sing along

“I feel nothing, apart from a certain difficulty in continuing to exist.”
Bernard de Fontenelle (on his death bed)

😉

Read Full Post »

The truth is out there

Anyone who seeks to destroy the passions instead of controlling them is trying to play the angel.
Voltaire

🙂 😉

Read Full Post »

Beware of one eyed Gods

The Green Eye of the Little Yellow God
J Milton Hayes

There’s a one-eyed yellow idol to the north of Khatmandu,
There’s a little marble cross below the town;
There’s a broken-hearted woman tends the grave of Mad Carew,
And the Yellow God forever gazes down.

He was known as “Mad Carew” by the subs at Khatmandu,
He was hotter than they felt inclined to tell;
But for all his foolish pranks, he was worshipped in the ranks,
And the Colonel’s daughter smiled on him as well.

He had loved her all along, with a passion of the strong,
The fact that she loved him was plain to all.
She was nearly twenty-one and arrangements had begun
To celebrate her birthday with a ball.

He wrote to ask what present she would like from Mad Carew;
They met next day as he dismissed a squad;
And jestingly she told him then that nothing else would do
But the green eye of the little Yellow God.

On the night before the dance, Mad Carew seemed in a trance,
And they chaffed him as they puffed at their cigars:
But for once he failed to smile, and he sat alone awhile,
Then went out into the night beneath the stars.

He returned before the dawn, with his shirt and tunic torn,
And a gash across his temple dripping red;
He was patched up right away, and he slept through all the day,
And the Colonel’s daughter watched beside his bed.

He woke at last and asked if they could send his tunic through;
She brought it, and he thanked her with a nod;
He bade her search the pocket saying “That’s from Mad Carew,”
And she found the little green eye of the god.

She upbraided poor Carew in the way that women do,
Though both her eyes were strangely hot and wet;
But she wouldn’t take the stone and Mad Carew was left alone
With the jewel that he’d chanced his life to get.

When the ball was at its height, on that still and tropic night,
She thought of him and hurried to his room;
As she crossed the barrack square she could hear the dreamy air
Of a waltz tune softly stealing thro’ the gloom.

His door was open wide, with silver moonlight shining through;
The place was wet and slipp’ry where she trod;
An ugly knife lay buried in the heart of Mad Carew,
‘Twas the “Vengeance of the Little Yellow God.”

There’s a one-eyed yellow idol to the north of Khatmandu,
There’s a little marble cross below the town;
There’s a broken-hearted woman tends the grave of Mad Carew,
And the Yellow God forever gazes down.

🙂

Read Full Post »

CHARGE!

The Charge of the Light Brigade
Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Half a league, half a league,
Half a league onward,
All in the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.
“Forward, the Light Brigade!
“Charge for the guns!” he said:
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.

“Forward, the Light Brigade!”
Was there a man dismay’d?
Not tho’ the soldier knew
Someone had blunder’d:
Theirs not to make reply,
Theirs not to reason why,
Theirs but to do and die:
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.

Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon in front of them
Volley’d and thunder’d;
Storm’d at with shot and shell,
Boldly they rode and well,
Into the jaws of Death,
Into the mouth of Hell
Rode the six hundred.

Flash’d all their sabres bare,
Flash’d as they turn’d in air,
Sabring the gunners there,
Charging an army, while
All the world wonder’d:
Plunged in the battery-smoke
Right thro’ the line they broke;
Cossack and Russian
Reel’d from the sabre stroke
Shatter’d and sunder’d.
Then they rode back, but not
Not the six hundred.

Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon behind them
Volley’d and thunder’d;
Storm’d at with shot and shell,
While horse and hero fell,
They that had fought so well
Came thro’ the jaws of Death
Back from the mouth of Hell,
All that was left of them,
Left of six hundred.

When can their glory fade?
O the wild charge they made!
All the world wondered.
Honor the charge they made,
Honor the Light Brigade,
Noble six hundred.

🙂

Read Full Post »

Any Takers?

Kubla Khan
Samuel Taylor Coleridge, 1798
In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree:
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea.
So twice five miles of fertile ground
With walls and towers were girdled round:
And here were gardens bright with sinuous rills
Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree;
And here were forests ancient as the hills,
Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.
But oh! that deep romantic chasm which slanted
Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover!
A savage place! as holy and enchanted
As e’er beneath a waning moon was haunted
By woman wailing for her demon-lover!
And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething,
As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing,
A mighty fountain momently was forced;
Amid whose swift half-intermitted burst
Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail,
Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher’s flail:
And ‘mid these dancing rocks at once and ever
It flung up momently the sacred river.
Five miles meandering with a mazy motion
Through wood and dale the sacred river ran,
Then reached the caverns measureless to man,
And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean:
And ‘mid this tumult Kubla heard from far
Ancestral voices prophesying war!

The shadow of the dome of pleasure
Floated midway on the waves:
Where was heard the mingled measure
From the fountain and the caves.
It was a miracle of rare device,
A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice!
A damsel with a dulcimer
In a vision once I saw:
It was an Abyssinian maid,
And on her dulcimer she played,
Singing of Mount Abora.
Could I revive within me
Her symphony and song,
To such a deep delight ‘t would win me
That with music loud and long,
I would build that dome in air,
That sunny dome! those caves of ice!
And all who heard should see them there,
And all should cry, Beware! Beware!
His flashing eyes, his floating hair!
Weave a circle round him thrice,
And close your eyes with holy dread,
For he on honey-dew hath fed,
And drunk the milk of Paradise.

🙂

Read Full Post »

Is it me?

I want to die peacefully in my sleep, like my grandfather. Not screaming and yelling like the passengers in his car.

someone has been watching to much TV

I don’t know if it’s just me/computer but I have logged on and can’t find a thing, I have lost my drafts and logout, very odd!

🙂 🙂

Read Full Post »

Time for a sing song

🙂

Read Full Post »

The Sleeper

When one door closes, another opens;
but we often look so long and so
regretfully upon the closed door
that we do not see the one
which has opened for us.
-Alexander Graham Bell

THE SLEEPER
by Edgar Allan Poe 1831

At midnight, in the month of June,
I stand beneath the mystic moon.
An opiate vapor, dewy, dim,
Exhales from out her golden rim,
And, softly dripping, drop by drop,
Upon the quiet mountain top,
Steals drowsily and musically
Into the universal valley.
The rosemary nods upon the grave;
The lily lolls upon the wave;
Wrapping the fog about its breast,
The ruin molders into rest;
Looking like Lethe, see! the lake
A conscious slumber seems to take,
And would not, for the world, awake.
All Beauty sleeps!–and lo! where lies
Irene, with her Destinies!
O, lady bright! can it be right-
This window open to the night?
The wanton airs, from the tree-top,
Laughingly through the lattice drop-
The bodiless airs, a wizard rout,
Flit through thy chamber in and out,
And wave the curtain canopy
So fitfully–so fearfully-
Above the closed and fringed lid
‘Neath which thy slumb’ring soul lies hid,
That, o’er the floor and down the wall,
Like ghosts the shadows rise and fall!
Oh, lady dear, hast thou no fear?
Why and what art thou dreaming here?
Sure thou art come O’er far-off seas,
A wonder to these garden trees!
Strange is thy pallor! strange thy dress,
Strange, above all, thy length of tress,
And this all solemn silentness!
The lady sleeps! Oh, may her sleep,
Which is enduring, so be deep!
Heaven have her in its sacred keep!
This chamber changed for one more holy,
This bed for one more melancholy,
I pray to God that she may lie
For ever with unopened eye,
While the pale sheeted ghosts go by!
My love, she sleeps! Oh, may her sleep
As it is lasting, so be deep!
Soft may the worms about her creep!
Far in the forest, dim and old,
For her may some tall vault unfold-
Some vault that oft has flung its black
And winged panels fluttering back,
Triumphant, o’er the crested palls,
Of her grand family funerals-
Some sepulchre, remote, alone,
Against whose portal she hath thrown,
In childhood, many an idle stone-
Some tomb from out whose sounding door
She ne’er shall force an echo more,
Thrilling to think, poor child of sin!
It was the dead who groaned within.

😉

Read Full Post »

hands up if you can sing this one

“Inside some of us is a thin person struggling to get out, but they can usually be sedated with a few pieces of chocolate cake.”
– Anonymous

Now what am I going to watch now, The Walking dead has finished? I really enjoyed it, but only 6 episodes wasn’t enough and now it’s not back on untill 2012.

Saturday’s Dr. Who (The Doctors Wife) was really good but then it was written by Neil Gaiman (I loved American Gods, Neverwhere), to name just two.

🙂

Read Full Post »

There’s nothing like messying about on the river.

Anybody can be good in the country. There are no temptations there.
Oscar Wilde

I am back, we have just spent a few days camping in the Forest of Dean, walking and canoeing. Hubby lied to me! He booked the canoeing telling me he had canoed before, (I never have, the nearest I have ever got was taking a row boat around the park pond), after going down our second lot of mini rapids he decided to tell me he had only ever canoed in the local swimming baths, and then it was only one lesson, but that said we did quite well, getting back well within the allotted time. What we found funny was the safety talk at the start, it all seemed to be directed at us, they even told us that if we found it hard going we could stop at a certain place and phone them because they could get us out of the river at this point, and the look on their faces when we got back with half an hour left, (we were told we should be back by 1.30 and got back at 1), we were greeted with ‘You made good time’ and no we didn’t rush ourselves, we managed the rapids, shallow waters and didn’t hit or run into trees on fast waters and windy corners. Just because we are grey and round doesn’t mean we can’t do anything. While on the river we had salmon jumping around us and could see under the tree roots into the nests of the ducks and swans, which were all nesting.

We had a couple of days walking, first from the campsite down into Symonds Yat east over the river by the hand pulled ferry and up west side to the suspension bridge, over that, (which was a bit airy what with all the bouncing and creaking) and back up the very long hill to camp. Another day we walked up another big hill, (we never seem to go anywhere flat), to the rock and back down through the forest, where we got lost because someone didn’t read the map right, but as you can see not for long because we are back safe and sound.

We took a river boat cruise which we both used to enjoy, but after canoeing it just didn’t feel the same, we want to be in charge of our own boat. As well as the salmon we saw voles, rabbits, squirrels, loads of birds, but we still haven’t seen the deer or wild boar although we did find a few dug up path edges where they had been.

photos here

Saturday evening number 1 took us for a meal to celebrate hubby’s birthday. We went to The Why Not Inn and I had a very nice piece of sword fish because I like swimming with the fishes, number 1 had kangaroo because he is bouncy and hubby had wild boar because… no only joking, but we did eat all of the above.

😉

Read Full Post »