"In a fine country, in a sunny country,

Among the hills I knew,

I built a house for the wren that lives in the orchard,

And a house for you.

The house I built for the wren had a round entrance,

Neat and very small;

But the house I built for you had a great doorway,

For a lady proud and tall.

You came from a country where the shrubby sweet lavender

Lives the mild winter through;

The lavender died each winter in the garden

Of the house I built for you.

You were troubled and came to me because the farmer

Called the autumn "the fall";

You thought that a country where the lavender died in the winter

Was not a country at all.

The wrens return each year to the house in the orchard;

They have lived, they have seen the world, they know what's best

For a wren and his wife; in the handsome house I gave them

They build their twiggy nest.

But you, you foolish girl, you have gone home

To a leaky castle across the sea,-

To lie awake in linen smelling of lavender

And hear the nightingale, and long for me."

- Edna St. Vincent Millay

"If you entreat me with your loveliest lie

I will protest you with my favorite vow.

I would indeed that love were longer-lived,

And vows were not so brittle as they are,

But so it is, and nature has contrived

To struggle on without a break thus far,--

Whether or not we find what we are seeking

Is idle, biologically speaking."

- Edna St. Vincent Millay

Atalanta in Calydon

"Before the beginning of years,
There came to the making of man
Time, with the gift of tears,
Grief, with a glass that ran;
Pleasure, with pain for leaven;
Summer, with flowers that fell;
Remembrance fallen from heaven,
And madness risen from hell;
Strength without hands to smite;
Love that endures for a breath;
Night, the shadow of light,
And life, the shadow of death."

-Algernon Charles Swinburne

"At the still point of the turning world. Neither flesh nor fleshless;
Neither from nor towards; at the still point, there the dance is,
But neither arrest nor movement. And do not call it fixity,
Where past and future are gathered. Neither movement from nor towards,
Neither ascent nor decline. Except for the point, the still point,
There would be no dance, and there is only the dance.
I can only say, there we have been: but I cannot say where.
And I cannot say, how long, for that is to place it in time."

-T.S. Eliot
"Burnt Norton"

"Gather ye rose-buds while ye may,

Old Time is still a-flying;

And this same flower that smiles today,

Tomorrow will be dying."

-Robert Herrick

(To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time)

Cage III - Free Show

"The figure of Death presides over the front entrance of a carnival sideshow whose spectators watch performers undergo unspeakable degradations so grotesquely compelling that the spectators’ eyes become larger and larger until the spectators themselves are transformed into gigantic eyeballs in chairs, while on the other side of the sideshow tent the figure of Life uses a megaphone to invite fairgoers to an exhibition in which, if the fairgoers consent to undergo unspeakable degradations, they can witness ordinary persons gradually turn into gigantic eyeballs."

 "Every night and every morn
  Some to misery are born,
  Every morn and every night
  Some are born to sweet delight.
  Some are born to sweet delight,
  Some are born to endless night."

I have no time for idle cares
Through gazing on the unquiet sky.
And when an hour with calmer wings
Its down upon my spirit flings-
That little time with lyre and rhyme
To while away- forbidden things!
My heart would feel to be a crime
Unless it trembled with the strings.

                                               -Edgar Allan Poe

Further Reflections on Parsley.

Parsley
Is gharsley.

            -Ogden Nash

..............................................................................................
Call me crazy, but I have found a disproportionate number of reasons to worship the man.