Showing posts with label 19th century poetry. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 19th century poetry. Show all posts

Wednesday, April 17, 2013

All Things Bright and Beautiful (Cecil Frances Alexander, 1818-1895)


All things bright and beautiful,
All creatures great and small,
All things wise and wonderful,
The Lord God made them all.

Each little flower that opens,
Each little bird that sings,
He made their glowing colours,
He made their tiny wings.

All things bright and beautiful,
All creatures great and small,
All things wise and wonderful,
The Lord God made them all.


"The rich man in his castle,
The poor man at his gate;
He made them High and lowly
He ordered their estate."

All things bright and beautiful,
All creatures great and small,
All things wise and wonderful,
The Lord God made them all.


The purple headed mountain,
The river running by,
The sunset and the morning,
That brightens up the sky;

All things bright and beautiful,
All creatures great and small,
All things wise and wonderful,
The Lord God made them all.


The cold wind in the winter,
The pleasant summer sun,
The ripe fruits in the garden,
He made them every one:

All things bright and beautiful,
All creatures great and small,
All things wise and wonderful,
The Lord God made them all.


The tall trees in the greenwood,
The meadows where we play,
The rushes by the water,
We gather every day;

All things bright and beautiful,
All creatures great and small,
All things wise and wonderful,
The Lord God made them all.


He gave us eyes to see them,
And lips that we might tell,
How great is God Almighty,
Who has made all things well.

All things bright and beautiful,
All creatures great and small,
All things wise and wonderful,

The Lord God made them all.

__________________________

The past few days have been horrendous--the Boston Marathon bombings and ricin incidents have shocked and dismayed us.

I thought we could use a little sentimentality.

Wednesday, November 30, 2011

Thanatopsis (William Cullen Bryant, 1794-1878)


Image adapted from a painting by Hans Baldung-Grie, circa 1484-1545
______________________________________
To him who, in the love of Nature, holds
Communion with her visible forms, she speaks
A various language: for his gayer hours
She has a voice of gladness, and a smile
And eloquence of beauty; and she glides
Into his darker musings with a mild
And healing sympathy, that steals away
Their sharpness, ere he is aware. When thoughts
Of the last bitter hour come like a blight
Over thy spirit, and sad images
Of the stern agony, and shroud, and pall,
And breathless darkness, and the narrow house,
Make thee to shudder, and grow sick at heart--
Go forth under the open sky, and list
To Nature's teachings, while from all around--
Earth and her waters, and the depths of air--
Comes a still voice:--Yet a few days, and thee
The all-beholding sun shall see no more
In all his course; nor yet in the cold ground,
Where thy pale form was laid, with many tears,
Nor in the embrace of ocean, shall exist
Thy image. Earth, that nourished thee, shall claim
Thy growth, to be resolved to earth again;
And, lost each human trace, surrendering up
Thine individual being, shalt thou go
To mix forever with the elements;
To be a brother to the insensible rock,
And to the sluggish clod, which the rude swain
Turns with his share, and treads upon. The oak
Shall send his roots abroad, and pierce thy mold.
Yet not to thy eternal resting place
Shalt thou retire alone--nor couldst thou wish
Couch more magnificent. Thou shalt lie down
With patriarchs of the infant world--with kings,
The powerful of the earth--the wise, the good,
Fair forms, and hoary seers of ages past,
All in one mighty sepulcher. The hills,
Rock-ribbed and ancient as the sun; the vales
Stretching in pensive quietness between;
The venerable woods; rivers that move
In majesty, and the complaining brooks,
That make the meadows green, and, poured round all,
Old ocean's grey and melancholy waste--
Are but the solemn decorations all
Of the great tomb of man! The golden sun,
The planets, all the infinite host of heaven,
Are shining on the sad abodes of death,
Through the still lapse of ages. All that tread
The globe are but a handful to the tribes
That slumber in its bosom.--Take the wings
Of morning--pierce the Barcan wilerness,
Or lost thyself in the continuous woods
Where rolls the Oregon, and hears no sound,
Save his own dashings--yet the dead are there!
And millions in those solitudes, since first
The flight of years began, have laid them down
In their last sleep--the dead reign there alone!
So shalt thou rest; and what if thou withdraw
In silence from the living, and no friend
Take note of thy departure? All that breathe
Will share thy destiny. The gay will laugh
When thou art gone, the solemn brood of care
Plod on, and each one, as before, will chase
His favorite phantom; yet all these shall leave
Their mirth and their employments, and shall come
And make their bed with thee. As the long train
Of ages glides away, the sons of men--
The youth in life's green spring, and he who goes
In the full strength of years, matron, and maid,
The speechless babe, and the gray-headed man--
Shall, one by one, be gathered to thy side,
By those who in their turn shall follow them.
So live, that when thy summons comes to join
The innumerable caravan which moves
To that mysterious realm, where each shall take
His chamber in the silent halls of death,
Thou go not, like the quarry-slave at night,
Scourged to his dungeon, but, sustained and soothed
By an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave
Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch
About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams.
________________________________
1814

Tuesday, November 15, 2011

Prospice (Robert Browning, 1812-1889)


Fear death? -- to feel the fog in my throat,
The mist in my face,
When the snows begin, and the blasts denote
I am nearing the place,
The power of the night, the press of the storm,
The post of the foe;
Where he stands, the Arch Fear in a visible form,
Yet the strong man must go:
For the journey is done and the summit attained,
And the barriers fall,
Though a battle's to fight ere the guerdon be gained,
The reward of it all.
I was ever a fighter, so -- one fight more,
The best and the last!
I would hate that death bandaged my eyes, and forbore,
And bade me creep past.
No! let me taste the whole of it, fare like my peers
The heroes of old,
Bear the brunt, in a minute pay glad life's arrears
Of pain, darkness and cold.
For sudden the worst turns the best to the brave,
The black minute's at end,
And the elements' rage, the fiend-voices that rave,
Shall dwindle, shall blend,
Shall change, shall become first a peace out of pain,
Then a light, then thy breast,
O thou soul of my soul! I shall clasp thee again,
And with God be the rest!

Saturday, November 12, 2011

Requiem (Robert Louis Stevenson, 1850-1894)


Under the wide and starry sky,
Dig the grave and let me lie.
Glad did I live and gladly die,
And I laid me down with a will.

This be the verse you grave for me:
Here he lies where he longed to be;
Home is the sailor, home from the sea,
And the hunter home from the hill.
________________________
"Requiem," An Anthology of Modern Verse. Ed. A. Methuen. London: Methuen & Co., 1921.

Wednesday, November 2, 2011

The Children’s Hour, by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882)


This drawing has been adapted from a real child's drawing.
To see the original, see
Rhia.tv
______________________________________

Between the dark and the daylight,
When the night is beginning to lower,
Comes a pause in the day’s occupations,
That is known as the Children’s Hour.

I hear in the chamber above me
The patter of little feet,
The sound of a door that is opened,
And voices soft and sweet.

From my study I see in the lamplight,
Descending the broad hall stair,
Grave Alice, and laughing Allegra,
And Edith with golden hair.

A whisper, and then a silence:
Yet I know by their merry eyes
They are plotting and planning together
To take me by surprise.

A sudden rush from the stairway,
A sudden raid from the hall!
By three doors left unguarded
They enter my castle wall!

They climb up into my turret
O’er the arms and back of my chair;
If I try to escape, they surround me;
They seem to be everywhere.

They almost devour me with kisses,
Their arms about me entwine,
Till I think of the Bishop of Bingen
In his Mouse-Tower on the Rhine!

Do you think, O blue-eyed banditti,
Because you have scaled the wall,
Such an old mustache as I am
Is not a match for you all!

I have you fast in my fortress,
And will not let you depart,
But put you down into the dungeon
In the round-tower of my heart.

And there will I keep you forever,
Yes, forever and a day,
Till the walls shall crumble to ruin,
And moulder in dust away!
____________________________________

First published in The Atlantic Monthly, September 1860.

Tuesday, November 1, 2011

The Snow Storm (Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1803-1882)


In honor of the Autumn snow storm of October 29, 2011:
Announced by all the trumpets of the sky,
Arrives the snow, and, driving o'er the fields,
Seems nowhere to alight: the whited air
Hides hill and woods, the river, and the heaven,
And veils the farmhouse at the garden's end.
The sled and traveller stopped, the courier's feet
Delayed, all friends shut out, the housemates sit
Around the radiant fireplace, enclosed
In a tumultuous privacy of storm.
Come see the north wind's masonry.
Out of an unseen quarry evermore
Furnished with tile, the fierce artificer
Curves his white bastions with projected roof
Round every windward stake, or tree, or door.
Speeding, the myriad-handed, his wild work
So fanciful, so savage, nought cares he
For number or proportion. Mockingly,
On coop or kennel he hangs Parian wreaths;
A swan-like form invests the hidden thorn;
Fills up the farmer's lane from wall to wall,
Maugre the farmer's sighs; and at the gate
A tapering turret overtops the work.
And when his hours are numbered, and the world
Is all his own, retiring, as he were not,
Leaves, when the sun appears, astonished Art
To mimic in slow structures, stone by stone,
Built in an age, the mad wind's night-work,
The frolic architecture of the snow.
1835, 1841

Monday, October 31, 2011

Have a Spooktacular Halloween! The Ghost of Goshen (Anonymous)


Through Goshen Hollow, where hemlocks grow,
Where rushing rills, with flash and flow,
Are over the rough rocks falling;
Where fox, where bear, and catamount hide,
In holes and dens In the mountain side,
A Circuit-preacher once used to ride,
And his name was Rufus Rawling.

He was set in his ways and what was strange,
If you argued with him he would not change,
One could get nothing through him.
Solemn and slow in style was he,
Slender and slim as a tamarack tree,
And always ready to disagree
With every one that knew him.

One night he saddled his sorrel mare,
And started over to Ripton, where
He had promised to do some preaching.
Away he cantered over the hill,
Past the schoolhouse at Capen's mill;
The moon was down and the place was still,
Save the sound of a night-hawk screeching.

At last he came to a deep ravine,
He felt a kind of queer, and mean
Sensation stealing o'er him.
Old Sorrel began to travel slow,
Then gave a snort and refused to go;
The parson chucked, and he holloa'd "whoa,"
And wondered what was before him.

Then suddenly he seemed to hear
A gurgling groan so very near,
It scattered his senses nearly.
"Go 'ome, go'ome," It loudly cried,
"Go 'ome," re-echoed the mountain side,
"Go 'ome," away In the distance died-
He wished he was home sincerely.

And then before his startled sight,
A light flashed out upon the night
That seemed to "beat all creation."
Then through the bushes a figure stole,
With eyes of fire and lips of coal,
That froze his blood and shook his soul
With horror and consternation.

He lost his sermon, he dropped his book,
His hair stood up, and his saddle shook
Like a sawmill under motion.
No cry he uttered, no word he said,
But, suddenly turning Sorrel's head,
Away and out of the woods he fled
As fast as he could for Goshen.

The ghost he saw and the rattling bones
Were a pumpkin, a gourd, and some gravel stones,
That gave him all that glory;
But ne'er again up that mountain side,
In the light would Rufus Rawling ride,
And many a time I've laughed till I cried
To hear him tell the story.
__________________________
Happy Halloween! Now for The Mad Doctor (1933),
starring Mickey Mouse

Enjoy!

Saturday, October 29, 2011

Bonnie George Campbell (Anonymous)


Hie upon Hielands,
and laigh upon Tay,
Bonnie George Campbell
rode out on a day.

Saddled and bridled
and booted rade he;
Toom* hame cam' the saddle,
but never cam' he.

Down cam' his auld mither,
greetin' fu' sair,
And down cam' his bonny wife,
wringin' her hair:--

"My meadow lies green,
and my corn is unshorn,
My barn is to build
and my babe is unborn."

Saddled and bridled
and booted rade he,
Toom hame cam' the saddle
but never cam' he.

_______________________
*Toom = empty

Friday, October 28, 2011

To Autumn (John Keats, 1795-1821)


1

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;
To bend with apples the moss’d cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
For Summer has o’er-brimm’d their clammy cells.

2

Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?
Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,
Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;
Or on a half-reap’d furrow sound asleep,
Drows’d with the fume of poppies, while thy hook
Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers:
And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep
Steady thy laden head across a brook;
Or by a cyder-press, with patient look,
Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours.

3

Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?
Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,—
While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,
And touch the stubble plains with rosy hue;
Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn
Among the river sallows, borne aloft
Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;
Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft
The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft;
And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.
1819

Thursday, October 27, 2011

The Song of Wandering Aengus (William Butler Yeats, 1865-1939)


I went out to the hazel wood,
Because a fire was in my head,
And cut and peeled a hazel wand,
And hooked a berry to a thread;
And when white moths were on the wing,
And moth-like stars were flickering out,
I dropped the berry in a stream
And caught a little silver trout.

When I had laid it on the floor
I went to blow the fire a-flame,
But something rustled on the floor,
And someone called me by my name:
It had become a glimmering girl
With apple blossom in her hair
Who called me by my name and ran
And faded through the brightening air.

Though I am old with wandering
Through hollow lands and hilly lands,
I will find out where she has gone,
And kiss her lips and take her hands;
And walk among long dappled grass,
And pluck till time and times are done,
The silver apples of the moon,
The golden apples of the sun.
--From The Wind Among the Reeds, 1899.

Wednesday, June 22, 2011

A Fable (Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1803-1882)

Ralph Waldo Emerson, circa 1857
_________________________________________
The mountain and the squirrel
Had a quarrel,
And the former called the latter, "Little Prig":
Bun replied,
"You are doubtless very big;
But all sorts of things and weather
Must be taken in together,
To make up a year
And a sphere.
And I think it no disgrace
To occupy my place.
If I'm not so large as you,
You are not so small as I,
And not half so spry.


I'll not deny you make
A very pretty squirrel track;
Talents differ; all is well and wisely put;
If I cannot carry forests on my back,
Neither can you crack a nut."

Sunday, November 8, 2009

At the Mid Hour of Night (Thomas Moore, 1779–1852)

*


At the mid hour of night, when stars are weeping, I fly
To the lone vale we loved, when life shone warm in thine eye;
And I think oft, if spirits can steal from the regions of air
To revisit past scenes of delight, thou wilt come to me there,
And tell me our love is remember'd even in the sky.

Then I sing the wild song it once was rapture to hear,
When our voices commingling breathed like one on the ear;
And as Echo far off through the vale my sad orison rolls,
I think, O my love! 'tis thy voice from the Kingdom of Souls
Faintly answering still the notes that once were so dear.

Thomas Moore
________________________________________________________

*

Sunday, February 15, 2009

XIII. When I was One-and-Twenty (A.E. Housman, 1859-1936)

*
A.E. Housman
______________________________________________________


When I was one-and-twenty
---I heard a wise man say,
‘Give crowns and pounds and guineas
---But not your heart away;

Give pearls away and rubies
---But keep your fancy free.’
But I was one-and-twenty,
---No use to talk to me.

When I was one-and-twenty
---I heard him say again,
‘The heart out of the bosom
---Was never given in vain;

'Tis paid with sighs a plenty
---And sold for endless rue.’
And I am two-and-twenty,
---And oh, 'tis true, 'tis true.
*

Tuesday, January 20, 2009

Abraham Lincoln's 1865 Inaugural Poem

*
Abraham Lincoln
___________________________________________________________________

An Inaugural Poem,

Dedicated to Abraham Lincoln, of Illinois, and Andrew Johnson, of Tennessee

*

March 4, 1861 - Match 4, 1865.


In the glorious days of old,
When all manly words were gold,
The pledge of haughty Southern Knight
Was held as true and kept as bright
As if it had been coined in heaven,
And to the world by angels given.

But when the curse of slavery fell,
As though a pestilence from hell
Had poisoned all the land!
A direful demon took command;
And they who owed their country all,
Struck at her life, contrived her fall,

But first they broke their solemn word,
Before they drew the murderous sword,
Forgot their creed, so orthodox,
And scorned the sacred ballot-box;
Then here, where Freedom's temple stood,
Tried to let loose the tide of blood.

Oh! doubtful day, four years ago!
When, threatened by the assassin foe,
Our President was sworn to stand
By God and by his Native Land;
But traitors failed, because they knew
Their plots were clear to patriots true.

And when the fiends of civil war
Filled all the South with blood and fire,
Long swayed the dreadful, doubtful fight,
And the world shuddered at the sight:
Thousands of all our boldest braves
Fought, fell, and died in honored graves.

For days, for months, for lingering years,
This strife of kindred and this flow of tears,
Was grimly fought and bitterly maintained
Till none could tell which side had gained:
But now, at last, a rescued nation
Hails here her perfect vindication.

And God is good, for he has said,
(Oh voice to wake the myriad dead!)
If your first oath was sworn in gloom,
Unknowing then your fate or doom;
At your to-day's inauguration
You do behold your land's salvation.

No scowling traitors in this hour
Will dare to thwart the people's power:
No forsworn plotters can implore
That Freedom's temple may run o'er
With the heart's blood of him who won
The post twice filled by Washington.

For like to him so Lincoln ran
The race for Liberty and Man,
And like to him a people's voice
Proclaimed him twice the nation's choice;
And by this act have set their seal
To show the gratitude they feel.

Now as the President ascends
Yon marble flight, and lowly blends
Before the majesty of the laws,
And vows to serve his country's cause,
Nothing but victory for the Union
Will gladden all that vast communion.

Before him frown no angry foemen,
For all are friends and sturdy yeomen;
But gazing up and to him listening,
Behold the face of Johnson glistening--
He who in renowned December
Fought the great fight we all remember;

Who, without sign of fear or favor,
Struck 'gainst traitors with best endeavor--
Made them quail beneath his glances,
And fly before his bold advances,
And now, from rescued Tennessee,
Takes part in this, Our Jubilee.

Oh! History, with thy impartial pen,
Tell us in what age of godlike men
Hast thou been ever called to write
A page so wondrous and so bright?
Where is the struggle that can equal
That of which to-day's the sequel?
______________________________________

From the Chronicle Junior.

Printed in the Inauguration Procession of Lincoln & Johnson.

Washington, D.C., March 4th, 1865.


American Treasures of the Library of Congress
__________________________________________________________________
*

Friday, December 26, 2008

Winter (John Keats, 1795 – 1821)

*
Portrait of John Keats by William Hilton, after Joseph Severn (National Portrait Gallery, London).
______________________________________________________________


In a drear-nighted December,
Too happy, happy Tree,
Thy branches ne’er remember
Their green felicity:
The north cannot undo them,
With a sleety whistle through them;
Nor frozen thawings glue them
From budding at the prime.

In a drear-nighted December,
Too happy, happy Brook,
Thy bubblings ne’er remember
Apollo’s summer look;
But with a sweet forgetting,
They stay their crystal fretting,
Never, never petting
About the frozen time.

Ah! would ’twere so with many
A gentle girl and boy!
But were there ever any
Writhed not at passed joy?
To know the change and feel it,
When there is none to heal it,
Nor numbed sense to steal it,
Was never said in rhyme.
Now for a little smarm--okay, so I'm feeling a bit sentimental because it's still the holiday season...
_________________________________________________________________

Our Winter Love (The Lettermen)



sylvette323

_________________________________________________________________

*

Sunday, December 21, 2008

If-- (Rudyard Kipling, 1865 -1936)

*
Rudyard Kipling in his study, circa 1895.
______________________________________________________________

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you
But make allowance for their doubting too,
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream--and not make dreams your master,
If you can think--and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it all on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings--nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much,
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And--which is more--you'll be a Man, my son!
--1895

_______________________________________________________________

Gov. Rod Blagojevich Press Conference (December 19, 2008)



taylormarsh

_______________________________________________________________


Thanks to Bill Lucey for suggesting this poem, especially at this particular time in history.
*

Thursday, December 11, 2008

Epigram for Wall Street (by Edgar Allan Poe, 1809 - 1849)

*


I'll tell you a plan for gaining wealth,
-----Better than banking, trade or leases —
Take a bank note and fold it up,
-----And then you will find your money in creases!
This wonderful plan, without danger or loss,
Keeps your cash in your hands, where nothing can trouble it;
And every time that you fold it across,
-----'Tis as plain as the light of the day that you double it!
--Evening Mirror (New York), January 23, 1845.

____________________________________________________________

Wall Street, "Greed Is Good" (Michael Douglas)



SirfSifr
____________________________________________________________

*

Tuesday, December 9, 2008

The Outlaw (Sir Walter Scott, 1771 - 1832)

*
Portrait of Walter Scott, novelist and poet, 1822 by Sir Henry Raeburn.
______________________________________________________________

This posting is dedicated to Gov. Rod Blagojevich (D-Illinois); may he watch his backside in the Federal Pen. See YouTube press conference below.

O, Brignall banks are wild and fair,
And Greta woods are green,
And you may gather garlands there,
Would grace a summer queen.
And as I rode by Dalton Hall
Beneath the turrets high,
A Maiden on the castle wall
Was singing merrily--
"O, Brignall banks are fresh and fair,
And Greta woods are green;
I'd rather rove with Edmund there
Than reign our English queen."

-- "If, Maiden, thou wouldst wend with me,
To leave both tower and town,
Thou first must guess what life lead we,
That dwell by dale and down?
And if thou canst that riddle read,
As read full well you may,
Then to the greenwood shalt thou speed
As blithe as Queen of May."
Yet sung she, "Brignall banks are fair,
And Greta woods are green;
I'd rather rove with Edmund there
Than reign our English queen.

"I read you, by your bugle horn
And by your palfrey good,
I read you for a Ranger sworn,
To keep the king's greenwood."
"A Ranger, lady, winds his horn,
And 'tis at peep of light;
His blast is heard at merry morn,
And mine at dead of night."
Yet sung she, "Brignall banks are fair,
And Greta woods are gay;
I would I were with Edmund there,
To reign his Queen of May!

"With burnish'd brand and musketoon,
So gallantly you come,
I read you for a bold Dragoon
That lists the tuck of drum."
-- "I list no more the tuck of drum,
No more the trumpet hear;
But when the beetle sounds his hum,
My comrades take the spear.
And O! though Brignall banks be fair
And Greta woods be gay,
Yet mickle must the maiden dare,
Would reign my Queen of May!

"Maiden! a nameless life I lead,
A nameless death I'll die!
The fiend whose lantern lights the mead
Were better mate than I!
And when I'm with my comrades met
Beneath the greenwood bough,
What once we were we all forget,
Nor think what we are now."
Chorus

"Yet Brignall banks are fresh and fair,
And Greta woods are green,
And you may gather garlands there
Would grace a summer queen."

___________________________________________________________________

U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald: Bleep-Gate



videostuf says,

Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich was arrested on Tuesday on charges he brazenly conspired to sell or trade the U.S. Senate seat left vacant by President-elect Barack Obama to the highest bidder in what a federal prosecutor called a "corruption crime spree."

U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald told a news conference prosecutors make "no allegations" Obama was aware of any alleged scheming.

Blagojevich also was charged with illegally threatening to withhold state assistance to Tribune Co., the owner of the Chicago Tribune, in the sale of Wrigley Field, according to a federal criminal complaint. In return for state assistance, Blagojevich allegedly wanted members of the paper's editorial board who had been critical of him fired.

"We were in the middle of a corruption crime spree and we wanted to stop it," Fitzgerald said Tuesday, calling the corruption charges against Blagojevich "a truly new low."
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Friday, December 5, 2008

The Chambered Nautilus (Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr., 1809-1894)

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This is the ship of pearl, which, poets feign,
Sails the unshadowed main,--
The venturous bark that flings
On the sweet summer wind its purpled wings
In gulfs enchanted, where the Siren sings,
And coral reefs lie bare,
Where the cold sea-maids rise to sun their streaming hair.

Its webs of living gauze no more unfurl;
Wrecked is the ship of pearl!
And every chambered cell,
Where its dim dreaming life was wont to dwell,
As the frail tenant shaped his growing shell,
Before thee lies revealed,--
Its irised ceiling rent, its sunless crypt unsealed!

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EnjoysReality

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Year after year beheld the silent toil
That spread his lustrous coil;
Still, as the spiral grew,
He left the past year's dwelling for the new,
Stole with soft step its shining archway through,
Built up its idle door,
Stretched in his last-found home, and knew the old no more.

Thanks for the heavenly message brought by thee,
Child of the wandering sea,
Cast from her lap, forlorn!
From thy dead lips a clearer note is born
Than ever Triton blew from wreathed horn;
While on mine ear it rings,
Through the deep caves of thought I hear a voice that sings:--

Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul,
As the swift seasons roll!
Leave thy low-vaulted past!
Let each new temple, nobler than the last,
Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast,
Till thou at length art free,
Leaving thine outgrown shell by life's unresting sea!
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Thursday, December 4, 2008

The Northern Seas (William Howitt, 1792-1879)

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Northern Seas, Vilhelm Melbye, 1870
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Up! Up! let us a voyage take;
Why sit we here at ease?
Find us a vessel tight and snug,
Bound for the Northern Seas.

I long to see the Northern Lights,
With their rushing splendors, fly,
Like living things, with flaming wings,
Wide o'er the wondrous sky.

I long to see those icebergs vast,
With heads all crowned with snow;
Whose green roots sleep in the awful deep,
Two hundred fathoms low.

I long to hear the thundering crash
Of their terrific fall;
And the echoes from a thousand cliffs,
Like lonely voices call.

There shall we see the fierce white bear,
The sleepy seals aground,
And the spouting whales that to and fro
Sail with a dreary sound.

There may we tread on depths of ice,
That the hairy mammoth hide;
Perfect as when, in times of old,
The mighty creature died.

And while the unsetting sun shines on
Through the still heaven's deep blue,
We'll traverse the azure waves, the herds
Of the dread sea-horse to view.

We'll pass the shores of solemn pine,
Where wolves and black bears prowl,
And away to the rocky isles of mist
To rouse the northern fowl.

Up there shall start ten thousand wings,
With a rushing, whistling din;
Up shall the auk and fulmar start--
All but the fat penquin.

And there, in the wastes of the silent sky,
With the silent earth below,
We shall see far off to his lonely rock
The lonely eagle go.

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Rough Seas, Iceland



etmackay

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