BS: language positives

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