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A Year of Poetry – Day 363

The doubt of future foes exiles my present joy,
And wit me warns to shun such snares as threaten mine annoy;
For falsehood now doth flow, and subjects’ faith doth ebb,
Which should not be if reason ruled or wisdom weaved the web.
But clouds of joys untried do cloak aspiring minds,
Which turn to rain of late repent by changed course of winds.
The top of hope supposed the root upreared shall be,
And fruitless all their grafted guile, as shortly ye shall see.
The dazzled eyes with pride, which great ambition blinds,
Shall be unsealed by worthy wights whose foresight falsehood finds.
The daughter of debate that discord aye doth sow
Shall reap no gain where former rule still peace hath taught to know.
No foreign banished wight shall anchor in this port;
Our realm brooks not seditious sects, let them elsewhere resort.
My rusty sword through rest shall first his edge employ
To poll their tops that seek such change or gape for future joy.
— Queen Elizabeth I, The Doubt of Future Foes
by daddybear71 on April 21, 2017  •  Permalink
Posted in Poetry, Uncategorized

Posted by daddybear71 on April 21, 2017

https://daddybearsden.com/2017/04/21/a-year-of-poetry-day-363/

Musings

  • You know, for a guy who makes his living dealing with technology, I’m really starting to hate technology.
    • No, that’s OK, mister work phone, please spontaneously reboot and reset yourself to factory settings.
    • Of course, miss laptop screen, it’s perfectly fine for you to start having fuzzy weird digital ghosts at odd moments while I’m scrolling around.
    • Oh, no, please, excuse me, mister TV remote.  It’s entirely my fault that you have decided that you will only work at angles ranging from 0 to 15 degrees from center of the television screen.
  • The peanut butter eggs in the white wrappers are not, in fact, ‘diet’ peanut butter eggs.
    • I stand corrected.
  • I can wait another week or two for the movie I ordered to arrive because Amazon has it on backorder, or I can cancel that order and go to the local Big Box Retail Cooperative and buy a copy there.
    • The downside of waiting is, well, waiting.
    • The downside of buying local is that I’ll have to go to Big Box Retail Cooperative and deal with, shudder, people.
    • Oh, well, movie’ll get here when it gets here.
  • One advantage of working from home a couple days a week is that my lunches are of higher quality.
    • You see, when I take my lunch to work, I usually just have leftovers microwaved on a paper plate.
    • When I’m at home, I can get fancy and use an actual dish to heat up my leftovers.  Perhaps I can even use real silverware.
    • Not only that, but I can have tap water cooled in my very own refrigerator.  At work, I have tap water that’s cooled with ice chunks like a peasant.
  • Apparently, “‘Tear down the flood walls, bulldoze it flat, and salt the earth with radium” was not the answer the young lady with the clipboard was looking for when she asked me what I thought the mayor could do to make Louisville better.
    • When that answer seemed to confuse her, I told her to just put down that I thought we ought to hire more teachers.
  • I saw an ad the other night for a company called ‘Dads Heating and Cooling’. I imagine their service calls involve a lot of demands for you to get out of their light and to fetch them the 3/8’s.
by daddybear71 on April 20, 2017  •  Permalink
Posted in Thought for the day, Uncategorized

Posted by daddybear71 on April 20, 2017

https://daddybearsden.com/2017/04/20/musings-235/

A Year of Poetry – Day 360

“What is the real good?’
I asked in musing mood.

Order, said the law court;
Knowledge, said the school;
Truth, said the wise man;
Pleasure, said the fool;
Love, said the maiden;
Beauty, said the page;
Freedom, said the dreamer;
Home, said the sage;
Fame, said the soldier;
Equity, the seer;—

Spake my heart full sadly:
‘The answer is not here.’

Then within my bosom
Softly this I heard:
‘Each heart holds the secret:
Kindness is the word.’

— John Boyle O’Reilly, What is Good

by daddybear71 on April 18, 2017  •  Permalink
Posted in Poetry, Uncategorized

Posted by daddybear71 on April 18, 2017

https://daddybearsden.com/2017/04/18/a-year-of-poetry-day-360/

A Year of Poetry – Day 359

“Are you deaf, Father William!” the young man said,
“Did you hear what I told you just now?
“Excuse me for shouting! Don’t waggle your head
“Like a blundering, sleepy old cow!
“A little maid dwelling in Wallington Town,
“Is my friend, so I beg to remark:
“Do you think she’d be pleased if a book were sent down
“Entitled ‘The Hunt of the Snark?'”

“Pack it up in brown paper!” the old man cried,
“And seal it with olive-and-dove.
“I command you to do it!” he added with pride,
“Nor forget, my good fellow to send her beside
“Easter Greetings, and give her my love.”

— Lewis Carroll, Another Acrostic
by daddybear71 on April 17, 2017  •  Permalink
Posted in Poetry, Uncategorized

Posted by daddybear71 on April 17, 2017

https://daddybearsden.com/2017/04/17/a-year-of-poetry-day-359/

A Year of Poetry – Day 358

MOST glorious Lord of Lyfe! that, on this day,
Didst make Thy triumph over death and sin;
And, having harrowd hell, didst bring away
Captivity thence captive, us to win:
This joyous day, deare Lord, with joy begin;
And grant that we, for whom thou diddest dye,
Being with Thy deare blood clene washt from sin,
May live for ever in felicity!

And that Thy love we weighing worthily,
May likewise love Thee for the same againe;
And for Thy sake, that all lyke deare didst buy,
With love may one another entertayne!
So let us love, deare Love, lyke as we ought,
–Love is the lesson which the Lord us taught.

— Edmund Spenser, Easter

by daddybear71 on April 16, 2017  •  Permalink
Posted in Poetry, Uncategorized

Posted by daddybear71 on April 16, 2017

https://daddybearsden.com/2017/04/16/a-year-of-poetry-day-358/

A Year of Poetry – Day 357

O Captain! my Captain! our fearful trip is done,
The ship has weather’d every rack, the prize we sought is won,
The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting,
While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring;
                         But O heart! heart! heart!
                            O the bleeding drops of red,
                               Where on the deck my Captain lies,
                                  Fallen cold and dead.
O Captain! my Captain! rise up and hear the bells;
Rise up—for you the flag is flung—for you the bugle trills,
For you bouquets and ribbon’d wreaths—for you the shores a-crowding,
For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning;
                         Here Captain! dear father!
                            This arm beneath your head!
                               It is some dream that on the deck,
                                 You’ve fallen cold and dead.
My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still,
My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will,
The ship is anchor’d safe and sound, its voyage closed and done,
From fearful trip the victor ship comes in with object won;
                         Exult O shores, and ring O bells!
                            But I with mournful tread,
                               Walk the deck my Captain lies,
                                  Fallen cold and dead.
— Walt Whitman, Oh Captain! My Captain!
by daddybear71 on April 15, 2017  •  Permalink
Posted in Poetry, Uncategorized

Posted by daddybear71 on April 15, 2017

https://daddybearsden.com/2017/04/15/a-year-of-poetry-day-357/

Sacrifice

daddybear71's avatarDaddyBear’s Den

The old man lifted his bundle onto his shoulder after stooping over and picking up his walking stick. Next to him, his son bent over with his own burden of food and water. He had sprouted up that spring, and had the gangly look all boys get just before they start to fill out into manhood.

“Heavy?” Abraham asked.

“No, father,” Isaac said stoically.

Abraham smiled sadly at that. Isaac had his mother’s eyes and laughter, but his stubbornness was wholly from him. He marveled at how much joy their son brought to him, even now.

Sarah, her long silver hair pulled back and covered with a linen cloth, leaned down and kissed her son, smoothing down the unruly mop of dark curls on his head. She turned and smiled at her husband.

“Be safe,” she said, “and come home quickly.”

“I will, love,” he said quietly, reaching out to…

View original post 3,373 more words

by daddybear71 on April 14, 2017  •  Permalink
Posted in Uncategorized

Posted by daddybear71 on April 14, 2017

https://daddybearsden.com/2017/04/14/sacrifice-2/

A Year of Poetry – Day 356

Great big lolloping lovable things!
Rolling and tumbling on every lawn,
Tearing at slippers and bones and wings-
Wonderful loot from the ash-heap drawn:
Foxhound puppies
Contented puppies
Dipping your ears in the dews of dawn!
Lapping your porridge at farm-house doors,
Cracking a biscuit, robbing a nest
Printing your tracks upon kitchen floors,
Dodging a broom when the cooks protest;
Foxhound puppies,
Delinquent puppies,
Cursed for a moment and then caressed!
Wandering out where the spaniels walk,
Following slow when the guns go by,
Streaking for home when the twelve-bores talk,
Clumsy and puzzled and suddenly shy;
Foxhound puppies
Bewildered puppies
Lone and unwanted and wondering why!
Never mind puppies, your day will come;
By distant coverts your kingdoms wait,
When the spaniels doze and the guns are dumb
And hoofs are loud by the bridle gate;
Foxhound puppies,
Yet scarcely puppies,
Raised as you are to a hound’s estate.
Lost will your lolloping ways be then,
Your timid glance and your shrinking pose,
As you shoulder the gorse in glade and glen,
Lifting the line that your tongues disclose;
Foxhound puppies,
No longer puppies,
But trusted names that the huntsman knows!

— William Henry Ogilvie, Foxhound Puppies

by daddybear71 on April 14, 2017  •  Permalink
Posted in Poetry, Uncategorized

Posted by daddybear71 on April 14, 2017

https://daddybearsden.com/2017/04/14/a-year-of-poetry-day-356/

A Year of Poetry – Day 355

Lo! where the rosy-bosom’d Hours,
Fair Venus’ train appear,
Disclose the long-expecting flowers,
And wake the purple year!
The Attic warbler pours her throat,
Responsive to the cuckoo’s note,
The untaught harmony of spring:
While whisp’ring pleasure as they fly,
Cool zephyrs thro’ the clear blue sky
Their gather’d fragrance fling.
Where’er the oak’s thick branches stretch
A broader, browner shade;
Where’er the rude and moss-grown beech
O’er-canopies the glade,
Beside some water’s rushy brink
With me the Muse shall sit, and think
(At ease reclin’d in rustic state)
How vain the ardour of the crowd,
How low, how little are the proud,
How indigent the great!
Still is the toiling hand of Care:
The panting herds repose:
Yet hark, how thro’ the peopled air
The busy murmur glows!
The insect youth are on the wing,
Eager to taste the honied spring,
And float amid the liquid noon:
Some lightly o’er the current skim,
Some show their gaily-gilded trim
Quick-glancing to the sun.
To Contemplation’s sober eye
Such is the race of man:
And they that creep, and they that fly,
Shall end where they began.
Alike the busy and the gay
But flutter thro’ life’s little day,
In fortune’s varying colours drest:
Brush’d by the hand of rough Mischance,
Or chill’d by age, their airy dance
They leave, in dust to rest.
Methinks I hear in accents low
The sportive kind reply:
Poor moralist! and what art thou?
A solitary fly!
Thy joys no glitt’ring female meets,
No hive hast thou of hoarded sweets,
No painted plumage to display:
On hasty wings thy youth is flown;
Thy sun is set, thy spring is gone—
We frolic, while ’tis May.
— Thomas Gray, Ode on the Spring
by daddybear71 on April 13, 2017  •  Permalink
Posted in Poetry, Uncategorized

Posted by daddybear71 on April 13, 2017

https://daddybearsden.com/2017/04/13/a-year-of-poetry-day-355/

A Year of Poetry – Day 354

The path runs straight between the flowering rows,
A moonlit path, hemmed in by beds of bloom,
Where phlox and marigolds dispute for room
With tall, red dahlias and the briar rose.
‘T is reckless prodigality which throws
Into the night these wafts of rich perfume
Which sweep across the garden like a plume.
Over the trees a single bright star glows.
Dear garden of my childhood, here my years
Have run away like little grains of sand;
The moments of my life, its hopes and fears
Have all found utterance here, where now I stand;
My eyes ache with the weight of unshed tears,
You are my home, do you not understand?

— Amy Powell, The Fruit Garden Path

by daddybear71 on April 12, 2017  •  Permalink
Posted in Poetry, Uncategorized

Posted by daddybear71 on April 12, 2017

https://daddybearsden.com/2017/04/12/a-year-of-poetry-day-354/

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