2024 Spring Vacation, NL, 1 of 5

Valentine’s Day

VALENTINE

To greet the new-born blooming year, 
What varied flowery sweets appear, 
The little birds begin to sing, 
And nature smiles to welcome spring. 
Yet these, my love, soon decay; 
The songsters on the leafy spray
Will silent sit, nor heed the year,
Nor sweetly varied flowers appear.
In constant these - but I will prove
Example of unchanging love;
Entwine my faithful heart with thine, 
And ever be thy Valentine.

—Anon. 1805

A Christmas Haiku

Grace and truth is He
Jesus unshackles mankind sins 
Paradise regained

L'

I Find Sweet Peace in Depths of Autumn Woods

Half Dome Panorama, Yosemite NP, Cook's Meadow Loop View, 25 October, 2023

November 
by Elizabeth Stoddard
(1823-1902)

Much have I spoken of the faded leaf; 
Long have I listened to the wailing wind, 
And watched it ploughing through the heavy clouds, 
For autumn charms my melancholy mind. 

When autumn comes, the poets sing a dirge: 
The year must perish; all the flowers are dead; 
The sheaves are gathered; and the mottled quail 
Runs in the stubble, but the lark has fled! 

Still, autumn ushers in the Christmas cheer, 
The holly-berries and the ivy-tree: 
They weave a chaplet for the Old Year's bier 
These waiting mourners do not sing for me! 

I find sweet peace in depths of autumn woods, 
Where grow the ragged ferns and roughened moss; 
The naked, silent trees have taught me this,--
The loss of beauty is not always loss!

Rare View of a Rainbow

Dear G_:

While having dinner tonight, the sun was shining but it was raining at 1800 hours. (A meteorological paradox always amazes me.) I beheld a rainbow through the dining area window! Indeed, this was a very rare phenomenon for a rainbow to appear conveniently for my viewing.

I took some photos of the rainbow from the garage looking eastward. Later they were combined as a panorama. Here it is.

Apropos of the event, here is Spurgeon quote excerpted from his Faith’s Check Book:

“Faith always sees the bow of covenant promise whenever sense sees the cloud of affliction. God has a bow with which He might shoot out His arrows of destruction; but see! it is turned upward. It is a bow without an arrow or a string; it is a bow hung out for show, no longer used for war. It is a bow of many colors, expressing joy and delight, and not a bow blood-red with slaughter, or black with anger. Let us be of good courage. Never does God so darken our sky as to leave His covenant without a witness; and even if He did, we would trust Him, since He cannot change, or lie, or in any other way fail to keep His covenant of peace. Until the waters go over the earth again, we shall have no reason for doubting our God.”

In Christ, Paradise Is Regained.

L'

On Wings of Song, Happy Birthday!

Dear Mrs. M_:

On wings of song my affections to you fly! Happy birthday!

The English poetess and writer, Christina Rossetti (1830-1894,) wrote a poem on her birthday. She was thankful for her special day underpinned by Providence’s care, “My heart is like a singing bird…/Because the birthday of my life/Is come, my love is come to me.”

When one was young, he hardly stopped to admire the “primrose by a river’s brim”. After all, it was “a yellow primrose was to him,/And it was nothing more.” So perceived Wordsworth. In the arrow of the time, similarly, Browning’s “Pippa’s Song” has become more endearing to those who are living in the last of the seven stages of man.

Notwithstanding these final August days of sultry noons and hot breaths, they do bring on the glories of soft evening hours and the tinkles of wind chimes. Would you mind then sauntering along with me to the sunset tree—sauntering slowly in the twilight breeze while listening to Handel’s “Where’er You Walk”? Perhaps the tenor voice of Richard Lewis would enthrall on your birthday this halcyon year.

Ever in His grace,

L'

It Ain’t Macbeth, Watson

Watson, '“something wicked this way comes.”'

I took this picture this morning; a few feet from the motion-sensor light unit where I set it across from the persimmon tree. Some wild thing was looking at the fruit last night. Notice on the left of the picture a deep scarring paw print; a less distinguished paw print on the right. I surmised it was a heavy animal. It could be the possums and or raccoons have returned for the summer season. See what comes tomorrow, I might put a ruler on the ground to measure the prints.

"Approprite and cleaver, Watson. You know your Bard. Now put on your Fedora. The game is afoot."

"Thank you, Holmes. If it is the same to you, I will wear my bowler. By the way, I liked your pun, too."

History of Their Deeds Can Tell

Fourth of July Ode
James Russell Lowell
1892

I.
Our fathers fought for Liberty,
	They struggled long and well,
	History of their deeds can tell—
But did they leave us free?


II.
Are we free from vanity,
	Free from pride, and free from self,
	Free from love of power and pelf,
From everything that's beggarly?


III.
Are we free from stubborn will,
	From low hate and malice small,
	From opinion's tyrant thrall?
Are none of us our own slaves still?


IV.
Are we free to speak our thought,
	To be happy, and be poor,
	Free to enter Heaven's door,
To live and labor as we ought?


V.
Are we then made free at last
	From the fear of what men say,
	Free to reverence To-day,
Free from the slavery of the Past?


VI.
Our fathers fought for liberty,
	They struggled long and well,
	History of their deeds can tell—
But ourselvesmust set us free.

Then Came Hot July, Boiling Like to Fire

Moments ago, I took this picture of a freezer thermometer in the shaded garage. The thermometer reading maxed out at 90°F. It is hotter still outside of the house. It is 104°F at this writing. I am not quite naked as Spenser intoned (ha ha). Nevertheless, few verses of his came to mind on this first day of July.

"Then came hot July, boiling like to fire,
That all his garments he had cast away;
Upon a lion raging yet with ire
He boldly rode, and made him to obey."

Filled My Heart with a Quiet Joy

“I can see it now: the little brown house, with its sloping roof, its clumsy old chimneys, and its vine-clad porch; where the brown bee hummed his drowsy song, and my silver-haired old father sat dozing the sultry summer noons away, with shaggy Bruno at his feet. The bright earth had no blight or mildew then for me. The song of the little birds, resting beneath the eaves, filled my heart with a quiet joy.”

— Fanny Fern, 1854.

L's addendum from Jeremiah 31:26,

"At this I awoke and looked, and my sleep was pleasnt to me."

May you fathers have a restful and quite joy in this Father's Day!