There's a whisper down the field where the year has shot her yield,
   And the ricks stand grey to the sun,
Singing:~ 'Over then, come over, for the bee has quit the clover,
   And your English summer's done.'
   You have heard the beat of the off-shore wind,
   And the thresh of the deep-sea rain;
   You have heard the song~how long?  how long?
   Pull out on the trail again!
Ha' done with the Tents of Shem, dear lass,
We've seen the seasons through,
And it's time to turn on the old trail, our own trail, the out trail,
Pull out, pull out, on the Long Trail~the trail that is always new!

~Rudyard Kipling (1865 - 1936) The Long Trail

"Teach us delight in simple things,
And mirth that has no bitter springs;
Forgiveness free of evil done,
And love to all men 'neath the sun!" ~ Rudyard Kipling (1865 - 1936)

You Know You're in Cayuga When. . .

Elizabeth Barrett Browning, English poet wrote to her brother prior to secretly marrying Robert Browning, begging for understanding and asking her brother to explain to their father her love for the man she was about to marry.*

"...Mr. Browning has been attached to me for nearly two years ~ at first and for long I could not believe that he (who is what you know a little) could care for such as I, except in an illusion and a dream...With a protest, he submitted, and months passed on so.  Still he came continually & wrote & made me feel with every breath I drew in his presence, that he loved me with no ordinary affection...

"I never believed that a man whom I could love (I hated having a need to look up high in order to love)...could be satisfied with loving me.  And yet he did~does.  Then we have one mind on all subjects~ & the solemner they are, the nearer we seem to approach.  If poets, we are together, still more we are Christians.  For these nearly two years we have known each other's opinions & thoughts & feelings, weakness & strength, as few persons in the position have had equal opportunities of doing."

*Elizabeth's father never spoke to her again.

~ The 50 GREATEST LOVE LETTERS of All Time, edited by D. H. Lowenherz, Crown Publishers, 2002.

Love you seek for, presupposes

   Summer heat and sunny glow,

Tell me, do you find moss-roses

   Budding, blooming in the snow?

Snow might kill the rose-tree's root~

Shake it quickly from your foot,
   Lest it harm you as you go.

From the ivy where it dapples

   A grey ruin, stone by stone,
Do you look for grapes or apples,

   Or for sad green leaves alone?

Pluck the leaves off, two or three~

Keep them for morality

   When you shall be safe and gone.

~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Sonnets From the Portuguese and Other Love Poems.

"If you make positive associations with nature early, then you can draw from that well, wherever you are.  You can summon that scene and calm yourself down.  And because you spent so much time there you can vividly evoke it, right down to the scent of the trees and the sound of the wind.

"It's not a bad thing to have at your disposal.  No matter how old you are."

~ Bruce Grierson, contributing editor to explore magazine.  July/August 2009.