BS: language positives

Subject: BS: language positves
From: The Sandman
Date: 31 Dec 23 - 08:18 AM

a chance for people to give extracts of language that has had a good effect or pleased them.

True Thomas lay on Huntlie bank;
A ferlie he spied wi’ his ee;
And there he saw a ladye bright,
Come riding down by the Eildon Tree.

Her shirt was o’ the grass-green silk,
Her mantle o’ the velvet fyne;
At ilka tett of her horse’s mane,
Hung fifty siller bells and nine.

True Thomas he pull’d aff his cap,
And louted low down to his knee,
“All hail, thou mighty Queen of Heaven!
For thy peer on earth I never did see.”

“Oh no, Oh no, Thomas,” she said,
“That name does not belang to me;
I am but the Queen of fair Elfland,
That am hither come to visit thee.

“Harp and carp, Thomas,” she said;
“Harp and carp along wi’ me;
And if ye dare to kiss my lips,
Sure of your bodie I will be.”

“Betide me weal, betide me woe,
That weird shall never daunton me;”—
Syne he has kiss’d her rosy lips,
All underneath the Eildon Tree.

“Now, ye maun go wi’ me,” she said;
“True Thomas, ye maun go wi’ me;
And ye maun serve me seven years,
Thro’ weal or woe as may chance to be.”

She mounted on her milk-white steed;
She’s ta’en true Thomas up behind;
And aye, whene’er her bridle rung,
The steed flew swifter than the wind.

Oh they rade on, and farther on;
The steed gaed swifter than the wind;
Until they reach’d a desert wide,
And living land was left behind.

“Light down, light down now, true Thomas,
And lean your head upon my knee;
Abide and rest a little space,
And I will show you ferlies three.

“O see ye not yon narrow road,
So thick beset with thorns and briers?
That is the path of righteousness,
Though after it but few enquires.

“And see ye not that braid braid road,
That lies across that lily leven?
That is the path of wickedness,
Though some call it the road to heaven.

“And see ye not that bonny road,
That winds about the fernie brae?
That is the road to fair Elfland,
Where thou and I this night maun gae.

Subject: RE: BS: language poisitves
From: The Sandman
Date: 31 Dec 23 - 08:23 AM

magine
Song by John Lennon
OverviewLyricsVideosListenOther recordingsArtists
Lyrics
Imagine there's no heaven
It's easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us, only sky
Imagine all the people
Livin' for today
Ah
Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion, too
Imagine all the people
Livin' life in peace
You
You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will be as one
Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world
You
You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will live as one
Source: LyricFind
Songwriters: John Winston Lennon
Imagine lyrics © Budde Music France, CONSALAD CO., Ltd, Downtown Music Publishing, Sentric Music, Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC, TuneCore Inc.

Subject: RE: BS: language poisitves
From: The Sandman
Date: 31 Dec 23 - 08:41 AM

Christmas: 1924
by Thomas Hardy
" Peace upon earth!" was said. We sing it,
And pay a million priests to bring it.
After two thousand years of mass
We've got as far as poison-gas.

Subject: RE: BS: language poisitves
From: Lighter
Date: 31 Dec 23 - 12:05 PM

"The moon was a ghostly galleon tossed upon cloudy seas."

Alfred Noyes wrote many similarly unforgettable lines. Except for "The Highwayman" (1906) he's now almost totally forgotten. His extreme romanticism and occasional religiosity have long been out of critical fashion.

I first read the line when I was nine or ten, and it's stuck with me like few others.

Subject: RE: BS:negative language poisitves
From: Donuel
Date: 31 Dec 23 - 12:11 PM

Fossil fuels, plagues and nuclear weapons
threaten an armageddon of immortal destruction.
Life and love are tenuous but have their deceptions,
while deadly hate breeds eternal quarrels and disruption.

Subject: RE: BS: language poisitves
From: The Sandman
Date: 31 Dec 23 - 02:34 PM

Sea-Fever
By John Masefield
I must go down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky,
And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by;
And the wheel’s kick and the wind’s song and the white sail’s shaking,
And a grey mist on the sea’s face, and a grey dawn breaking.

I must go down to the seas again, for the call of the running tide
Is a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied;
And all I ask is a windy day with the white clouds flying,
And the flung spray and the blown spume, and the sea-gulls crying.

I must go down to the seas again, to the vagrant gypsy life,
To the gull’s way and the whale’s way where the wind’s like a whetted knife;
And all I ask is a merry yarn from a laughing fellow-rover,
And quiet sleep and a sweet dream when the long trick’s over.

Subject: RE: BS: language poisitves
From: robomatic
Date: 31 Dec 23 - 03:08 PM

William Schwenk Gilbert:

A British tar is a soaring soul,
As free as a mountain bird,
His energetic fist should be ready to resist
A dictatorial word.

His nose should pant
and his lip should curl,
His cheeks should flame
and his brow should furl,
His bosom should heave
and his heart should glow,
And his fist be ever ready
for a knock-down blow.

Chorus.
His nose should pant
and his lip should curl,
His cheeks should flame
and his brow should furl,
His bosom should heave
and his heart should glow,
And his fist be ever ready
for a knock-down blow.

His eyes should flash with an inborn fire,
His brow with scorn be wrung;
He never should bow down
to a domineering frown,
Or the tang of a tyrant tongue.

His foot should stamp, and his throat should growl,
His hair should twirl, and his face should scowl;
His eyes should flash, and his breast protrude,
And this should be his customary attitude.

Chorus.
His foot should stamp, and his throat should growl,
His hair should twirl, and his face should scowl;
His eyes should flash, and his breast protrude,
And this should be his customary attitude,
His attitude
His attitude
His attitude.

Subject: RE: BS: language positves
From: G-Force
Date: 31 Dec 23 - 06:27 PM

Subject: RE: BS: language positves
From: G-Force
Date: 31 Dec 23 - 06:29 PM

Jeez, I can't find my knees. (Bob Dylan)

Subject: RE: BS: language positves
From: Mrrzy
Date: 31 Dec 23 - 06:42 PM

Nothing venture, nothing win –
Blood is thick, but water's thin –
In for a penny, in for a pound –
It's Love that makes the world go round!

Subject: RE: BS: language positves
From: Lighter
Date: 01 Jan 24 - 07:38 AM

Matthew Arnold, "Dover Beach" (1867):

Ah, love, let us be true
To one another! for the world, which seems
To lie before us like a land of dreams,
So various, so beautiful, so new,
Hath really

(Uh-oh, it gets really negative after that....)

Subject: RE: BS: language positves
From: Rain Dog
Date: 01 Jan 24 - 08:05 AM

(Uh-oh, it gets really negative after that....)

I blame the pebbles.

Subject: RE: BS: language positves
From: The Sandman
Date: 01 Jan 24 - 08:54 AM

To the Nightingale
by John Clare
I love to hear the Nightingale—
She comes where Summer dwells—
Among the brakes and orchis flowers,
And foxglove's freckled bells.

Where mugwort grows like mignonette,
And molehills swarm with ling;
She hides among the greener May,
And sings her love to Spring.

I hear her in the Forest Beach,
When beautiful and new;
Where cow-boys hunt the glossy leaf,
Where falls the honey-dew.

Where brambles keep the waters cool
For half the Summer long;
The maiden sets her pitcher down,
And stops to hear the song.

The redcap is a painted bird,
And sings about the town;
The Nightingale sings all the eve,
In sober suit of brown.

I knew the sparrow could not sing;
And heard the stranger long:
I could not think so plain a bird
Could sing so fine a song.

I found her nest of oaken leaves,
And eggs of paler brown,
Where none would ever look for nests,
Or pull the sedges down.

I found them on a whitethorn root,
And in the woodland hedge,
All in a low and stumpy bush,
Half hid among the sedge.

I love the Poet of the Woods,
And love to hear her sing,—
That, with the cuckoo, brings the love
And music of the Spring.

Man goes by art to foreign lands,
With shipwreck and decay;
Birds go with Nature for their guide,
And GOD directs their way—

GOD of a thousand worlds on high!—
Proud men may lord and dare;
POWER tells them that the meaner things
Are worthy of HIS care.

Subject: RE: BS: language positves
From: Lighter
Date: 01 Jan 24 - 09:36 AM

Robert W. service, "The Shooting of Dan McGrew" (1907):


"A bunch of the boys were whooping it up in the Malamute saloon."

(Some years ago, on the basis of this poem, I visited the Malamute Saloon in Juneau, Alaska. It was relatively sedate.)

Subject: RE: BS: language positves
From: Lighter
Date: 01 Jan 24 - 12:47 PM

Guy de Maupassant, "Ball of Fat" (1880):

"In the great stillness of the town, deep in repose of winter, no sound there was but that vague, fluttering, indefinable whisper of the falling snow, felt more than heard, an intermingling of feathery flecks that seemed to fill all space and drape the world."

Subject: RE: BS: language positves
From: Lighter
Date: 02 Jan 24 - 03:27 PM

This thread looks like it'll die for lack of input. So I'll add something else.

Gerard Manley Hopkins, "Spring and Fall: To a Young Child" (1880):

to a young child

Márgarét, áre you gríeving
Over Goldengrove unleaving?
Leáves like the things of man, you
With your fresh thoughts care for, can you?
Ah! ás the heart grows older
It will come to such sights colder
By and by, nor spare a sigh
Though worlds of wanwood leafmeal lie;
And yet you wíll weep and know why.
Now no matter, child, the name:
Sórrow’s spríngs áre the same.
Nor mouth had, no nor mind, expressed
What heart heard of, ghost guessed:
It ís the blight man was born for,
It is Margaret you mourn for.

(Among the most beautiful verses in the English language.)

Subject: RE: BS: language positves
From: The Sandman
Date: 03 Jan 24 - 04:30 AM

Still I Rise
By Maya Angelou
You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I'll rise.

Does my sassiness upset you?
Why are you beset with gloom?
’Cause I walk like I've got oil wells
Pumping in my living room.

Just like moons and like suns,
With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I'll rise.

Did you want to see me broken?
Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops,
Weakened by my soulful cries?

Does my haughtiness offend you?
Don't you take it awful hard
’Cause I laugh like I've got gold mines
Diggin’ in my own backyard.

You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I’ll rise.

Does my sexiness upset you?
Does it come as a surprise
That I dance like I've got diamonds
At the meeting of my thighs?

Out of the huts of history’s shame
I rise
Up from a past that’s rooted in pain
I rise
I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.

Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak that’s wondrously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise
I rise
I rise.
Maya Angelou, "Still I Rise" from And Still I Rise: A Book of Poems. Copyright © 1978 by Maya Angelou. Used by permission of Random House, an imprint and division of Penguin Random House LLC. All rights reserved.
Source: The Complete Collected Poems of Maya Angelou (1994)

Subject: RE: BS: language positves
From: The Sandman
Date: 03 Jan 24 - 12:46 PM

One song can spark a moment,
One whisper can wake the dream.
One tree can start a forest,
One bird can herald spring.

One smile begins a friendship,
One moment can make one fall in luv.
One star can guide a ship at sea,
One word can frame the goal

One vote can change a nation,
One sunbeam lights a room
One candle wipes out darkness,
One laugh will conquer gloom.

One step must start each journey.
One word must start each prayer.
One hope will raise our spirits,
One touch can show you care.

One voice can speak with wisdom,
One heart can know what's true,
One life can make a difference,
You see, it's up to you!
Ashish Ram
Friday, January 5, 2007

Subject: RE: BS: language positves
From: The Sandman
Date: 03 Jan 24 - 04:51 PM

The Pilgrim
By John Bunyan
Who would true Valour see
Let him come hither;
One here will Constant be,
Come Wind, come Weather.
There's no Discouragement,
Shall make him once Relent,
His first avow'd Intent,
To be a Pilgrim.

Who so beset him round,
With dismal Storys,
Do but themselves Confound;
His Strength the more is.
No Lyon can him fright,
He'l with a Gyant Fight,
But he will have a right,
To be a Pilgrim.

Hobgoblin, nor foul Fiend,
Can daunt his Spirit:
He knows, he at the end,
Shall Life Inherit.
Then Fancies fly away,
He'l fear not what men say,
He'l labour Night and Day,
To be a Pilgrim.

Subject: RE: BS: language positves
From: Joe_F
Date: 03 Jan 24 - 05:37 PM

I have seen a fiery gospel writ in burnished rows of still:
As ye deal with My contemners, so with you My grace shall deal.
Let the hero, born of woman, crush the serpent with this heel....

Subject: RE: BS: language positves
From: Lighter
Date: 04 Jan 24 - 11:58 AM

Ashley Montagu, American anthropologist (1940):

"The majority of people believe in incredible things which are absolutely false. The majority of people daily act in a manner prejudicial to their general well-being."

Subject: RE: BS: language positves
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 04 Jan 24 - 01:17 PM

"In the misty crystal glitter of that wild and windward spray..."

[Woody, Grand Coulee Dam]

A line from a quality song, a real song, that's poetry of the highest order...

Subject: RE: BS: language positves
From: G-Force
Date: 04 Jan 24 - 02:05 PM

...With hurry-home drops on her cheek that trickled from her eye
(Chuck Berry)

Subject: RE: BS: language positves
From: gillymor
Date: 04 Jan 24 - 02:21 PM

“When I rise up, let me rise up joyful like a bird. When I fall, let me fall without regret like a leaf.”

— Wendell Berry

Subject: RE: BS: language positves
From: Lighter
Date: 04 Jan 24 - 03:50 PM

Little Richard and Dorothy LaBostrie, "Tutti Frutti" (1955):

"A-wop-bop-a-loo-bop-a-lop-bam-boom!"

Sheer prosodic brilliance.

Subject: RE: BS: language positves
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 04 Jan 24 - 06:34 PM

Well if you're having that, I'm having Musha ring dumadoo dumadah!   :-)

Subject: RE: BS: language positves
From: The Sandman
Date: 05 Jan 24 - 03:48 AM

his poem by Henry Davies (1871-1940):

THE KINGFISHER
It was the Rainbow gave thee birth,
And left thee all her lovely hues;
And, as her mother’s name was Tears,
So runs it in my blood to choose
For haunts the lonely pools, and keep
In company with trees that weep.
Go you and, with such glorious hues,
Live with proud peacocks in green parks;
On lawns as smooth as shining glass,
Let every feather show its marks;
Get thee on boughs and clap thy wings
Before the windows of proud kings.
Nay, lovely Bird, thou art not vain;
Thou hast no proud, ambitious mind;
I also love a quiet place
That’s green, away from all mankind;
A lonely pool, and let a tree
Sigh with her bosom over me.

Subject: RE: BS: language positves
From: The Sandman
Date: 06 Jan 24 - 03:18 AM

Oh the sky was dark and the night advanced
When a convict came to the Isle of France
And round his leg was a ringing chain
And his country was of the Shamrock Green
"I'm from the Shamrock, " this convict cried
That has been tossed on the ocean wide
"For being unruly I do declare
I was doomed to transport these seven long years."
"When six of them they were up and past
I was coming home to make up the last
When the winds did blow and the seas did roar
They cast me here on this foreign shore."
So then the coastguard he played a part
And with some brandy, he cheered the convict's heart:
"Although the night is far advanced
You shall find a friend on the Isle of France."
So he sent a letter all to the Queen
Concerning the wreck of the Shamrock Green
And his freedom came by a speedy post
For the absent convict they thought was lost
"God bless the coastguard, " this convict cried
"For he's saved my life from the ocean wide
And I'll drink his health in a flowing glass
And here's success to the Isle of France."

Subject: RE: BS: language positves
From: Lighter
Date: 06 Jan 24 - 07:59 AM

Mark Mothersbaugh & Gerald Casale, "Freedom of Choice" (1980):

Freedom of choice
Is what you got
Freedom from choice
Is what you want

(Disturbingly relevant.)

Subject: RE: BS: language positves
From: Lighter
Date: 07 Jan 24 - 12:19 PM

"William Shakespeare,""Romeo and Juliet, Part 1 (cont.)" (1990):

MONTAGUE. I am of pliant, supple whalebone made,
And you are glue; the insults that you hurl
Bounce off my bouyant frame and stick to you!


("William Shakespeare" is the well-known pseudonym of Henry Beard.)

Subject: RE: BS: language positves
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 08 Jan 24 - 11:33 AM

I do wordle every morning and my opening word is always 'alive'. Reminds me that I am. Pretty positive I think :-)

Subject: RE: BS: language positves
From: Donuel
Date: 08 Jan 24 - 07:26 PM

I love the direction of this thread as opposed to the peevish language thread. This one has feeling but the other has distemper.
Its way better than Walkabout Verse.

Subject: RE: BS: language positves
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 09 Jan 24 - 03:25 AM

Do you really have to stalk Steve on every thread, Don? How sad.

Subject: RE: BS: language positves
From: Rain Dog
Date: 09 Jan 24 - 04:50 AM

"And at home by the fire, whenever you look up there I shall be— and whenever I look up, there will be you."


Thomas Hardy, Far From the Madding Crowd

Subject: RE: BS: language positves
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 09 Jan 24 - 05:43 AM

But thy eternal summer shall not fade [from Sonnet 18]

Subject: RE: BS: language positves
From: Lighter
Date: 09 Jan 24 - 08:11 AM

Sonnet 73:

THAT time of year thou may’st in me behold
When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang
Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,
Bare ruin’d choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.
In me thou see’st the twilight of such day,
As after sunset fadeth in the west,
Which by-and-by black night doth take away,
Death’s second self, that seals up all in rest.
In me thou see’st the glowing of such fire
That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,
As the death-bed whereon it must expire
Consum’d with that which it was nourish’d by.
This thou perceivest, which makes thy love more strong,
To love that well which thou must leave ere long.

(One of the saddest, most beautiful utterances in anybody's literature.)

Subject: RE: BS: language positves
From: The Sandman
Date: 09 Jan 24 - 08:40 AM

“I have a dream that one day down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of interposition and nullification – one day right there in Alabama little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.

I have a dream today.

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, and every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together.

This is our hope. This is the faith that I go back to the South with. With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.

This will be the day, this will be the day when all of God’s children will be able to sing with new meaning “My country ’tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. Land where my father’s died, land of the Pilgrim’s pride, from every mountainside, let freedom ring!
Martin Luther King

Subject: RE: BS: language positves
From: Lighter
Date: 09 Jan 24 - 09:14 AM

Anon., "Thrymskvitha," Poetic Edda (13th century)"

"How fare the gods, how fare the elves?
Why com'st thou alone to the giants' land?"

(In two brief, decontextualized lines compresses more suggestions of fantastical mystery, heroism, and adventure than whole seasons of "Game of Thrones."

Subject: RE: BS: language positves
From: Lighter
Date: 09 Jan 24 - 10:55 AM

From William Blake, "Auguries of Innocence" (ca1803):

The Catterpillar on the Leaf
Repeats to thee thy Mother's grief.


(Thoroughly senseless. Or is it? On the other hand...What the?)

Subject: RE: BS: language positves
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 09 Jan 24 - 11:34 AM

Where e'er ye be, let ye wind gand free
Be ye in church, or be ye in chappel
Fart awa' and mek the winddies rattle

Subject: RE: BS: language positves
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 09 Jan 24 - 12:08 PM

On the theme of wind, how's about this snippet from Charles Kingsley's Ode to the Northeast Wind? Very apt, considering the nasty, cutting wind that Cornwall is currently enduring. I like the poem though I share not the sentiment!

WELCOME, wild Northeaster!
Shame it is to see
Odes to every zephyr;
Ne'er a verse to thee.
Welcome, black Northeaster!
O'er the German foam;
O'er the Danish moorlands,
From thy frozen home.
Tired are we of summer,
Tired of gaudy glare,
Showers soft and steaming,
Hot and breathless air.
Tired of listless dreaming,
Through the lazy day--
Jovial wind of winter
Turn us out to play!

Subject: RE: BS: language positves
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 09 Jan 24 - 12:56 PM

It's a funny thing. I was never really into poetry but when I heard Peter Bellamy's interpretations of Kipling I understood it much more. I have always liked a nice turn of phrase in a song though and one of my favourites is from Spencer the Rover

"His children came around him with their prittle-prattling stories
With their prittle-prattling stories to drive care away"

With having kids, it does resonate :-)

Subject: RE: BS: language positves
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 09 Jan 24 - 01:19 PM

Agreed, Dave, but we've still decided not to have any more...

Subject: RE: BS: language positves
From: Lighter
Date: 09 Jan 24 - 02:44 PM

From Charles M. Doughty's "Travels in Arabia Deserta" (1888):


"The day is done....The moon rises ruddy from that solemn obscurity of jebel like a mighty beacon; and the morrow will be as this day, days deadly drowned in the sun of the summer wilderness."

jebel = a range of hills

("Days deadly drowned in the sun." That's the desert, all right. And check out the straightforward, vivid vocabulary and the degree of unobtrusive alliteration throughout.)

Subject: RE: BS: language positves
From: Lighter
Date: 09 Jan 24 - 03:03 PM

From Paul Verlaine's "Chanson d'Automne" (1867):


Les sanglots longs
Des violins
       De lautomne
Blessent mon coeur
D'une langeuer   
       Monotone.

The sense is translatable but the accompanying perfection of sound isn't:

"The long sobs of the violins of autumn wound my heart with a monotone languor."

(The first three lines were broadcast by the BBC's Radio Londres to the French Resistance as a coded alert that the D-day landings could be expected within a fortnight. The final three lines were broadcast 48 hours ahead of the Normandy invasion.)

Subject: RE: BS: language positves
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 09 Jan 24 - 05:39 PM

Miss J. Hunter Dunn, Miss J. Hunter Dunn,
Furnish'd and burnish'd by Aldershot sun,
What strenuous singles we played after tea,
We in the tournament - you against me!

Love-thirty, love-forty, oh! weakness of joy,
The speed of a swallow, the grace of a boy,
With carefullest carelessness, gaily you won,
I am weak from your loveliness, Joan Hunter Dunn.

Miss Joan Hunter Dunn, Miss Joan Hunter Dunn,
How mad I am, sad I am, glad that you won,
The warm-handled racket is back in its press,
But my shock-headed victor, she loves me no less.

Her father's euonymus shines as we walk,
And swing past the summer-house, buried in talk,
And cool the verandah that welcomes us in
To the six-o'clock news and a lime-juice and gin.

The scent of the conifers, sound of the bath,
The view from my bedroom of moss-dappled path,
As I struggle with double-end evening tie,
For we dance at the Golf Club, my victor and I.

On the floor of her bedroom lie blazer and shorts,
And the cream-coloured walls are be-trophied with sports,
And westering, questioning settles the sun,
On your low-leaded window, Miss Joan Hunter Dunn.

The Hillman is waiting, the light's in the hall,
The pictures of Egypt are bright on the wall,
My sweet, I am standing beside the oak stair
And there on the landing's the light on your hair.

By roads "not adopted", by woodlanded ways,
She drove to the club in the late summer haze,
Into nine-o'clock Camberley, heavy with bells
And mushroomy, pine-woody, evergreen smells.

Miss Joan Hunter Dunn, Miss Joan Hunter Dunn,
I can hear from the car park the dance has begun,
Oh! Surrey twilight! importunate band!
Oh! strongly adorable tennis-girl's hand!

Around us are Rovers and Austins afar,
Above us the intimate roof of the car,
And here on my right is the girl of my choice,
With the tilt of her nose and the chime of her voice.

And the scent of her wrap, and the words never said,
And the ominous, ominous dancing ahead.
We sat in the car park till twenty to one
And now I'm engaged to Miss Joan Hunter Dunn.

[John Betjeman, A Subaltern's Love Song]

Subject: RE: BS: language positves
From: Donuel
Date: 10 Jan 24 - 06:30 PM

FDR

Many subjects connected with our social economy call for immediate improvement.
As examples:

We should bring more citizens under the coverage of old-age pensions and unemployment insurance.

We should widen the opportunities for adequate medical care.

We should plan a better system by which persons deserving or needing gainful employment may obtain it.

I have called for personal sacrifice. I am assured of the willingness of almost all Americans to respond to that call.

A part of the sacrifice means the payment of more money in taxes. In my Budget Message I shall recommend that a greater portion of this great defense program be paid for from taxation than we are paying today. No person should try, or be allowed, to get rich out of this program; and the principle of tax payments in accordance with ability to pay should be constantly before our eyes to guide our legislation.

If the Congress maintains these principles, the voters, putting patriotism ahead of pocketbooks, will give you their applause.

In the future days, which we seek to make secure, we look forward to a world founded upon four essential human freedoms.

The first is freedom of speech and expression--everywhere in the world.

The second is freedom of every person to worship God in his own way--everywhere in the world.

The third is freedom from want--which, translated into world terms, means economic understandings which will secure to every nation a healthy peacetime life for its inhabitants-everywhere in the world.

The fourth is freedom from fear--which, translated into world terms, means a world-wide reduction of armaments to such a point and in such a thorough fashion that no nation will be in a position to commit an act of physical aggression against any neighbor--anywhere in the world.

That is no vision of a distant millennium. It is a definite basis for a kind of world attainable in our own time and generation. That kind of world is the very antithesis of the so-called new order of tyranny which the dictators seek to create with the crash of a bomb.

To that new order we oppose the greater conception--the moral order. A good society is able to face schemes of world domination and foreign revolutions alike without fear.

Since the beginning of our American history, we have been engaged in change -- in a perpetual peaceful revolution -- a revolution which goes on steadily, quietly adjusting itself to changing conditions--without the concentration camp or the quick-lime in the ditch. The world order which we seek is the cooperation of free countries, working together in a friendly, civilized society.

Subject: RE: BS: language positves
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 10 Jan 24 - 07:29 PM

You really don't understand the intended sentiment of this thread, do you?

Subject: RE: BS: language positves
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 10 Jan 24 - 08:37 PM

I love this, though atheist I be:

Trees
BY JOYCE KILMER

I think that I shall never see
A poem lovely as a tree.

A tree whose hungry mouth is prest
Against the earth’s sweet flowing breast;

A tree that looks at God all day,
And lifts her leafy arms to pray;

A tree that may in Summer wear
A nest of robins in her hair;

Upon whose bosom snow has lain;
Who intimately lives with rain.

Poems are made by fools like me,
But only God can make a tree.

It has to be sung by Paul Robeson, of course, to give it real life.

Subject: RE: BS: language positves
From: Donuel
Date: 10 Jan 24 - 10:33 PM

Sue me. Your editorials are not positive or called for.

Subject: RE: BS: language positves
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 11 Jan 24 - 05:54 AM

From Beethoven's 9th:

O Freunde, nicht diese Töne!
Sondern laßt uns angenehmere anstimmen,
und freudenvollere.

[Oh friends, not these sounds!
Let us instead strike up more pleasing
and more joyful ones!]

Subject: RE: BS: language positves
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 11 Jan 24 - 01:49 PM

They cut me down and I leapt up high,
I am the life that’ll nev­er, nev­er die;
I’ll live in you if you’ll live in me;
I am the Lord of the Dance, said he.

Subject: RE: BS: language positves
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 11 Jan 24 - 01:53 PM

I always had a little poster with this quote up on my classroom wall and often made it a discussion point with my form:

"If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away."

[Henry David Thoreau]

Subject: RE: BS: language positves
From: Georgiansilver
Date: 11 Jan 24 - 03:47 PM

When the white eagle of the north is flying overhead,
And the browns, reds and golds of Autumn lie in the gutter dead.
Remember then the summer birds with wings of fire flaying,
Come to witness Springs new hope, born of leaves decaying.
As new life will come from death, love will come at leisure,
Love of love, love of life, and giving without measure,
Gives in return, the wondrous yearn, of a promise almost seen.
Live hand in hand, and together we'll stand.......
On the threshold of a dream.

Moody Blues.

Subject: RE: BS: language positves
From: Lighter
Date: 14 Jan 24 - 08:11 AM

"Inverey" (Child 263) as sung by Jean Redpath in 1962:


Doon Deeside cam' Inverey whistlin' and playin'?
And he was at Brackley's yetts ere the day was dawin'.
"Oh, are ye there, Brackley, and are ye within? ?
There's shairp swords noo at your yetts, will gar your bluid spin."

"Then rise up, my baron, and turn back your kye,?
For the lads frae Drumwharrin are drivin' them by."
"How can I rise up, and how can I gyang?
For whuar I hae ae man I fear they hae ten."

?"Then rise up, Betsy Gordon, and gie me my gun,
And tho I gyang out, love, sure I'll never return.
Come, kiss me, my Betsy, nor think I'm tae blame,
?But against three and thirty, wae is me, what is yin?"

When Brackley was mounted and he rade on his horse,
A bonnier baron ne'er rade ower a course.
Twa gallanter Gordons did never sword draw;
"But against three and thirty, wae is me what is twa."

Wi' their dirks an' their swords they did him surroon'.?
They've killed bonny Brackley wi' monys the woun'.
Fae the heid o' the Dee, tae the banks o' the Spey,
?The Gordons will mourn him and ban Inverey.

"Oh cam ye by Brackley, or cam ye by here?
?Saw ye his guid lady a-rievin' her hair?"
"Oh I cam by Brackley's yetts and I cam by here,
?And I saw his gid lady, she was makin' gid cheer.

"She was rantin' an' dancin' an' singin' for joy.
?She vowed that very night she would feast Inverey!?
She laughed wi' him, danced wi' him, welcomed him ben.?
She was kind till the villain that had slain her gid man."

Through hedges and ditches ye canna be sure.?
Through the wuids o' Glentower ye maun slap in an oor.?
Then up spak' the babe on his nanny's knee,?
"It's afore I'm a man, avenged I'll be."


One of the most powerful ballads, not so well known as the "standards," with not a word wasted. The "babe," supernaturally swearing vengeance, is a brilliant and terrifying conclusion.

Of course, the tune enhances it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aXbMzA2RDcU

Subject: RE: BS: language positives
From: MaJoC the Filk
Date: 14 Jan 24 - 08:58 AM

Language peeve: Can someone *please* put the other I in the Subject?

Subject: RE: BS: language positves
From: Mrrzy
Date: 15 Jan 24 - 10:19 AM

I know you believe you understood what you think I said, but I'm not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant.

Subject: RE: BS: language positves
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 15 Jan 24 - 11:39 AM

“I don't know half of you half as well as I should like; and I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve.”

J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

Subject: RE: BS: language positves
From: The Sandman
Date: 15 Jan 24 - 12:59 PM

If you want to have your health, then stop all the complaints! Speaking complaints leads to failure.
    Bruno Gröning

Subject: RE: BS: language positves
From: Lighter
Date: 15 Jan 24 - 01:03 PM

"You can fool some of the people all of the time and all of the people some of the time. But you can't fool all of the people all of the time.

"But that's all right, because you can fool enough of the people enough of the time."

Subject: RE: BS: language positves
From: Lighter
Date: 16 Jan 24 - 09:34 AM

Shakespeare, "The Tempest":

Our revels now are ended. These our actors,
As I foretold you, were all spirits, and
Are melted into air, into thin air:
And like the baseless fabric of this vision,
The cloud-capp'd tow'rs, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve,
And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff
As dreams are made on; and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep.

(Doesn't get any better than that.)

Subject: RE: BS: language positves
From: Lighter
Date: 16 Jan 24 - 04:43 PM

"The Fairies," by William Allingham (1850):


Up the airy mountain,
Down the rushy glen,
We daren’t go a-hunting
For fear of little men;
Wee folk, good folk,
Trooping all together;
Green jacket, red cap,
And white owl’s feather!

Down along the rocky shore
Some make their home,
They live on crispy pancakes
Of yellow tide-foam;
Some in the reeds
Of the black mountain-lake,
With frogs for their watchdogs,
All night awake.

High on the hill-top
The old King sits;
He is now so old and grey
He’s nigh lost his wits.
With a bridge of white mist
Columbkill he crosses,
On his stately journeys
From Slieveleague to Rosses;
Or going up with music
On cold starry nights,
To sup with the Queen
Of the gay Northern Lights.

They stole little Bridget
For seven years long;
When she came down again
Her friends were all gone.
They took her lightly back,
Between the night and morrow,
They thought that she was fast asleep,
But she was dead with sorrow.
They have kept her ever since
Deep within the lake,
On a bed of flag-leaves,
Watching till she wake.

By the craggy hillside,
Through the mosses bare,
They have planted thorn trees
For pleasure, here and there.
Is any man so daring
As dig them up in spite,
He shall find their sharpest thorns
In his bed at night.

Up the airy mountain,
Down the rushy glen,
We daren’t go a-hunting
For fear of little men;
Wee folk, good folk,
Trooping all together;
Green jacket, red cap,
And white owl’s feather!

Subject: RE: BS: language positves
From: Lighter
Date: 17 Jan 24 - 05:44 PM

It's William Blake again, around 1790:

O Rose thou art sick.
The invisible worm,
That flies in the night
In the howling storm:

Has found out thy bed
Of crimson joy:
And his dark secret love
Does thy life destroy.

Weirdly fascinating.

Subject: RE: BS: language positves
From: The Sandman
Date: 18 Jan 24 - 03:15 AM

Christmas: 1924
by Thomas Hardy
" Peace upon earth!" was said. We sing it,
And pay a million priests to bring it.
After two thousand years of mass
We've got as far as poison-gas.

Subject: RE: BS: language positves
From: The Sandman
Date: 18 Jan 24 - 04:58 AM

Poetry is just the evidence of life. If your life is burning well, poetry is just the ash."
L Cohen

Subject: RE: BS: language positves
From: Lighter
Date: 18 Jan 24 - 02:03 PM

Jonathan Revere, "Gull Skeleton" (1971):

In the first verse I find his skeleton
nested in shore grass, late one autumn day.
The loss of life and the life which is decay
have been so gentle, so clasped one-to-one

that what they left is perfect; and here in
the second verse I kneel to pick it up:
bones like the fine white china of a cup,
chambered for lightness, dangerously thin,

their one clear purpose forcing them toward flight
even now, from the warm solace of my hand.
In the third verse I bend to that demand
and quickly, against the deepening of the night,

because I can in poems remake his wild eye,
his claws, and the tense heat his muscles keep,
his wings’ knit feathers, then free him to his steep
climb, in the last verse, up the streaming sky.

(Just astonishing.)

Subject: RE: BS: language positves
From: The Sandman
Date: 24 Jan 24 - 03:08 PM

10- Do not feel envious of the happiness of those who live in a fool’s paradise, for only a fool will think that it is happiness.”
- Russell Bertrand

Subject: RE: BS: language positves
From: Doug Chadwick
Date: 24 Jan 24 - 03:53 PM

"Do not feel envious of the happiness of those who live in a fool’s paradise, for only a fool will think that it is happiness.”

Better, surely, to be ignorant and happy rather than knowledgeable and miserable ?

DC

Subject: RE: BS: language positves
From: The Sandman
Date: 25 Jan 24 - 03:30 AM

The Tay Bridge Disaster

Beautiful Railway Bridge of the Silv’ry Tay!
Alas! I am very sorry to say
That ninety lives have been taken away
On the last Sabbath day of 1879,
Which will be remember’d for a very long time.

’Twas about seven o’clock at night,
And the wind it blew with all its might,
And the rain came pouring down,
And the dark clouds seem’d to frown,
And the Demon of the air seem’d to say-
“I’ll blow down the Bridge of Tay.”

When the train left Edinburgh
The passengers’ hearts were light and felt no sorrow,
But Boreas blew a terrific gale,
Which made their hearts for to quail,
And many of the passengers with fear did say-
“I hope God will send us safe across the Bridge of Tay.”

But when the train came near to Wormit Bay,
Boreas he did loud and angry bray,
And shook the central girders of the Bridge of Tay
On the last Sabbath day of 1879,
Which will be remember’d for a very long time.

So the train sped on with all its might,
And Bonnie Dundee soon hove in sight,
And the passengers’ hearts felt light,
Thinking they would enjoy themselves on the New Year,
With their friends at home they lov’d most dear,
And wish them all a happy New Year.

So the train mov’d slowly along the Bridge of Tay,
Until it was about midway,
Then the central girders with a crash gave way,
And down went the train and passengers into the Tay!
The Storm Fiend did loudly bray,
Because ninety lives had been taken away,
On the last Sabbath day of 1879,
Which will be remember’d for a very long time.

As soon as the catastrophe came to be known
The alarm from mouth to mouth was blown,
And the cry rang out all o’er the town,
Good Heavens! the Tay Bridge is blown down,
And a passenger train from Edinburgh,
Which fill’d all the peoples hearts with sorrow,
And made them for to turn pale,
Because none of the passengers were sav’d to tell the tale
How the disaster happen’d on the last Sabbath day of 1879,
Which will be remember’d for a very long time.

It must have been an awful sight,
To witness in the dusky moonlight,
While the Storm Fiend did laugh, and angry did bray,
Along the Railway Bridge of the Silv’ry Tay,
Oh! ill-fated Bridge of the Silv’ry Tay,
I must now conclude my lay
By telling the world fearlessly without the least dismay,
That your central girders would not have given way,
At least many sensible men do say,
Had they been supported on each side with buttresses,
At least many sensible men confesses,
For the stronger we our houses do build,
The less chance we have of being killed.

tay-bridge-1