GENTLE SPRING

GENTLE SPRING ! ~ in sunshine clad.
     Well dost thou thy power display !
For Winter maketh the light heart sad,
     And thou, ~ thou makest the sad heart gay.
He sees thee, and calls to his gloomy train,
The sleet, and the snow, and the wind, and the rain,
And they shrink away, and they flee in fear,
     When thy merry step draws near.

Winter giveth the fields and the trees, so old,
     Their beards of icicles and snow ;
And the rain, it raineth so fast and cold,
     We must cower over the embers low ;
And, snugly housed from the wind and weather,
Mope like birds that are changing feather.
But the storm retires, and the sky grows clear,
     When thy merry step draws near.

Winter maketh the sun in the gloomy sky
     Wrap him round with a mantle of cloud ;
But, Heaven he praised, they step is nigh ;
     Thou tearest away the mournful shroud,
And the earth looks bright, and Winter surly.
Who has toiled for nouht both late and early,
Is banished afar by the new-born year,
     When thy merry step draws near.

~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (Feb. 27, 1807 - Mar. 24, 1882) American poet.

The Spirit of Poetry

There is a quiet spirit in these woods,
That dwells where'er the gentle south wind blows ;
The wild flowers bloom, or, kissing the soft air,
The leaves above their sunny palms outspread.
With what a tender and impassioned voice
It fills the nice and delicate ear of thought.
When the fast-ushering star of Morning comes
O'er-riding the grey hills with golden scarf ;
Or when the cowled and dusky-sandaled Eve,
In mourning weeds, from out the western gate,
Departs with silent pace !  That spirit moves
In the green valley, where the silver brook,
From its full laver, pours the white cascade ;
And, babbling low amid the tangled woods,
Slips down through moss-grown stones with endless laughter.
And frequent, on the everlasting hills,
Its feet go forth, when it doth wrap itself
In all the dark embroidery of the storm,
And shouts the stern, strong wind.  And here, amid
The silent majesty of these deep woods,
Its presence shall uplift thy thoughts from earth,
As to the sunshine and the pure, bright air
Their tops the green trees lift.  Hence gifted bards
Have ever loved the calm and quiet shades.
For them there was an eloquent voice in all
The sylvan pomp of woods, the golden sun,
The flowers, the leaves, the river on its way,
Blue skies, and silver clouds, and gentle ~
The swelling upland, where the sidelong sun
Aslant the wooded slope, at evening, goes, ~
Groves, through whose broken roof the sky looks in,
Mountain, and shattered cliff, and sunny vale,
The distant lake, fountains, and mighty trees,
In many a lazy syllable, repeating
Their old poetic legends to the wind.

~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (Feb. 27, 1807 - Mar 24, 1882)  American poet.
The Poetical Works of Longfellow. Frederick Warne & Co.

WIND AND WINDOW FLOWER

Lovers, forget your love,
  And list to the love of these.
She a window flower,
  And he a winter breeze.

When the frosty window veil
  Was melted down at noon,
And the caged yellow bird
  Hung over her in tune,

He marked her through the pane
  He could not help but mark,
And only passed her by,
  To come again at dark.

He was a winter wind,
  Concerned with ice and snow,
Dead weeds and unmated birds,
  And little of love could know.

But he sighed upon the sill,
  He gave the sash a shake,
As witness all within
  Who lay that night awake.

Perchance he half prevailed
  To win her for the flight
From the firelit looking-glass
  And warm stove-window light.

But the flower leaned aside
  And thought of naught to say,
And morning found the breeze
  A hundred miles away.

~ Robert Frost

Woods in Winter

When Winter winds are piercing chill,
   And through the hawthorn blows the gale,
With solemn feet I tread the hill
   That overbrows the lonely vale.

O'er the bare upland, and away
   Through the long reach of dessert woods,
The embracing sunbeams chastely play,
   And gladden these deep solitudes.

When, twisted round the barren oak,
   The summer vine in beauty clung,
And summer winds the stillness broke,
   The crystal icicle is hung.

Where, from their frozen urns, mute springs
   Pour out the river's gradual tide,
Shrilly the skater's iron rings,
   And voices fill the woodland side.

Alas !  how changed from the fair scene,
   When birds sang out their mellow lay,
And winds were soft, and woods were green,
   And the song ceased not with the day.

 But still wild music is abroad,
   Pale, desert woods ! within your crowd ;
And gathering winds, in hoarse accord,
   Amid the vocal reeds pipe loud.

Chill airs and wintry winds !  my ear
   Has grown familiar with your song ;
I hear it in the opening year, ~
   I listen, and it cheers me long.

~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (Feb. 27, 1807 - Mar. 24, 1882) American poet

The Secret of The Sea

AH!  what pleasant visions haunt me
     As I gaze upon the sea !
All the old romantic legends,
     All my dreams, come back to me.

Sails of silk and ropes of sandal,
     Such as gleam in ancient lore;
And the singing of the sailers,
     And the answer from the shore !

Most of all, the Spanish ballad
     Haunts me oft, and tarries long,
Of the noble Count Arnaldos
     And the sailor's mystic song.

Like the long waves on a sea-beach,
     Where the sand as silver shines,
With a soft monotonous cadence,
     Flow its unrhymed lyric lines ;-

Telling how the Count Arnaldos,
     With his hawk upon his hand,
Saw a fair and stately galley,
     Steering onward to the land ;-

How he heard the ancient helmsman
     Cant a song so wild and clear,
That the sailing sea-bird slowly
     Poised upon the mast to hear,

Till his soul was full of longing,
     And he cried with impulse strong, --
     "Helmsman ! for the love of heaven,
     Teach me, too, that wondrous song !"

"Wouldst thou," so the helmsman answered,
     "Learn the secrets of the sea?
Only those who brave its dangers
     Comprehend its mystery !"

In each sail that skims the horizon,
     In each landward-blowing breeze,
I behold that stately galley,
     Hear those mournful melodies ;

Till my soul is full of longing
     For the secret of the sea,
And the heart of the great ocean
     Sends a thrilling pulse through me.

~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (Feb. 27, 1807 - Mar. 24, 1882) American Poet,
THE POETICAL WORKS OF LONGFELLOW, Frederick Warne & Co.


[Secret of this sea is a photo of Lake Erie.]

The Haldimand Stewardship Council is a group that shows a commitment to promoting responsible land care, sustaining resources, and working together for a healthier environment.  The council includes volunteer individuals who recognize and can encourage community involvement and interest in land stewardship.  Council members include farmers, woodlot owners, naturalists, business people, agency and industry representatives and other conservation groups.

 

Haldimand Stewardship Council

15 Cayuga Street, Cayuga

THE TABLES TURNED

Up!  up! my friend, and quit your books,
Or surely you'll grow double;
Up! up! my friend, and clear your looks;
Why all this toil and trouble?

The sun, above the mountain's head,
A freshening luster mellow
Through all the long green fields has spread,
His first sweet evening yellow.

Books!  'tis a dull and endless strife:
Come, hear the woodland linnet,
How sweet his music!  on my life,
There's more of wisdom in it.

And hark!  how blithe the throstle sings!
He, too, is no mean preacher;
Come forth into the light of things,
Let Nature be your teacher.

She has a world of ready wealth,
Our minds and hearts to bless ~
Spontaneous wisdom breathed by health,
Truth breathed by cheerfulness.

One impulse from a vernal wood
May teach you more of man,
Of moral evil and of good,
Than all the sages can.

Sweet is the lore which Nature brings;
Our meddling intellect
Misshapes the beauteous forms of things ~
We murder to dissect.

Enough of Science and of Art;
Close up those barren leaves;
Come forth, and bring with you a heart
That watches and receives.

~ William Wordsworth, English poet (1770 - 1850) Selected Poems, 1993 Gramercy Books

Gables of Cayuga Hotel Visible - To be Demolished for New Library

 

Hwy 3 & Cayuga Street Intersection ~ Contrast this with Current Location of Library in Village Green

Many of us attended an Open House regarding the proposed new Cayuga branch of the library.  The services and the architecture were discussed.  The resulting location on Highway 3 was not part of the public discussion that we can recall.  Compare the chosen - done deal - future location with the current location in the quiet Village Green.


Village Green

Cayuga Branch Haldimand Public Library in Village Green



Riverfront One Block From Village Green

Haldimand County Council has slated the landmark Cayuga Hotel for demolition for fall, 2016, with the planned new Cayuga Library to begin in the spring.  Unlike Cayuga's current library (see below) set in the quiet Village Green, the new library will be within feet of busy Highway 3, specifically at the intersection of Hwy. 3 and Cayuga Street.



Many of us disagree with relocating the library in Highway 3 intersection.  It is a done-deal.

Village Green

This summer we had crosswalks, sidewalks, streets w/asphalt, hanging plants, planters.  We retained our green space in the Village Green!  We have a proper bridge aligned with the highway. 

New Bridge Looking West

 

Talbot St. Looking West Toward The Bookshop & Bridge

ON THE GRASSHOPPER AND CRICKET

The poetry of earth is never dead :
     When all the birds are faint with the hot sun,
     And hide in cooling trees, a voice will run
From hedge to hedge about the new-mown mead  ;
That is the Grasshopper's ~ he takes the lead
     In summer luxury, ~ he has never done
     With his delights ; for when tired out with fun
He rests at ease beneath some pleasant weed.
The poetry of earth is ceasing never :
     On a lone winter evening, when the frost
          Has wrought a silence, from the stove there shrills
The Cricket's song, in warmth increasing ever,
     And seems to one in drowsiness half lost,
          The Grasshopper's among some grassy hills.

~ John Keats (1795 - 1821) English Romantic Poet.  The Poetical Works of John Keats edited with an Introduction and Textual Notes by H. Buxton Forman, C.B. , 1908 Reprinted...1940.

Thoughts on Father's Day ~

"The fellow that owns his own home is always just coming out of a hardware store." 
~ Kin Hubbard

"A man builds a fine house; and now he has a master, and a task for life is to furnish, watch, show it, and keep it in repair the rest of his life."
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

"You don't have to deserve your mother's love.  You have to deserve your father's.  He's more particular."
~ Robert Frost

"The fundamental defect of fathers is that they want their children to be a credit to them."
~ Bertrand Russell

"Home is not where you live but where they understand you."
~ Christian Morgensters

~ "The Harper Book of Quotations", Robert I. Fitzhenry, editor.  1993, HarperCollins.

"Places of nestling green for Poets made."  ~ Story of Rimini

I STOOD tip-toe upon a little hill,
The air was cooling, and so very still,
That the sweet buds which with a modest pride
Pull droopingly, in slanting curve aside,
Their scantly leav'd, and finely tapering stems,
Had not yet lost those starry diadems
Caught from the early sobbing of the morn.
The clouds were pure and white as flocks new shorn,
And fresh from the clear brook ; sweetly they slept
On the blue fields of heaven, and then there crept
A little noiseless noise among the leaves,
Born of the very sigh that silence heaves :
For not the faintest motion could be seen
Of all the shades that slanted o'er the green.
There was wide wand'ring for the greediest eye,
To peer about upon variety ;
Far round the horizon's crystal air to skim,
And trace the dwindled edgings of its brim ;
To picture out the quaint, and curious bending
Of a fresh woodland alley, never ending ;
Or by the bowery clefts, and leafy shelves,
Guess where the jaunty streams refresh themselves.
I gazed awhile, and felt as light, and free
As though the fanning wings of Mercury
Had play'd upon my heels:  I was light-hearted,
And many pleasures to my vision started ;
So I straightway began to pluck a posey
Of luxuries bright, milky, soft and rosy.

~ John Keats (1795 - 1821) English romantic poet.  POETICAL WORKS OF KEATS,  Edited by H. Buxton Forman, C.B.  HUMPHREY MILFORD, OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS, Great Britain. First published in 1908, reprinted...1940.

 
 

THE TREE

I stood still and was a tree amid the wood,
Knowing the truth of things unseen before;
Of Daphne and the laurel bow
And that god-feasting couple old
That grew elm-oak amid the wold.
'Twas not until the gods had been
Kindly entreated, and been brought within
Unto the hearth of their heart's home
That they might do this wonder thing:
Nathless I have been a tree amid the wood
And many a new thing understood
That was rank folly to my head before.

~ Ezra Pound ( b.1885 - 1972) American poet, author, critic.

 

 

 

Daffodils April 2, 2016

Daffodils April 1, 2016

APRIL 1885

Wanton with long delay the gay spring leaping cometh;
The blackthorn starreth now his bough on the eve of May:
All day in the sweet box-tree the bee for pleasure hummeth:
The cuckoo sends afloat his note on the air all day.

Now dewy nights again and rain in gentle shower
At root of tree and flower have quenched the winter's drouth:
On high the hot sun smiles, and banks of cloud uptower
In bulging heads that crowd for miles the dazzling south.

~ Robert Seymour Bridges (1844 - 1930) Britain's poet laureate.  Known for many hymns.

~ Chief Modern Poets of ENGLAND AND AMERICA
MACMILLAN COMPANY, 1936 (First ed. 1929)

The Flowers

ALL the names I know from nurse;
Gardener's garters, Shepherd's purse,
Bachelor's buttons, Lady's smock,
And the Lady Hollyhock.

Fairy places, fairy things,
Fairy woods where the wild bee wings,
Tiny trees for tiny dames ~
These must all be fairy names!

Tiny woods below whose boughs
Shady fairies weave a house;
Tiny tree-tops, rose or thyme,
Where the braver fairies climb!

Fair are grown-up people's trees,
But the fairest woods are these;
Where if I were not so tall,
I should live for good and all.

by Robert Louis Stevenson

When the sun shines upon the crust of March
In the bare wood, how blue the shadows lie
Along the snow between the gray tree-boles!
And where the muffled stream runs, bluer still
Between its snowy banks edged with frail ice,
The silvery oaks and sugar maples stand
Like a faint tracing on a lacquer tray,
Or a worn pattern on old Sheffield plate.
The strong sun melts the snow in open places;
A calling crow flies over, trailing north
His silent shadow down the wooded slope;
And then to bring the winter scene to life,
Etched on the memory like a haunting smile
A bluebird flashes to an apple bough.

~  Bliss Carmen, "A Bluebird in March" ~ Sanctuary, Sunshine House Sonnets,
McClelland & Stewart, 1929.

Along the Grand

[Photos:  Cayuga-on-the-Grand, Feb., 2016 lbw]

SANCTUARY by Bliss Carman

Out of the turmoil whither shall I go?
How cure the fever of a mind distraught,
The crazed futility of haste assuage,
And dear serenity's lost poise restore?
Is there no respite for the racing pulse,
No haven from the day's demoniac din
And the relentless frenzy of the night?
Were may the haunting peace of God be found?
No cabined luxury contents the soul,
Homesick for solace of its native air.
For healing of the wind among the pines,
The stilling beauty of the clear new moon,
The strength of hills, the joy of singing streams,
Take any road at hand, to Out-of-doors.

~ ESCAPE by Bliss Carman (1861 - 1929) Canadian Poet Laureate

 

 

SANCTUARY SUNSHINE HOUSE SONNETS by Bliss Carman, Illustrations by Whitman Bailey.

McClelland & Stewart, 1929.