once again as in olden days
Happy golden days of yore
Faithful friends who were dear to us
Will be near to us once more
Someday soon, we all will be together
If the Fates allow
Until then, we'll have to muddle through somehow
So have yourself a merry little Christmas now.

Thanksgiving with flippy floppies

Not your traditional weather …

So Pat and I have taken a trip to Arizona to have Thanksgiving with Gerald. While we were driving through the mountains of eastern Arizona last night, the temperature did get down to 34 degrees, according to the thermometer in our truck. However, now we’re in Tempe, in the Valley of the Sun, and the temperature is somewhere in the vicinity of 80 degrees.

Pat discovered that he had forgotten something in his packing, leaving him short of pants. No problem, we found that one clothing store in the outlet mall was open special Thanksgiving hours. This shopping center has one of the very trendy sound systems that plays music in all of the outdoor areas. It’s playing holiday tunes.

There was something incongruous, however, about what was playing as we were walking from the truck to the store: “Baby, It’s Cold Outside.”

Poetry Corner: Frank Churchill

Thinking about the offspring

Lately, Gerald has had a rough time. Some things he has mentioned on his blog, such as his encounter with a seriously out-of-line driver while he was riding his bicycle after returning to Tempe from a regatta in Santa Barbara – a return that was delayed by a tire blowout in California on the way.

He’s had to deal with a lot of other stresses as well, financial, automotive, academic, and health-related. It hasn’t helped that Pat and I haven’t been able to get out there to visit him, or that we haven’t even been able to send him green chile to ease his troubles. He recently Twittered, “Odd thoughts flowing through/ thinking about the people/ I want to be with.”

Here’s one for Gerald, the lullaby “Baby Mine” from the movie Dumbo. It just seems right for right now. (Thanks to Distant Melody for the lyrics.) It’s strange … when he actually was little, I wasn’t capable of this kind of caring, either because of depression or –much more likely – because the anti-depressant medications I was on kept me from feeling anything. In fact, I have almost no memory of his first two years of life. My memory begins when I got so fed up with the side effects of the anti-depressants that I quit taking them.

So maybe I feel a little bit guilty about having abandoned him back then, and now I want to make it right. I can’t sing a lullaby to him right now, but I can blog it to him.

Baby Mine

Baby mine, don't you cry
Baby mine, dry your eyes
Rest your head close to my heart
Never to part, baby of mine

Little one when you play
Don't you mind what they say
Let those eyes sparkle and shine
Never a tear, baby of mine

If they knew sweet little you
They'd end up loving you too
All those same people who scold you
What they'd give just for
The right to hold you

From your head to your toes
You're so sweet, goodness knows
But you're so precious to me
Cute as can be, baby of mine

Sunset, moonlight, Sunrise Regatta

Not much time to write; will try to keep this brief

This past weekend was the Rio Grande Sailing Club's Sunrise Regatta, consisting of four fleets: 10-mile, 25-mile spinnaker, 25-mile non-spinnaker, and 50-mile. The regatta gets its name because if the winds are light, sunrise is about when the 50-milers finish.

Pat and I got to the lake Friday afternoon, so he could take the club's motorboat out and put flashing lights on the navigation buoys that were to be used as turning marks during the race, so sailors could see them after dark. Before going to get the boat, Pat dropped me off at the Rock Canyon Marina, where I was to meet Zorro to sail with him. When I got there, he was already out sailing on the lake, but after about a half hour, he came to pick me up.

The wind was brisk, and so I had to hop on board Constellation from the dock while the boat was moving fairly fast. In order to make the jump easier, and since it was only going to be a short sail, I left almost everything in my gear bag, which I stowed on Windependent, Twinkle Toes' boat, on which Zorro and I and a few other people would be sailing in the 25-mile spinnaker fleet Saturday. Thus, when Zorro and I set sail, I was wearing my hat, sunglasses, and PFD, but I didn't have my non-sun glasses, my lip balm, or my cell phone with me. Well, we weren't going to be out long, so I wouldn't need those things – or so I thought.

It was late afternoon, but the wind was good, so Zorro decided to make a reconnaissance trip to the southernmost of the turning marks, to verify exactly where it was so we wouldn't have to hunt for it Saturday. As we arrived at that mark, the wind began to fade. On our way back to the marina, as the sun was going down, so was the wind. Then, when we were about halfway back, the wind went away completely. If I had had my cell phone, I could have called Pat to bring the motorboat and give us a tow in, but, well, I didn't have it. As it turned out, Pat had tried to phone me to ask what was up, but when he didn't get an answer, he figured that Zorro and I were simply enjoying our time on the water.

At this point, well, we didn't have much choice but to sit there and enjoy the sunset and try to find at least a little bit of a hint of a puff of wind. So we did. The sunset was glorious – but I didn't have a camera, or even a cell phone, to take a picture of it, so readers will have to take my word on that.

It was about this point that some song lyrics started humming through my head … and Zorro's too. I ended up with "Slow Boat to China" stuck in my brain for the whole weekend, and then some – it's still floating around my synapses. Zorro admitted that he, too, thought of the same song, although I was thinking of Jimmy Buffett's version, and he was thinking of Bette Midler's.

Just about as the sun set, we picked up just a hint of wind, and then a little more, and the boat was again moving, although not all that fast. The light was fading from the sky, and I realized I wouldn't be able to see all that well in the dark with my sunglasses on, but I didn't have my other glasses to change into. I tried going without any glasses on, but I'm so nearsighted, I couldn't see a thing – dark glasses were better than no glasses. Zorro admitted that his own night vision wasn't so great, either.

Meanwhile, in the east, the full moon was rising. So was the wind. Constellation picked up speed. We put up a spinnaker to get back to the marina more quickly. The wind built. And then it built some more. We were flying along, keeping pace with the waves, as the silvery moonlight reflected off the water like a million diamonds and gave us just barely enough light to see what we were doing. It was an awesome feeling, surfing the waves, the wind in my face, ripping along in the glow of the moon.

When we arrived at the marina, we found the harbor entrance almost by accident, and when we came to the dock, a fisherman on the shore facing the marina had a spotlight that provided enough light to allow us to get into the slip without incident.

I have in the past blogged about a peak
experience
with Team Zorro … this was another peak experience.

Saturday was the Sunrise Regatta. On board Windependent were boat owner Twinkle Toes, Zorro, Blondie, Blondie's boyfriend, and a friend of Zorro's from Belize who now lives in the U.S. and has his own boat. Zorro was at the helm, Twinkle Toes on main trim, Boyfriend and Belize on jib trim, Blondie tailing, and I wherever there was a hole that needed filling. Winds were stiff, and they gradually got stiffer as the day went on, but they never got to the really insane levels that they sometimes get. For the first half of the race, in particular, they were in the range that was great for a Hunter 34, enough to make such a big and clumsy boat move smartly. Later, they got to a level at which reefing the sails would have been good, but this boat's not rigged for easy reefing, so we kept full sail up and just pressed on.

One of the rules of thumb about racing on Windependent is that something ALWAYS breaks. That is especially true in rougher conditions. But this time around, we got lucky. There were two things that broke, neither of them a serious problem. On the first upwind leg, because of the stiff winds, we didn't raise a full-size spinnaker; instead, we used an old Etchells spinnaker that Zorro had donated to the cause. It did the trick, bringing the boat up to the maximum hull speed for a Hunter 34. It also looked very silly, just a little handkerchief high up and out in front of the mast. As we were approaching a narrow channel leading to the northern part of the lake, Zorro was talking about how we were going to take that sail down in order to zigzag through the channel – and then there was a major wind shift and we broached. The spinnaker was ripped to shreds in the incident.

The second thing that broke was the nail on my right pinkie. That's OK; I don't think I've ever had a worthwhile sail on which I didn't break a nail or two. If there were no broken nails, it was probably not fun. Maybe whenever Windependent races, I should be on board so what gets broken is one of my nails, and nothing important.

In our fleet, we were second over the finish line behind the J/24 Hot Flash, but we beat her on corrected time.

Oh, yeah, that song … Consider this a lengthy intro to a Poetry Corner – another one on Frank Loesser, whom I've featured before. This is the version that Buffett sings, adapted from Lyrics Depot.

On A Slow Boat To China
By: Frank Loesser
1948

I'd love to get you
On a slow boat to China
All to myself alone

Get you and keep you
In my arms ever more
Leave all your lovers
Weepin' on a far away shore

Out on the briny
With the moon big and shiny
Melting your heart of stone
Honey I'd love to get you
On a slow boat to China
All by myself alone

(instrumental)

I'd love to get you
On a slow boat to China
All to myself alone
A twist in the rudder
And a rip in the sails
Driftin' and dreamin'
Honey throw the compass over the rail

Out on the ocean
Far from all the commotion
Melting your heart of stone
Honey I'd love to get you
On a slow boat to China
All by myself alone

Honey I'd love to get you
On a slow boat to China
All to myself alone

Poetry Corner: James Russell Lowell

Perhaps it would be good to define what, exactly, are "perfect days."

Things have been soggy of late, just about everywhere, it seems. The blogs that I follow, whether from California or New England or Europe or wherever, have been reporting major rainfall. And here in New Mexico, we've been getting a lot of rain as well.

Normally, in June, New Mexico is about as dry as it gets. The late spring snowfalls have ended, and the summer monsoons – yes, true monsoons, caused by the same sorts of wind patterns as cause the classic monsoons in India – have not yet begun. Generally, from April through June, we have almost no precipitation, and what water we have in our streams and rivers comes from snow-melt from the mountains. In a good year, with a heavy snowpack, this melt-water comes down through the month of May and, if we're really lucky, into the beginning of June.

This year, however, June has been unusually rainy. The past week, in particular, has seen heavy thunderstorms, especially in the northern part of the state, including Rio Arriba County. Friday, on our way up to Five O'Clock Somewhere, when we crossed Willow Creek, it was flowing full, at a level that is ordinarily seen only during the peak of spring runoff. Normally, in late June, the creek would be nearly dry.

Not that we're complaining. More rainfall means more water in the lake to sail upon, and more water to send downstream to the other lake to sail upon. In the case of Heron Lake, it also means that the marina gangway, which was becoming submerged as the lake level came up, needed to be relocated.

But all of this rainfall is at odds with the way most people think of June weather, as promoted by American poet James Russell Lowell, in the famous couplet, "What is so rare as a day in June? Then, if ever, come perfect days." Certainly, especially in parts of the world where rainfall is not seen as a valuable gift from Heaven, rainy days are not considered to be perfect.

Lowell was something of a character. He was a troublemaker at Harvard, but somehow managed to graduate anyway, publishing bits and pieces of satire along the way. He was a journalist, essayist, lawyer, diplomat, and political activist, especially in the cause of the abolition of slavery. He had a sharp wit, and he contributed many epigrams to popular culture, such as , "Blessed are they who have nothing to say and who cannot be persuaded to say it." (You can read more such wit at BrainyQuote.)

The lines about the day in June come from a massive work, The Vision of Sir Launfal, an epic poem set in Arthurian times, dealing with the quest for the Holy Grail. This is merely an excerpt from the prologue to one portion of the work.

What is so Rare as a Day in June?
James Russell Lowell

And what is so rare as a day in June?
Then, if ever, come perfect days;
Then Heaven tries earth if it be in tune,
And over it softly her warm ear lays;
Whether we look, or whether we listen,
We hear life murmur, or see it glisten;
Every clod feels a stir of might,
An instinct within it that reaches and towers,
And, groping blindly above it for light,
Climbs to a soul in grass and flowers;
The flush of life may well be seen
Thrilling back over hills and valleys;
The cowslip startles in meadows green,
The buttercup catches the sun in its chalice,
And there's never a leaf nor a blade too mean
To be some happy creature's palace;
The little bird sits at his door in the sun,
Atilt like a blossom among the leaves,
And lets his illumined being o'errun
With the deluge of summer it receives;
His mate feels the eggs beneath her wings,
And the heart in her dumb breast flutters and sings;
He sings to the wide world, and she to her nest,
In the nice ear of Nature which song is the best?

Now is the high-tide of the year,
And whatever of life hath ebbed away
Comes flooding back with a ripply cheer,
Into every bare inlet and creek and bay;
Now the heart is so full that a drop overfills it,
We are happy now because God wills it;
No matter how barren the past may have been,
'Tis enough for us now that the leaves are green;
We sit in the warm shade and feel right well
How the sap creeps up and the blossoms swell;
We may shut our eyes but we cannot help knowing
That skies are clear and grass is growing;
The breeze comes whispering in our ear,
That dandelions are blossoming near,
That maize has sprouted, that streams are flowing,
That the river is bluer than the sky,
That the robin is plastering his house hard by;
And if the breeze kept the good news back,
For our couriers we should not lack;
We could guess it all by yon heifer's lowing,
And hark! How clear bold chanticleer,
Warmed with the new wine of the year,
Tells all in his lusty crowing!

Joy comes, grief goes, we know not how;
Everything is happy now,
Everything is upward striving;
'Tis as easy now for the heart to be true
As for grass to be green or skies to be blue,
'Tis for the natural way of living:
Who knows whither the clouds have fled?
In the unscarred heaven they leave not wake,
And the eyes forget the tears they have shed,
The heart forgets its sorrow and ache;
The soul partakes the season's youth,
And the sulphurous rifts of passion and woe
Lie deep 'neath a silence pure and smooth,
Like burnt-out craters healed with snow.

Thanks to virtualology.com for the historical background, and to Pens and Paws for the words.

Poetry corner: Paul Simon

I got a Nikon camera …

This post is dedicated to two blogsters who both have recently acquired fancy new digital SLR cameras and who are now learning how to get the most out of them: Gerald, who spent the Christmas gift from his grandparents, and then some, on a really cool camera and who has been taking cool pix since then; and Captain JP, who is taking his digital SLR on an adventure from which I hope to see lots of other cool pix (or sure shots or whatever – I don't know what brand his camera is).

The technology may have changed, so now the pictures are recorded as digital bits on a memory chip as opposed to being the result of a chemical reaction of light-sensitive substances on film, but there's still resonance with the song "Kodachrome," the song by Paul Simon that he recorded with Art Garfunkel many years ago.

Kodachrome
Paul Simon

When I think back
On all the crap I learned in high school
It's a wonder
I can think at all
And though my lack of edu---cation
Hasn't hurt me none
I can read the writing on the wall

Kodachrome
They give us those nice bright colors
They give us the greens of summers
Makes you think all the world's a sunny day, Oh yeah
I got a Nikon camera
I love to take a photograph
So mama don't take my Kodachrome away

If you took all the girls I knew
When I was single
And brought them all together for one night
I know they'd never match
my sweet imagination
everything looks WORSE in black and white

Kodachrome
They give us those nice bright colors
They give us the greens of summers
Makes you think all the world's a sunny day, Oh yeah
I got a Nikon camera
I love to take a photograph
So mama don't take my Kodachrome away

Mama don't take my Kodachrome away
Mama don't take my Kodachrome away
Mama don't take my Kodachrome away

Mama don't take my Kodachrome
Mama don't take my Kodachrome
Mama don't take my Kodachrome away

Mama don't take my Kodachrome
Leave your boy so far from home
Mama don't take my Kodachrome away
Mama don't take my Kodachrome

Mama don't take my Kodachrome away

Thanks to SING365.com for the lyrics. Interesting note … when I first arrived at the site, because I have a slow dial-up connection, the advertising wasn't visible. By the time I got to the point of pasting the lyrics into this post, the advertising had showed up for … yeah … Nikon cameras.

Poetry Corner: Robert B. Ferguson

Corny, but inspiring

In the place where I am now, there are assorted notes and quips on little bits of paper or napkins or whatever, randomly scattered. Some of these are inspirational: “Nobility is rooted in humility.” Some are humorous: “Artificial intelligence is no match for natural stupidity.”

Then there was one that wasn’t a complete thought: “On the wings of a small white dove.”

Many long years ago, when I was a teenager, there were two girls in the neighborhood who were several years younger than I was and who were the closest things I had to kid sisters, as I had only brothers. One of them had an antique player piano in her bedroom. Unlike most antique player pianos, this one still worked, and she had dozens of scrolls of music for it.

One of our favorites was “On the Wings of a Dove,” and we would play it over and over again, taking turns pumping on the foot pedals of the piano to crank the song scroll through the piano, singing along together to the tinny, slightly out-of-tune, honky-tonk sound that only a player piano can make.

The first line of the chorus of that song is actually “On the wings of a snow-white dove,” rather than a small white one. But I still think it’s a great song.

As I was preparing to compose this blog post, I wanted to include a link that readers could use to find a site where they could hear the music, because part of what makes this song great is the way the harmonies work. I was worried that I might not be able to find such a site, since the computer that I’m currently using doesn’t have a lot of the multimedia plugins, and since it’s somebody else’s computer, I didn’t want to install plugins without permission.

I needn’t have worried. One of the owners of this computer is an avid participant in karaoke, and so this computer has all the needed plugins to access a website that gives song lyrics along with an accompaniment to sing with.

You can hear the tune and sing along at NelsonDirect. This version is rather more jazzy than the original player-piano scroll, but you can still get the general idea.

On The Wings Of A Dove

Words and Music by Robert B. Ferguson

When troubles surround us, when evils come,
The body grows weak (body grows weak),
The spirit grows numb (spirit grows numb),
When these things beset us, He doesn't forget us.
He sends down His love (sends down His love),
On the wings of a dove (wings of a dove).

On the wings of a snow-white dove,
He sends His pure sweet love,
A sign from above (sign from above,
On the wings of a dove (wings of a dove).

When Noah had drifted on the flood many days,
He searched for land (he searched for land),
In various ways (various ways).
Troubles, he had some but wasn't forgotten.
He sent him His love (sent him His love),
On the wings of a dove (wings of a dove).

On the wings of a snow-white dove,
He sends His pure sweet love,
A sign from above (sign from above),
On the wings of a dove (wings of a dove).

On the wings of a snow-white dove,
He sends His pure sweet love,
A sign from above (sign from above),
On the wings of a dove (wings of a dove).

On the wings of a dove (wings of a dove).

On the wings of a dove (wings of a dove).
On the wings of a dove (wings of a dove).

Poetry Corner: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

a special message for the season

Our original plan for Christmas Day was to travel to my parents’ house to celebrate with turkey and presents. But we’re snowed in. The thermometer on the back porch rail is now completely buried, so baby we can’t tell how cold it is out there. Instead of traveling, we are enjoying staying in. Gerald and I made tamales last night, and there’s plenty of turkey here.

Of course, I have my holiday tunes going on my iTunes, and one that keeps coming back, and that I find especially meaningful, is “I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day.”

The words of the song are based on Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s “Christmas Bells,” written on Christmas Eve, 1863, in the midst of the American Civil War. The horrible bloodshed of that conflict would lead many to despair, as the narrator in Longfellow’s poem expresses.

But the spirit of the bells’ message comes through in a message of hope and optimism, that good and right will triumph in the end. Still today, with all of the conflict and misery in the world, it’s a message that we need.

The carol as we sing it today omits two of the stanzas of the original poem.

Christmas Bells
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, 1807-1882

I heard the bells on Christmas Day
Their old, familiar carols play,
And wild and sweet
The words repeat
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

And thought how, as the day had come,
The belfries of all Christendom
Had rolled along
The unbroken song
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

Till ringing, singing on its way,
The world revolved from night to day,
A voice, a chime,
A chant sublime
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

Then from each black, accursed mouth
The cannon thundered in the South,
And with the sound
The carols drowned
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

It was as if an earthquake rent
The hearth-stones of a continent,
And made forlorn
The households born
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

And in despair I bowed my head;
"There is no peace on earth," I said;
"For hate is strong,
And mocks the song
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!"

Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:
"God is not dead, nor doth He sleep;
The Wrong shall fail,
The Right prevail,
With peace on earth, good-will to men."

Thanks to Poem of the Week for the words.