General Chat

A SCOTS TOAST

''MAY THE BEST YOU'VE EVER SEEN
BE THE WORST YOU;LL EVER SEE;
MAY THE MOUSE NE'ER LEAVE YOUR GIRNAL
WI' A TEAR DRAP IN ITS E'E
MAY YOUR LUM KEEP BLITHELY REEKIN'
TILL YE'RE AULD ENOUGH TO DEE;
MAY YOU AYE BE JUST AS HAPPY
AS I WISH YOU NOW TO BE!"

FOR 2012
TO LOVED ONES FAR AND NEAR STAY SAFE .
AND TO ABSENT FREINDS

'More than you need will always be greed'.

A life spent making mistakes, is not only honourable, but more useful than a life spent doing nothing...George Bernard Shaw

MAY THE ROOF ABOVE
NEVER FALL IN
MAY WE BELOW
NEVER FALL OUT..

The Internet is absolute communication within absolute isolation.


Bridget

T.S.Elliot.

We shall not cease from exploration,
And the end of our exploring,
Will be to arrive where we started,
And know the place for the first time.

Sneeze,

Yes a lovely little poem. For the sake of posterity, the author is Emily Bruce Roelofsen.

Best wishes Happy days

Woodrow Wilson said

Golf is a game in which one endeavours to control a ball with implements ill-adapted for the purpose

A stanza about birthstones for this month

If cold December gave you birth,
The month of snow and ice and mirth,
Place on your hand a turquoise blue;
Success will bless whate'er you do.

Part of a longer Gregorian Poem.
Januarys to follow

I just popped in to see if there were any new postings and delighted to read the new entries. It is so rewarding to see this thread continuing and thought that I would say THANK YOU EVERYONE FOR KEEPING THIS THREAD ALIVE".

Wishing you all a Happy Christmas and a Healthy New Year.

Bridget in Spain




:-) :-)

"There is no escape from the dull fatality of death" (Will Durant).

Mid-Term Break by Seamus Heaney.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I sat all morning in the college sick bay
Counting bells knelling classes to a close.
At two o'clock, our neighbours drove me home.

In the porch, I met my father crying.
He had always taken funerals in his stride.
And Big Jim Evans saying it was a hard blow.

The baby cooed and laughed and rocked the pram
When I came in, and I was embarrassed
By old men standing up to shake my hand.

And tell me they were "sorry for my trouble",
Whispers informed strangers I was the eldest,
Away at school, as my mother held my hand.

In hers and coughed out angry tearless sighs.
At ten o'clock the ambulance arrived
With the corpse, stanched and bandaged by the nurses.

Next morning I went up into the room. Snowdrops
And candles soothed the bedside; I saw him
For the first time in six weeks. Paler now.

Wearing a poppy bruise on his left temple,
He lay in the four foot box as in his cot.
No gaudy scars, the bumper knocked him clear.

A four foot box, a foot for every year.

Re the death quote above. here's another one - it's being so cheerful what keeps me going, as mrs Mopp used to say.

The world itself is but a large prison out of which some are daily led out for execution.

Blame Sir Walter Raleigh.

Happy days

Not by Wordsworth.

The first time we kissed,
I closed my eyes;
You closed yours -
And we missed!

Happydays

Well, I very big thank you for all the new entries


Bridget who must try to think of something to add

My father played the melodeon. (Patrick Kavanagh 1904 - 1967).
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

My father played the melodeon
Outside at our gate,
There were stars in the morning east
And they danced to his music.

Across the world bogs his melodeon called
To Lennons and Callans
As I pulled on my trousers in a hurry
I knew some strange thing had happened.

Outside in the cow-house my mother
Made the music of milking,
The light of the stable-lamp was a star
And the frost of Bethlehem made it twinkle.

A water-hen screeched in the bog,
Mass-going feet
Crunched the wafer-ice on the polt-holes -
Somebody wistfully twisted a bellow's wheel.

My child-poet picked out the letters
On Time's black stone,
In silver the wonder of a Christmas townland
The winking glitter of a frosty dawn.

Cassiopea was over
Cassidy's hanging hill.
I looked and three whin bushes rode acoss
The horizon - the Three Wise Kings.

My father played the melodeon,
My mother milked the cows
And I had a prayer like a white rose pinned
On the Virgin Mary's blouse.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Are you seeing? By John Williams.

What do you see nurse? what do you see?
What are you thinking when you look at me?
A crabbed old woman not very wise
Uncertain of habit, with faraway eyes, who dribbles her food and makes no reply when you say in a loud voice, "Oh I do wish you'd try",
Who seems not to notice the things that you do
And is forever losing a stocking or shoe
Who willing or not lets you do as you will.
With bathing and feeding the long day fill.
Is that what you're thinking? Is that what you see?
Then open your eyes nurse, you're not looking at ME.

I'll tell you who I am as I sit here so still,
As I move at your bidding, and eat at your will,
I'm a small girl of 10 with father and mother,
Brothers and sisters who love one another.

A girl of 16 with wings on her feet
Dreaming that soon of the lover she'll meet.
A bride soon of 20, my heart gives a leap,
Remembering the vows that I promised to keep.

At 25 I have young of my own,
Who need me to build a secure, happy home.
A woman of 30, my young growing fast, bound to each other with ties that should last.

At 40 my young will now be soon gone,
But my man stays beside me to help carry on.
At 50 once more children play at my feet,
But to play with grandkids is more than a treat.

Dark days are upon me, my loved one is dead,
I look to the future with forboding and dread,
My young are busy with young of their own, and I think of the years of love we have known. I'm an old woman now and naure is cruel,
The body it crumbles and vigour departs,
And now there's a stone where I once had a heart.
But in this old carcass a young girl still dwells'
And now and again my battered heart swells.

I remember the joy I remember the pain,
I'm loving and living life over again,
I think of the years, all too few gone so fast,
And I have to accept that nothing can last.

So, open our eyes nurse, open and see,
Not a crabbed old woman, look closer, see ME.

Twas the Night before Christmas (Clement Clarke 1779 - 1863).
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house
Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse.
The stockings were hung by the chimney with care,
In hopes that St Nicholas soon would be there.

The children were nestled all snug in their beds,
While visions of sugar-plums danced in their heads.
And mamma in her ‘kerchief, and I in my cap,
Had just settled our brains for a long winter’s nap.

When out on the lawn there arose such a clatter,
I sprang from the bed to see what was the matter.
Away to the window I flew like a flash,
Tore open the shutters and threw up the sash.

The moon on the breast of the new-fallen snow
Gave the lustre of mid-day to objects below.
When, what to my wondering eyes should appear,
But a miniature sleigh, and eight tinny reindeer.

With a little old driver, so lively and quick,
I knew in a moment it must be St Nick.
More rapid than eagles his coursers they came,
And he whistled, and shouted, and called them by name!

"Now Dasher! now, Dancer! now, Prancer and Vixen!
On, Comet! On, Cupid! on, on Donner and Blitzen!
To the top of the porch! to the top of the wall!
Now dash away! Dash away! Dash away all!"

As dry leaves that before the wild hurricane fly,
When they meet with an obstacle, mount to the sky.
So up to the house-top the coursers they flew,
With the sleigh full of Toys, and St Nicholas too.

And then, in a twinkling, I heard on the roof
The prancing and pawing of each little hoof.
As I drew in my head, and was turning around,
Down the chimney St Nicholas came with a bound.

He was dressed all in fur, from his head to his foot,
And his clothes were all tarnished with ashes and soot.
A bundle of Toys he had flung on his back,
And he looked like a peddler, just opening his pack.

His eyes-how they twinkled! his dimples how merry!
His cheeks were like roses, his nose like a cherry!
His droll little mouth was drawn up like a bow,
And the beard of his chin was as white as the snow.

The stump of a pipe he held tight in his teeth,
And the smoke it encircled his head like a wreath.
He had a broad face and a little round belly,
That shook when he laughed, like a bowlful of jelly!

He was chubby and plump, a right jolly old elf,
And I laughed when I saw him, in spite of myself!
A wink of his eye and a twist of his head,
Soon gave me to know I had nothing to dread.

He spoke not a word, but went straight to his work,
And filled all the stockings, then turned with a jerk.
And laying his finger aside of his nose,
And giving a nod, up the chimney he rose!

He sprang to his sleigh, to his team gave a whistle,
And away they all flew like the down of a thistle.
But I heard him exclaim, ‘ere he drove out of sight,
"Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good-night!"

The evil that men do lives after them
the good is interred with their bones.

GK Chesteron said

Music with dinner is an insult both to the cook and the violinist

'Youth' is wasted on the young.