John Fletcher.
1579–1625
COME, Sleep, and with thy sweet deceiving
Lock me in delight awhile;
Let some pleasing dreams beguile
All my fancies; that from thence
I may feel an influence
All my powers of care bereaving!
Though but a shadow, but a sliding,
Let me know some little joy!
We that suffer long annoy
Are contented with a thought
Through an idle fancy wrought:
O let my joys have some abiding!
Ben Jonson.
1573–1637
FALSE world, good night! since thou hast brought
That hour upon my morn of age;
Henceforth I quit thee from my thought,
My part is ended on thy stage.
Yes, threaten, do. Alas! I fear
As little as I hope from thee:
I know thou canst not show nor bear
More hatred than thou hast to me.
My tender, first, and simple years
Thou didst abuse and then betray;
Since stir’d’st up jealousies and fears,
When all the causes were away.
Then in a soil hast planted me
Where breathe the basest of thy fools;
Where envious arts professèd be,
And pride and ignorance the schools;
Where nothing is examined, weigh’d,
But as ’tis rumour’d, so believed;
Where every freedom is betray’d,
And every goodness tax’d or grieved.
But what we’re born for, we must bear:
Our frail condition it is such
That what to all may happen here,
If ‘t chance to me, I must not grutch.
Else I my state should much mistake
To harbour a divided thought
From all my kind—that, for my sake,
There should a miracle be wrought.
No, I do know that I was born
To age, misfortune, sickness, grief:
But I will bear these with that scorn
As shall not need thy false relief.
Nor for my peace will I go far,
As wanderers do, that still do roam;
But make my strengths, such as they are,
Here in my bosom, and at home.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge.
1772–1834
VERSE, a breeze ‘mid blossoms straying,
Where Hope clung feeding, like a bee—
Both were mine! Life went a-maying
With Nature, Hope, and Poesy,
When I was young!
When I was young?—Ah, woful When!
Ah! for the change ‘twixt Now and Then!
This breathing house not built with hands,
This body that does me grievous wrong,
O’er aery cliffs and glittering sands,
How lightly then it flash’d along—
Like those trim skiffs, unknown of yore,
On winding lakes and rivers wide,
That ask no aid of sail or oar,
That fear no spite of wind or tide!
Naught cared this body for wind or weather
When Youth and I lived in ‘t together.
Flowers are lovely! Love is flower-like;
Friendship is a sheltering tree;
O the joys, that came down shower-like,
Of Friendship, Love, and Liberty,
Ere I was old!
Ere I was old? Ah, woful Ere,
Which tells me, Youth ’s no longer here!
O Youth! for years so many and sweet,
‘Tis known that thou and I were one;
I’ll think it but a fond conceit—
It cannot be that thou art gone!
Thy vesper-bell hath not yet toll’d—
And thou wert aye a masker bold!
What strange disguise hast now put on,
To make believe that thou art gone?
I see these locks in silvery slips,
This drooping gait, this alter’d size:
But springtide blossoms on thy lips,
And tears take sunshine from thine eyes!
Life is but thought: so think I will
That Youth and I are housemates still.
Dewdrops are the gems of morning,
But the tears of mournful eve!
Where no hope is, life ’s a warning
That only serves to make us grieve,
When we are old!
That only serves to make us grieve
With oft and tedious taking-leave,
Like some poor nigh-related guest
That may not rudely be dismist.
Yet hath outstay’d his welcome while,
And tells the jest without the smile.
Early next year, I’ll be 55, and eligible for early retirement. It’s something that we’ve been looking towards for quite long while.
It can be kind of scarey thinking about it. There’s several other guys in my work group that are a bit older than me — all of them are already over 55 — and none of them have made a definite decision about when they will be leaving. One “can’t” leave yet because he doesn’t have enough saved to keep from lowering his standard of living. Another won’t leave unless he finds another job, because he’s never “not worked.” One other has too many big bills, even though for years he had been planning to leave at 55.
I don’t have as much saved as what I would like to have, but we will have almost wverything paid off — and if you have most everything paid off, you can live on quite a bit less, if you need to. We won’t have more than one or two bills other than utilites.
I don’t need to find another job. Work is not that important to me. I plan to do without a job for at least a year. Then, if I need to, I’ll find something to suppliment the retirement pay and the disbursements from the savings.
The big step that I made today was deciding on Freedom Day. I’ve set a goal for my last day of work to be April 30. That will be the day I go back to work from 5 weeks of vacation, to do all the HR things that you need to do when you are leaving the place that you have worked for over 25 years.
Scary.
I think it’s the right thing to do.
306 days and counting.
Post from one of my abandoned blogs – North Farnham Freeholder – recovered from Internet Archive WayBackMachine; March 2011
Robert Herrick.
1591–1674
HERE a pretty baby lies
Sung asleep with lullabies:
Pray be silent and not stir
Th’ easy earth that covers her.
Anne Finch, Countess of Winchilsea
1661 – 1720
In such a night, when every louder wind
Is to its distant cavern safe confined;
And only gentle Zephyr fans his wings,
And lonely Philomel, still waking, sings;
Or from some tree, famed for the owl’s delight,
She, hollowing clear, directs the wand’rer right:
In such a night, when passing clouds give place,
Or thinly veil the heav’ns’ mysterious face;
When in some river, overhung with green,
The waving moon and trembling leaves are seen;
When freshened grass now bears itself upright,
And makes cool banks to pleasing rest invite,
Whence springs the woodbind, and the bramble-rose,
And where the sleepy cowslip sheltered grows;
Whilst now a paler hue the foxglove takes,
Yet checkers still with red the dusky brakes
When scattered glow-worms, but in twilight fine,
Shew trivial beauties watch their hour to shine;
Whilst Salisb’ry stands the test of every light,
In perfect charms, and perfect virtue bright:
When odors, which declined repelling day,
Through temp’rate air uninterrupted stray;
When darkened groves their softest shadows wear,
And falling waters we distinctly hear;
When through the gloom more venerable shows
Some ancient fabric, awful in repose,
While sunburnt hills their swarthy looks conceal,
And swelling haycocks thicken up the vale:
When the loosed horse now, as his pasture leads,
Comes slowly grazing through th’ adjoining meads,
Whose stealing pace, and lengthened shade we fear,
Till torn-up forage in his teeth we hear:
When nibbling sheep at large pursue their food,
And unmolested kine rechew the cud;
When curlews cry beneath the village walls,
And to her straggling brood the partridge calls;
Their shortlived jubilee the creatures keep,
Which but endures, whilst tyrant man does sleep;
When a sedate content the spirit feels,
And no fierce light disturbs, whilst it reveals;
But silent musings urge the mind to seek
Something, too high for syllables to speak;
Till the free soul to a composedness charmed,
Finding the elements of rage disarmed,
O’er all below a solemn quiet grown,
Joys in th’ inferior world, and thinks it like her own:
In such a night let me abroad remain,
Till morning breaks, and all’s confused again;
Our cares, our toils, our clamors are renewed,
Or pleasures, seldom reached, again pursued.
These images are from my just completed photo gallery of images from Mt. Magazine State Park in Arkansas. (click on any image for a larger version.)
Post from one of my abandoned blogs – North Farnham Freeholder – recovered from Internet Archive WayBackMachine; March 2011
Emily Brontë.
1818–1848
COLD in the earth—and the deep snow piled above thee,
Far, far removed, cold in the dreary grave!
Have I forgot, my only Love, to love thee,
Sever’d at last by Time’s all-severing wave?
Now, when alone, do my thoughts no longer hover
Over the mountains, on that northern shore,
Resting their wings where heath and fern-leaves cover
Thy noble heart for ever, ever more?
Cold in the earth—and fifteen wild Decembers
From those brown hills have melted into spring:
Faithful, indeed, is the spirit that remembers
After such years of change and suffering!
Sweet Love of youth, forgive, if I forget thee,
While the world’s tide is bearing me along;
Other desires and other hopes beset me,
Hopes which obscure, but cannot do thee wrong!
No later light has lighten’d up my heaven,
No second morn has ever shone for me;
All my life’s bliss from thy dear life was given,
All my life’s bliss is in the grave with thee.
But when the days of golden dreams had perish’d,
And even Despair was powerless to destroy;
Then did I learn how existence could be cherish’d,
Strengthen’d and fed without the aid of joy.
Then did I check the tears of useless passion—
Wean’d my young soul from yearning after thine;
Sternly denied its burning wish to hasten
Down to that tomb already more than mine.
And, even yet, I dare not let it languish,
Dare not indulge in memory’s rapturous pain;
Once drinking deep of that divinest anguish,
How could I seek the empty world again?
Courting Destiny has an interesting post (The Huffington Post Asks Me to do Them a Favor. Really) about an e-mail request from The Huffington Post relating to a new ad campaign. The e-mail is really a thinly disguised request for a referal in Courting Destiny to The Huffington Post.
Post from one of my abandoned blogs – North Farnham Freeholder – recovered from Internet Archive WayBackMachine; March 2011
Ben Jonson.
1573–1637
STILL to be neat, still to be drest,
As you were going to a feast;
Still to be powder’d, still perfumed:
Lady, it is to be presumed,
Though art’s hid causes are not found,
All is not sweet, all is not sound.
Give me a look, give me a face
That makes simplicity a grace;
Robes loosely flowing, hair as free:
Such sweet neglect more taketh me
Than all th’ adulteries of art;
They strike mine eyes, but not my heart.
