Brown Dog
Palette knife, Oil on Canvas
Leonid Afremov b.1955
Nationality - Russian-Israeli

-o0o-

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way - in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only. 

-  Not so very different from things today. That was the opening paragraph of "The Tale of Two Cities" by Charles Dickens.

-o0o-

THE MILKMAID

Thomas Hardy

Under a daisied bank 
There stands a rich red ruminating cow, 
   And hard against her flank 
A cotton-hooded milkmaid bends her brow. 

   The flowery river-ooze 
Upheaves and falls; the milk purrs in the pail; 
   Few pilgrims but would choose 
The peace of such a life in such a vale. 

   The maid breathes words--to vent, 
It seems, her sense of Nature's scenery, 
   Of whose life, sentiment, 
And essence, very part itself is she. 

   She bends a glance of pain, 
And, at a moment, lets escape a tear; 
   Is it that passing train, 
Whose alien whirr offends her country ear? - 

   Nay! Phyllis does not dwell 
On visual and familiar things like these; 
   What moves her is the spell 
Of inner themes and inner poetries: 

   Could but by Sunday morn 
Her gay new gown come, meads might dry to dun, 
   Trains shriek till ears were torn, 
If Fred would not prefer that Other One.

-o0o-

The Music Lesson
Lord Frederic Leighton 1830-96

-o0o-

Elegy for a Walnut Tree

W.S. Merwin b.1927

Old friend now there is no one alive

who remembers when you were young

it was high summer when I first saw you

in the blaze of day most of my life ago

with the dry grass whispering in your shade

and already you had lived through wars

and echoes of wars around your silence 

through days of parting and seasons of absence

with the house emptying as the years went their way

until it was home to bats and swallows

and still when spring climbed toward summer

you opened once more the curled sleeping fingers

of newborn leaves as though nothing had happened

you and the seasons spoke the same language 

and all these years I have looked through your limbs to the river below and the roofs and the night and you were the way I saw the world.

-o0o-

QUOTES FROM THE WISE AND THE WITTY

Robert Service - Be master of your petty annoyances and conserve your energies for the big, worthwhile things. It isn't the mountain ahead that wears you out - it's the grain of sand in your shoe.

Alan Whicker - It's embarrassing when you land in Scandinavia and they speak better English than you do.

Billy Connolly - Before you judge a man, walk a mile in his shoes. After that, who cares? He's a mile away and you've got his shoes!

-o0o-

The Flower Market at La Madeleine, Paris
Edouard Cortes 1882-1969

-o0o-

NEXT POST FRIDAY 18th JANUARY

-o=0=o-