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

 

Happy Holiday Easter Weekend

 

 

The year's at the spring

And day's at the morn'

Morning's at seven'

The hill-side's dew-pearled;

The lark's on the wing'

The snail's on the thorn:

God's in his heaven ~

All's right with the world!

 

~ Robert Browning (1812 - 1889) English poet, playwright.

 

[Photos:  Ruthven, June 2011 lbw]

 

 

"When she rises up, she gets confused!"
Washington Post, 1983, when the wife of the Canadian Ambassador meets President Reagan.

"Before we met the president in his Oval Office they took us to another room, where some anxious young men told us where to stand, how long to speak and when to shove off.  They told me that only Mr. Ambassador (that's what the Americans call my husband) was to have his photo opportunity with the president, in front of the fireplace.  Wife of Ambassador was supposed to move away from the fireplace and out of camera range.
Well, you know how they used to describe me at home:  "When she rises up, she gets confused."  After the handshake I backed into the camera crew.  Some of the young men began to hiss at me, but the president grabbed my arm and insisted I be in the picture too.  I really didn't want to have my picture taken with the president because I know my hair looked like corkscrews.  But I didn't have enough time to tell the president about this hairdresser with the gold chains who had just given me the worst permanent in my whole life and that it was going to be weeks before I was photographable."

~ Sondra Gotlieb (b. 1936) Canadian journalist, novelist, lives in Toronto, Ontario. When I Rises Up, I Gets Confused!  The Best of Sondra Gotlieb. McArthur & Company 2004.