All Purls. No Swine.
Lordy me, it's cold in Western Pennsylvania, this January 20th, 2026. Accuweather (which is quite good at telling us what's actually happening at the moment, but is less good at predicting what might be happening three or four hours from now, let alone next week or next month) says it's 12F/-11C outside; however, a thermometer… Continue reading “St Agnes’ Eve–Ah, Bitter Chill it [Is]!”
When I am an old woman I shall wear purple With a red hat which doesn’t go, and doesn’t suit me. And I shall spend my pension on brandy and summer gloves And satin sandals, and say we’ve no money for butter. I shall sit down on the pavement when I’m tired And gobble up… Continue reading On Men and Women, Both Growing Old
I met a traveler from a Midwest Park Who said–“A vast and legless trunk of stone Stands in the city. . . . Near it, in the dark, Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown Of cold contempt, and wrinkled lip, and smirk, Tell that its builder well those passions read Which yet survive,… Continue reading Obamandias
Here's wishing Edward de Vere, the 17th Earl of Oxford, an only slightly belated, and very happy, four-hundred seventy-fifth birthday as of yesterday, April 12. He was born with a silver spoon in his mouth, succeeding to his position as Earl when he was only eight years old, and he kept the side up by… Continue reading Noblesse Oblige: “My Lord, I had quite forgott the fart.”
Oh, to be in England, Now that April’s there, And whoever wakes in England Sees, some morning, unaware, That the lowest boughs and the brushwood sheaf Round the elm-tree bole are in tiny leaf, While the chaffinch sings on the orchard bough In England – now!! In general, and despite my childhood infatuation with the… Continue reading Thoughts of Abroad, From Home, in April, 2025
O wad some Pow'r the giftie gie us To see oursels as ithers see us! It wad frae mony a blunder free us, An' foolish notion Ah! The sainted Rabbie Burns. Scotland's national poet. Romantic to the end. Socialist. Raconteur. A man who dropped his seed wherever he felt like it, upon whichever woman struck… Continue reading Burns Supper Night: 2025
My subject is War and the pity of War. The poetry is in the pity"--Wilfred Owen Wilfred Edward Salter Owen, beloved son, accomplished poet, and soldier of The Great War, was born on March 18, 1893 in Oswestry, a Welsh border town, in the county of Shropshire. Readers of Ellis Peters's Brother Cadfael chronicles, or… Continue reading “He is all blood, dirt, and sucked sugar-stick”–Revisiting William Butler Yeats vs Wilfred Owen
But--of course--it always does. This has been a hell of a week. First there was all the fallout from Hurricane Helene, some of which has gravely affected those I love. Followed by the death of Maggie Smith. And now, that of Kris Kristofferson. https://youtu.be/mtQOY-0sViQ https://youtu.be/vHReBUA8cH4 https://youtu.be/HCgnbRWVvU8 The last is one of the very few great… Continue reading “Dreaming was as easy as believing in was never going to end”
I mean by a picture a beautiful romantic dream of something that never was, never will be--in a light better than any light that ever shone--in a land no one can define or remember, only desire--Edward Burne-Jones Another of my hometown heroes: We were both born in Birmingham, in the UK, just a bit more… Continue reading QOTD: Edward Burne-Jones, On the Beauty of Art
Poor old Macbeth. From Act V, Scene viii (for those of you in Rio Linda, that's Act 5, Scene 8): I bear a charmèd life, which must not yield To one of woman born. It's important that you speak the accented second "e." Otherwise it won't scan. (Iambic pentameter, you know. Thank goodness Macduff is… Continue reading QOTD: “I bear a charmèd life….”