Just a jotter pad for me to note down various bits and pieces, feel free to browse.
———————————————————–
“Alle Kunst ist umsonst Wenn ein Engel in das Zündloch Prunst”
“All skill is in vain when an Angel pisses in the flintlock of your musket.” – German Proverb
———————————————————–
“Aimer, ce n’est pas se regarder l’un l’autre, c’est regarder ensemble dans la même direction.”
“Fais de ta vie un rêve, et d’un rêve, une réalité.”
“Il est quelquefois sans inconvénient de remettre à plus tard son travail.”
“La perfection est atteinte, non pas lorsqu’il n’y a plus rien à ajouter, mais lorsqu’il n’y a plus rien à retirer.”
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
————————————————————-
Summer Farm
Straws like tame lightnings lie about the grass
And hang zigzag on hedges. Green as glass
The water in the horse-trough shines.
Nine ducks go wobbling by in two straight lines.
A hen stares at nothing with one eye,
Then picks it up. Out of an empty sky
A swallow falls and, flickering through
The barn, dives up again into the dizzy blue.
I lie, not thinking, in the cool, soft grass,
Afraid of where a thought might take me – as
This grasshopper with plated face
Unfolds his legs and finds himself in space.
Self under self, a pile of selves I stand
Threaded on time, and with metaphysic hand
Lift the farm like a lid and see
Farm within farm, and in the centre, me.
Praise Of A Man
He went through a company like a lamplighter -
see the dull minds, one after another,
begin to glow, to shed
a beneficent light.
He went through a company like
a knifegrinder – see the dull minds
scattering sparks of themselves,
becoming razory, becoming useful.
He went through a company
as himself. But now he’s one
of the multitudinous company of the dead
where are no individuals.
The beneficent lights dim
but don’t vanish. The razory edges
dull, but still cut. He’s gone: but you can see
his tracks still, in the snow of the world.
Norman MacCaig
————————————————————-
CYRANO:
Je crois qu’elle regarde. . .
Qu’elle ose regarder mon nez, cette Camarde
(Il lève son épée):
Que dites-vous ?. . .C’est inutile ?. . .Je le sais !
Mais on ne se bat pas dans l’espoir du succès !
Non ! non ! c’est bien plus beau lorsque c’est inutile !
–Qu’est-ce que c’est tous ceux-là ?–Vous êtes mille ?
Ah ! je vous reconnais, tous mes vieux ennemis !
Le Mensonge ?
(Il frappe de son épée le vide):
Tiens, tiens !–Ha ! ha ! les Compromis !
Les Préjugés, les Lâchetés !. . .
(Il frappe):
Que je pactise ?
Jamais, jamais !–Ah ! te voilà, toi, la Sottise !
–Je sais bien qu’à la fin vous me mettrez à bas;
N’importe: je me bats ! je me bats ! je me bats !
(Il fait des moulinets immenses et s’arrête haletant):
Oui, vous m’arrachez tout, le laurier et la rose !
Arrachez ! Il y a malgré vous quelque chose
Que j’emporte, et ce soir, quand j’entrerai chez Dieu,
Mon salut balaiera largement le seuil bleu,
Quelque chose que sans un pli, sans une tache,
J’emporte malgré vous,
(Il s’élance l’épée haute):
et c’est. . .
(L’épée s’échappe de ses mains, il chancelle, tombe dans les bras de
Le Bret et de Ragueneau.)
ROXANE (se penchant sur lui et lui baisant le front):
C’est ?. . .
CYRANO (rouvre les yeux, la reconnaît et dit en souriant):
Mon panache.
Rideau.
From the end of CYRANO DE BERGERAC (Scène 5.V), Edmond Rostand
————————————————————-
En un lugar de la Mancha, de cuyo nombre no quiero acordarme, no ha mucho tiempo que vivía un hidalgo de los de lanza en astillero, adarga antigua, rocín flaco y galgo corredor.
In a village in La Mancha, whose name I do not care to recall, there lived, not very long ago, one of those gentlemen who keep a lance in the lance-rack, an ancient shield, a skinny old horse, and a fast greyhound.
Miguel de Cervantes
————————————————————-
Captain Renault: What in heaven’s name brought you to Casablanca?
Rick: My health. I came to Casablanca for the waters.
Captain Renault: The waters? What waters? We’re in the desert.
Rick: I was misinformed.
————————————————————-
Anabasis (from Greek ana = “upward”, bainein = “go”) is an expedition from a coastline up into the interior of a country.
Katabasis, or catabasis, (from Greek κατὰ, “down” βαίνω “go”) is a descent of some type. Katabasis may be a moving downhill, a sinking of winds, a military retreat, or a trip to the underworld. It may also mean a trip from the interior of a country down to the coast, and has related meanings in poetry, rhetoric, and modern psychology.
————————————————————-
Streets of Laredo
As I walked out in the streets of Laredo
As I walked out in Laredo one day,
I spied a young cowboy, all wrapped in white linen
Wrapped up in white linen and cold as the clay.
“I see by your outfit, that you are a cowboy.”
These words he did say as I slowly walked by.
“Come sit down beside me and hear my sad story,
For I’m shot in the breast, and I’m dying today.”
“‘Twas once in the saddle I used to go dashing,
‘Twas once in the saddle I used to go gay.
First to the dram-house, and then to the card-house,
Got shot in the breast, and I’m dying today.”
“Oh, beat the drum slowly and play the fife lowly,
And play the dead march as you carry me along;
Take me to the valley, and lay the sod o’er me,
For I’m a young cowboy and I know I’ve done wrong.”
“Get six jolly cowboys to carry my coffin,
Get six pretty maidens to bear up my pall.
Put bunches of roses all over my coffin,
Roses to deaden the sods as they fall.”
“Then swing your rope slowly and rattle your spurs lowly,
And give a wild whoop as you carry me along;
And in the grave throw me and roll the sod o’er me.
For I’m a young cowboy and I know I’ve done wrong.”
“Go bring me a cup, a cup of cold water.
To cool my parched lips”, the cowboy then said.
Before I returned, his soul had departed,
And gone to the round up – the cowboy was dead.
We beat the drum slowly and played the fife lowly,
And bitterly wept as we bore him along.
For we loved our comrade, so brave, young and handsome,
We all loved our comrade, although he’d done wrong.
An interesting investigation into the roots of St. James Infirmary Blues, which appears to share a common origin with Streets of Laredo, can be found here
————————————————————-
Believe Me, If All Those Endearing Young Charms
Believe me, if all those endearing young charms,
Which I gaze on so fondly today,
Were to change by tomorrow, and fleet in my arms,
Like fairy-gifts fading away,
Thou wouldst still be adored, as this moment thou art,
Let thy loveliness fade as it will,
And around the dear ruin each wish of my heart
Would entwine itself verdantly still.
It is not while beauty and youth are thine own,
And thy cheeks unprofaned by a tear
That the fervor and faith of a soul can be known,
To which time will but make thee more dear;
No, the heart that has truly loved never forgets,
But as truly loves on to the close,
As the sunflower turns on her god, when he sets,
The same look which she turned when he rose.
Thomas Moore (1779-1852)
————————————————————-
Say not the Struggle Naught availeth
Say not the struggle naught availeth,
The labour and the wounds are vain,
The enemy faints not, nor faileth,
And as things have been they remain.
If hopes were dupes, fears may be liars;
It may be, in yon smoke conceal’d,
Your comrades chase e’en now the fliers,
And, but for you, possess the field.
For while the tired waves, vainly breaking,
Seem here no painful inch to gain,
Far back, through creeks and inlets making,
Comes silent, flooding in, the main.
And not by eastern windows only,
When daylight comes, comes in the light;
In front the sun climbs slow, how slowly!
But westward, look, the land is bright!
Arthur Hugh Clough
————————————————————-
When I’m Gone
There’s no place in this world where I’ll belong when I’m gone
I won’t know the right from the wrong when I’m gone
You won’t find me singing on this song when I’m gone
So I guess I’ll have to do it while I’m here
My days won’t be dances of delight when I’m gone
The sands will be shifting from my sight when I’m gone
Can’t add my name into the fight when I’m gone
So I guess I’ll have to do it while I’m here
I won’t see the flowing of the time when I’m gone
The joys of love will not be mine when I’m gone
My pen won’t pour a lyric rhyme when I’m gone
So I guess I’ll have to do it while I’m here
I won’t breath the bracing air when I’m gone
I won’t be worried about my cares when I’m gone
Can’t be asked to do my share when I’m gone
So I guess I’ll have to do it while I’m here
I won’t be running from the rain when I’m gone
Won’t even suffer from the pain when I’m gone
Can’t say who’s to praise and who’s to blame when I’m gone
So I guess I’ll have to do it while I’m here
I won’t see the golden of the sun when I’m gone
The evenings and the mornings will be one when I’m gone
Can’t be singing louder than the guns when I’m gone
So I guess I’ll have to do it while I’m here
And I won’t be laughing at the lies when I’m gone
I won’t question where or when or why when I’m gone
Can’t live proud enough to die when I’m gone
So I guess I’ll have to do it while I’m here
Words & Music : Phil Ochs
Lyric as sung by Dick Gaughan
————————————————————-
Adlestrop
Yes, I remember Adlestrop –
The name, because one afternoon
Of heat the express-train drew up there
Unwontedly. It was late June.
The steam hissed. Someone cleared his throat.
No one left and no one came
On the bare platform. What I saw
Was Adlestrop — only the name
And willows, willow-herb, and grass,
And meadowsweet, and haycocks dry,
No whit less still and lonely fair
Than the high cloudlets in the sky.
And for that minute a blackbird sang
Close by, and round him, mistier,
Farther and farther, all the birds
Of Oxfordshire and Gloucestershire.
Edward Thomas
————————————————————-
Adlestrop Part 1
Yes, I remember Adlestrop -
The name, because in 1966
The station name board was offered
Unwontedly. To Swindon, June the 6th.
The dream wished. Someone cleared his throat.
No-one had heard of Adlestrop
In the Swindon Rail Museum.
England won the World Cup.
And Doctor Beeching cut his swathe
Through meadowsweet, and haycocks dry,
No whit less still and lonely fair
Than Wembley Towers in the sky.
And for that minute it was all over.
Edward Thomas killed at Arras
And again at Swindon some 50 years later.
But Geoff Hurst scored. That might last.
Adlestrop Part 2
Yes, I remember Adlestrop -
The name, because it was 1966 when
The station name board was offered
Unwontedly. To Oxford, after Swindon.
The dream wished. Someone cleaned the hall.
The sign-board saying Adlestrop
Was too big for the Art School wall.
And so it was chopped up.
And in the early 70′s
Caretakers burned the wood so dry,
The smoke no less still and lonely fair
Than route one football in the sky.
And for that minute a name-plate smoked
Close by and around mistier,
Farther and farther, a poem burned
Of Oxfordshire and Gloucestershire.
Suart Butler
————————————————————-
Aedh wishes for the cloths of heaven
Had I the heavens’ embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half-light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly, because you tread on my dreams.
William Butler Yeats
————————————————————-
“Solvitur ambulando” – Augustine of Hippo
————————————————————-
“No city should be too large for a man to walk out of in a morning.” – Cyril Connolly
————————————————————-
Every spring, the town of March in Cambridgeshire holds “a long, flat, pointless walk” across the Fens to Cambridge. “It has no purpose other than to be called the March March march.” There is an associated song, which is sometimes called the “March March March March.”
found in the always interesting Futility Closet
————————————————————-
Oliphaunt
Grey as a mouse,
Big as a house,
Nose like a snake,
I make the earth shake,
As I tramp through the grass;
Trees crack as I pass.
With horns in my mouth,
I walk in the South,
Flapping big ears,
Beyond count of years,
I stump round and round,
Never lie on the ground,
Not even to die.
Oliphaunt am I,
Biggest of all,
Huge, old, and tall.
If ever you’d met me,
You wouldn’t forget me.
If you never do,
You won’t think I’m true;
But Oliphaunt am I,
And I never lie.
Samwise Gamgee
(transcribed from the old texts by J.R.R.Tolkien)
————————————————————-
High Flight
Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I’ve climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds – and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of – wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov’ring there
I’ve chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air.
Up, up the long delirious, burning blue,
I’ve topped the windswept heights with easy grace
Where never lark, or even eagle flew -
And, while with silent lifting mind I’ve trod
The high untresspassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand and touched the face of God.
Pilot Officer Gillespie Magee
No 412 squadron, RCAF
Killed 11 December 1941
————————————————————-
Ruithidh an taigeis fhein le bruthaich. – Even a haggis will run downhill
Is ioma doigh a th’ air cu a mharbhadh gun a thachdadh le ìm. – There are many ways of killing a dog without choking him with butter
Cho corrach ri ugh air droll – As unsteady as an egg on a stick
Is fhearr fheuchainn na bhith san duil – It’s better to try than to hope
————————————————————-
Rotbia lim greim Dé fodéin…
Rotbia lim greim Dé fodéin,
rotbia m’ordan co glanléir,
grían ocus ésca ‘mole,
muir is tír, drúcht is daithe.
(you will have * with me * grip * of God * (him)self
you will have * my honor * with * bright-clear
sun * and * moon * along with it
sea * and * land * dew * and * light)
You will have from me God’s own grip.
You will have my honour bright,
the sun and the moon as well,
sea and land, dew and light.
This quatrain from part 30 of “Saltair na Rann” is an oath that takes God, personal honour, and the elements as sureties. It is more or less equivalent to “I swear by all that is holy”.
from Sengoidelc – Quotations from Early Irish Literature
————————————————————-
NATO & Aviation: Alpha, Bravo, Charlie, Delta, Echo, Foxtrot, Golf, Hotel, India, Juliett, Kilo, Lima, Mike, November, Oscar, Papa, Quebec, Romeo, Sierra, Tango, Uniform, Victor, Whiskey, X-ray, Yankee, Zulu
RAF 1942-43: Apple, Beer, Charlie, Dog, Edward, Freddy, George, Harry, In, Jug / Johnny, King, Love, Mother, Nuts, Orange, Peter, Queen, Roger / Robert, Suga, Tommy, Uncle, Vic, William, X-ray, Yoke / Yorker, Zebra
French: Anatole, Berthe, Célestin, Désiré, Eugène, François, Gaston, Henri, Irma, Joseph, Kléber, Louis, Marcel, Nicolas, Oscar, Pierre, Quintal, Raoul, Suzanne, Thérèse, Ursule, Victor, William, Xavier, Yvonne, Zoé
German: Anton, Ärger, Berta, Cäsar, Charlotte, Dora, Emil, Friedrich, Gustav, Heinrich, Ida, Julius, Kaufmann, Ludwig, Martha, Nordpol, Otto, Ökonom, Paula, Quelle, Richard, Samuel, Schule, Eszett, Theodor, Ulrich, Übermut, Viktor, Wilhelm, Xanthippe, Ypsilon, Zeppelin
Spanish: Antonio, Barcelona, Carmen, Chocolate, Dolores, Enrique, Gerona, Historia, Inés, José, Kilo, Lorenzo, Llobregat, Madrid, Navarra, Ñoño, Oviedo, París, Querido, Ramón, Sábado, Tarragona, Ulises, Valencia, Washington, Xiquena, Yeguna, Zaragoza
from the Wikipedia entry on Spelling Alphabets. Also various lists at Brian Kelk’s page.
————————————————————-
Vides ut alta stet nive candidum Soracte, … Odes 1.9, Horace
Behold yon Mountain’s hoary height,
Made higher with new Mounts of snow:
Again behold the Winter’s weight
Oppress the lab’ring Woods below;
And Streams, with Icy fetters bound,
Benum’d and crampt to solid Ground.
With well-heap’d logs dissolve the cold
And feed the genial hearth with fires;
Produce the Wine, that makes us bold,
And sprightly Wit and Love inspires:
For what hereafter shall betide,
God, if ’tis worth his care, provide.
Let him alone, with what he made,
To toss and turn the World below;
At his command the storms invade,
The winds by his Commission blow,
Till with a nod he bids ‘em cease,
And then the Calm returns, and all is peace.
To morrow and her works defie,
Lay hold upon the present hour,
And snatch the pleasures passing by,
To put them out of Fortune’s pow’r;
Nor love nor love’s delights disdain;
Whate’re thou get’st to day is gain.
Secure those golden early joyes
That Youth unsowr’d with sorrow bears,
E’re with’ring time the taste destroyes
With sickness and unwieldy years!
For active sports, for pleasing rest,
This is the time to be possest;
The best is but in season best.
The pointed hour of promis’d Bliss,
The pleasing whisper in the dark,
The half unwilling willing kiss,
The laugh that guides thee to the mark,
When the kind Nymph wou’d coyness feign,
And hides but to be found again;
These, these are the joyes the Gods for Youth ordain.
John Dryden
Synopsis of Ode 1.9 (by C.H. Moore): “The world is bound in the fetters of snow and ice. Heap high the fire to break the cold. Leave all else to the gods; whate’er to-morrow’s fate may give, count as pure gain. To-day is thine for love and dance, while thou art young.”
————————————————————-
“The sum of the whole is this: walk and be happy; walk and be healthy. The best way to lengthen out our days is to walk steadily and with a purpose.” – Charles Dickens
————————————————————-
“It does not matter how slowly you go as long as you do not stop.” – Confucius
————————————————————-
“Everyone must believe in something. I believe I’ll go canoeing.” – Henry David Thoreau
————————————————————-
El Desdichado
Je suis le ténébreux,- le Veuf, – l’inconsolé,
Le Prince d’Aquitaine à la tour abolie:
Ma seule étoile est morte, et mon luth constellé
Porte le soleil noir de la Mélancolie.
Dans la nuit du Tombeau, Toi qui m’as consolé,
Rends-moi le Pausilippe et la mer d’Italie,
La fleur qui plaisait tant à mon coeur désolé,
Et la treille où le Pampre à la rose s’allie.
Suis-je Amour ou Phoebus ?…. Lusignan ou Biron ?
Mon front est rouge encor du baiser de la Reine ;
J’ai rêvé dans la grotte où nage la Sirène…
Et j’ai deux fois vainqueur traversé l’Achéron :
Modulant tour à tour sur la lyre d’Orphée
Les soupirs de la Sainte et les cris de la Fée.
Gérard de Nerval
A translation and analysis can be found at Everything2.
————————————————————-
Allegedly, Gérard De Nerval had a pet lobster that he took for walks in Paris on the end of a leash.
“Why should a lobster be any more ridiculous than a dog….or any other animal that one chooses to take for a walk? I have a liking for lobsters. They are peaceful, serious creatures. They know the secrets of the sea, they don’t bark, and they don’t gnaw upon one’s monadic privacy like dogs do. And Goethe had an aversion to dogs, and he wasn’t mad.”
————————————————————-
“The fourth kind of monks are those called Gyrovagues.
These spend their whole lives tramping from province to province,
staying as guests in different monasteries
for three or four days at a time.
Always on the move, with no stability,
they indulge their own wills
and succumb to the allurements of gluttony,
and are in every way worse than the Sarabaites.
Of the miserable conduct of all such
it is better to be silent than to speak.”
————————————————————-
Here lies Du Vall, Reader, if male thou art,
Look to thy purse. If female, to thy heart.
Much havoc has he made of both; for all
Men he made to stand, and women he made to fall
The second Conqueror of the Norman race,
Knights to his arm did yield, and ladies to his face.
Old Tyburn’s glory; England’s illustrious Thief,
Du Vall, the ladies’ joy; Du Vall, the ladies’ grief.
Epitaph of Claude Du Vall (1643-1670), the Gallant Highwayman
————————————————————-
Master of the Caravan:
But who are ye in rags and rotten shoes,
You dirty-bearded, blocking up the way?
Ishak:
We are the Pilgrims, master; we shall go
Always a little further: it may be
Beyond that last blue mountain barred with snow,
Across that angry or that glimmering sea,
White on a throne or guarded in a cave
There lives a prophet who can understand
Why men were born: but surely we are brave,
Who take the Golden Road to Samarkand.
…
Sweet to ride forth at evening from the wells
When shadows pass gigantic on the sand,
And softly through the silence beat the bells
Along the Golden Road to Samarkand.
…
We travel not for trafficking alone;
By hotter winds our fiery hearts are fanned:
For lust of knowing what should not be known
We make the Golden Journey to Samarkand.
The first few lines are quoted at the start of Always a Little Further by Alastair Borthwick – a classic book on Scottish mountaineering first published in 1939. The original is from The Golden Journey to Samarkand, which comes from Hassan, by James Elroy Flecker
————————————————————-
Watchman:
What would ye, ladies? It was ever thus.
Men are unwise and curiously planned…
A Woman:
They have their dreams, and do not think of us.
Voices of the Caravan (in the distance, singing):
We make the Golden Journey to Samarkand.
The Golden Journey to Samarkand, James Elroy Flecker
————————————————————-
Rucksack, Knapsack, Haversack, Backpack
————————————————————-
I also met an American lady ornithologist, down here to study the fighting behavior of Darwin’s Rheas. She said the two males locked necks and whirled round in circles: the one who got dizzy first was the loser.
In Patagonia, Bruce Chatwin
————————————————————-
An Infinite Number of Monkeys
After all the Shakespeare, the book
of poems they type is the saddest
in history.
But before they can finish it,
they have to wait for that Someone
who is always
looking to look away. Only then
can they strike the million
keys that spell
humiliation and grief, which are
the great subjects of Monkey
Literature
and not, as some people still
believe, the banana
and the tire.
Ronald Koertge
————————————————————-
I wish Nelson would stop signalling. We all know well enough what to do.
Admiral Collingwood, Trafalgar, 21 October 1805
————————————————————-
“Captain Cuthbert Collingwood, later to become an admiral and Nelson’s second in command at Trafalgar, had his home at Morpeth, in Northumberland, and when he was there on half pay or on leave he loved to walk over the hills with his dog Bounce. He always started off with a handful of acorns in his pockets, and as he walked he would press an acorn into the soil whenever he saw a good place for an oak tree to grow. Some of the oaks he planted are probably still growing more than a century and a half later ready to be cut to build ships of the line at a time when nuclear submarines are patrolling the seas, because Collingwood’s purpose was to make sure that the Navy would never want for oaks to build the fighting ships upon which the country’s safety depended. . . .”
Life in Nelson’s Navy, Dudley Pope
http://www.treeforall.org.uk/trafalgar/TrafalgarWoods/Otherwoods/Royal_Sovereign/
————————————————————-
Give me books, fruit, French wine and fine weather and a little music out of doors, played by somebody I do not know.
Keats
————————————————————-
Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.
Francis Bacon, Christopher Marlowe, QEI or somebody
————————————————————-
“The ants are my friends, they’re blowing in the wind…”
————————————————————-
Like Ulysses/Odysseus, the figure of Alexander the Great (356–323 B.C.) had
been annexed by earlier Christian writers as an exemplar of Christian vices and
virtues, representing the curiosus, gyrovagus or restless traveller interested in
seeing the world for its own sake but saved by the wisdom he eventually
gained. Literary evidence indicates that stories about this itinerant everyman,
repeatedly being taught Christian virtues of humility, patience, poverty and
penitence through his worldly successes, encounters and errors, were popular
in Bartholomew’s time. His arrogant curiosity and pursuit of worldly experiences
took him beyond the bounds of normal travel and into contact with exotic and
unnatural creatures including Amazon women and sirens. It has been suggested
that in Christianised versions of the Greek account Alexander embodied the
worldly traveller subject to the ‘lust of the eyes’ and ‘pride of life’ warned against
in the first epistle of John. The Alexander stories that existed in the thirteenth
century show that the non-Christian hero was strongly associated in Christian
imagination with key locations on the map of the world, especially the earthly
Paradise into which he tried to force an entry, and its antithesis, Babylon, the
city identified in Scripture with the ‘mother of whores and abominations of the
earth’, where he died.
The Journey of a Book, Bartholomew the Englishman and the Properties of Things
Elizabeth Keen
————————————————————-
Pugh, Pugh, Barney McGrew, Cuthbert, Dibble, Grub
————————————————————-
“And the cry rang out all o’er the town,
Good heavens! The Tay Bridge is blown down.”
…
“For the stronger we our houses do build,
The less chance we have of being killed.”
…
selections from The Tay Bridge Disaster by William Topaz McGonagall
————————————————————-
Random quotes (three came to mind whilst watching the 100 best (worst?) disaster films, one not. See if you can spot it):
“Klaatu barada nikto”, The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951)
“Oh no, it wasn’t the airplanes. It was beauty killed the beast.”, King Kong (1933)
“Armageddon? Ah’m a geddin’ outta here!”, Anon
“It’s all right, that’s in every contract. That’s what they call a sanity clause.” “Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha! You can’t fool me! There ain’t no Sanity Clause!”, A Night at the Opera (1935)
————————————————————-
from La Muerta
…
No, perdóname.
Si tú no vives,
si tú, querida, amor mío,
si tú
te has muerto,
todas las hojas caerán en mi pecho,
lloverá sobre mi alma noche y día,
la nieve quemará mi corazón,
andaré con frío y fuego y muerte y nieve,
mis pies querrán marchar hacia donde tú duermes,
pero
seguiré vivo,
porque tú me quisiste sobre todas las cosas
indomable,
y, amor, porque tú sabes que soy no sólo un hombre
sino todos los hombres.
Pablo Neruda
————————————————————-
Viking North Utsire South Utsire Forties Cromarty Forth Tyne Dogger Fisher German Bight Humber Thames Dover Wight Portland Plymouth Biscay Southeast Fitzroy Northwest Fitzroy Sole Lundy Fastnet Irish Sea Shannon Rockall Malin Hebrides Bailey Fair Isle Faeroes Southeast Iceland
Dogger, Rockall, Malin, Irish Sea:
Green, swift upsurges, North Atlantic flux
Conjured by that strong gale-warming voice,
Collapse into a sibilant penumbra.
The Shipping Forecast, Seamus Heaney
Darkness outside. Inside, the radio’s prayer —
Rockall. Malin. Dogger. Finisterre.
Prayer, Carol Ann Duffy
————————————————————-
Lament for the Makars
I that in heill was and gladness
Am trublit now with great sickness
And feblit with infirmitie: –
Timor Mortis conturbat me.
Our plesance here is all vain glory,
This fals world is but transitory,
The flesh is bruckle, the Feynd is slee: –
Timor Mortis conturbat me.
The state of man does change and vary,
Now sound. now sick, now blyth, now sary,
Now dansand mirry, now like to die: –
Timor Mortis conturbat me.
No state in Erd here standis sicker;
As with the wynd wavis the wicker
So wannis this world’s vanitie: –
Timor Mortis conturbat me.
…
Lament for the Makars, William Dunbar (1460?-1520?)
————————————————————-
Timor mortis conturbat me…
Peccantem me quotidie, et non poenitentem, timor mortis conturbat me. Quia in inferno nulla est redemptio, miserere mei, Deus, et salva me.
————————————————————-
“Menja bé, caga fort i no tinguis por a la mort”
Catalan proverb
————————————————————-
The more things we know the better equipped we are to understand any one thing and it is a burning pity that our lives are not long enough and not sufficiently free of annoying obstacles, to study all things with the same care and depth as the one we now devote to some favorite subject or period. And yet there is a semblance of consolation within this dismal state of affairs: in the same way as the whole universe may be completely reciprocated in the structure of an atom, . . . an intelligent and assiduous student [may] find a small replica of all knowledge in a subject he has chosen for his special research. . . . and if, upon choosing your subject, you try diligently to find out about it, if you allow yourself to be lured into the shaded lanes that lead from the main road you have chosen to the lovely and little known nooks of special knowledge, if you lovingly finger the links of the many chains that connect your subject to the past and the future and if by luck you hit upon some scrap of knowledge referring to your subject that has not yet become common knowledge, then will you know the true felicity of the great adventure of learning….
Vladimir Nabokov
————————————————————-
“In years of roaming the wilds, my campfires seem like glowing beads in a long chain of experience. Some of the beads glow more than the others, and when I blow on them ever so softly, they burst into flame. When that happens, I recapture the scenes themselves, pick them out of the almost forgotten limbo of the past and make them live.
… There have been countless campfires, each one different, but some so blended into their backgrounds that it is hard for them to emerge. But I have found that when I catch even a glimmer of their almost forgotten light in the eyes of some friend who has shared them with me, they begin to flame once more. Those old fires have strange and wonderful powers. Even their memories make life the adventure it was meant to be.”
Sigurd F. Olson, The Singing Wilderness (1956)
“The movement of a canoe is like a reed in the wind. Silence is part of it, and the sounds of lapping water, bird songs, and wind in the trees.”
————————————————————-
“There have been joys too great to be described in words, and there have been griefs upon which I have not dared to dwell; and with these in mind I say: Climb if you will, but remember that courage and strength are nought without prudence, and that a momentary negligence may destroy the happiness of a lifetime. Do nothing in haste; look well to each step; and from the beginning think what may be the end”
Edward Whymper, Scrambles Amongst the Alps
————————————————————-
The Road Goes Ever On
The Road goes ever on and on
Down from the door where it began.
Now far ahead the Road has gone,
And I must follow, if I can,
Pursuing it with eager feet,
Until it joins some larger way
Where many paths and errands meet.
And whither then? I cannot say.
Bilbo Baggins
(transcribed by J.R.R.Tolkien)
(One of the variants of The Road Goes Ever On)
————————————————————-
The Road Not Taken
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that, the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
two roads diverged in a wood, and I –
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
Robert Frost
————————————————————-
“When you come to a fork in the road, take it.” – Yogi Berra
————————————————————-
Erlkönig
Wer reitet so spät durch Nacht und Wind?
Es ist der Vater mit seinem Kind;
Er hat den Knaben wohl in dem Arm,
Er faßt ihn sicher, er hält ihn warm.
“Mein Sohn, was birgst du so bang dein Gesicht?”
“Siehst, Vater, du den Erlkönig nicht?
Den Erlenkönig mit Kron und Schweif?”
“Mein Sohn, es ist ein Nebelstreif.”
“Du liebes Kind, komm, geh mit mir!
Gar schöne Spiele spiel’ ich mit dir;
Manch’ bunte Blumen sind an dem Strand,
Meine Mutter hat manch gülden Gewand.”
“Mein Vater, mein Vater, und hörest du nicht,
Was Erlenkönig mir leise verspricht?”
“Sei ruhig, bleib ruhig, mein Kind;
In dürren Blättern säuselt der Wind.”
“Willst, feiner Knabe, du mit mir gehn?
Meine Töchter sollen dich warten schön;
Meine Töchter führen den nächtlichen Reihn,
Und wiegen und tanzen und singen dich ein.”
“Mein Vater, mein Vater, und siehst du nicht dort
Erlkönigs Töchter am düstern Ort?”
“Mein Sohn, mein Sohn, ich seh es genau:
Es scheinen die alten Weiden so grau.”
“Ich liebe dich, mich reizt deine schöne Gestalt;
Und bist du nicht willig, so brauch ich Gewalt.”
“Mein Vater, mein Vater, jetzt faßt er mich an!
Erlkönig hat mir ein Leids getan!”
Dem Vater grauset’s, er reitet geschwind,
Er hält in Armen das ächzende Kind,
Erreicht den Hof mit Müh’ und Not;
In seinen Armen das Kind war tot.
Johan Wolfgang von Goethe
(See here for an interesting English translation/version)
————————————————————-
“You do not ask a tame seagull why it needs to disappear from time to time toward the open sea. It goes, that’s all.”
Bernard Moitessier
————————————————————-
… Come, my friends,
‘Tis not too late to seek a newer world.
Push off, and sitting well in order smite
The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die.
It may be that the gulfs will wash us down:
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,
And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.
Tho’ much is taken, much abides; and tho’
We are not now that strength which in the old days
Moved earth and heaven; that which we are, we are;
One equal-temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.”
Tennyson
————————————————————-
“la utopía está en el horizonte. Me acerco dos pasos, ella se aleja dos pasos. Camino diez pasos y el horizonte se desplaza diez pasos más allá. Por mucho que camine, nunca la alcanzaré. ¿Para qué sirve la utopia? Para eso: sirve para caminar.”
Utopia is on the horizon. I move two steps closer, it moves two steps further away. I walk another ten steps and the horizon runs ten steps further away. As much as I may walk, I’ll never reach it. So what’s the point of utopia? The point is this: to keep walking
Eduardo Galeano
————————————————————-
“The rain, it raineth on the just, and also on the unjust fella; But mostly on the just because the unjust steals the just’s umbrella”
————————————————————-
“Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail”- Ralph Waldo Emerson
————————————————————-
Cervantes on his galley sets the sword back in the sheath
(Don John of Austria rides homeward with a wreath.)
And he sees across a weary land a straggling road in Spain,
Up which a lean and foolish knight for ever rides in vain,
And he smiles, but not as Sultans smile, and settles back the blade….
(But Don John of Austria rides home from the Crusade.)
G.K. Chesterton
————————————————————-
Quand vous serez bien vieille…
Quand vous serez bien vieille, au soir, à la chandelle,
Assise aupres du feu, devidant et filant,
Direz, chantant mes vers, en vous esmerveillant :
Ronsard me celebroit du temps que j’estois belle.
Lors, vous n’aurez servante oyant telle nouvelle,
Desja sous le labeur à demy sommeillant,
Qui au bruit de mon nom ne s’aille resveillant,
Benissant vostre nom de louange immortelle.
Je seray sous la terre et fantaume sans os :
Par les ombres myrteux je prendray mon repos :
Vous serez au fouyer une vieille accroupie,
Regrettant mon amour et vostre fier desdain.
Vivez, si m’en croyez, n’attendez à demain :
Cueillez dés aujourd’huy les roses de la vie.
Pierre de Ronsard
————————————————————-
When you are old and grey and full of sleep,
And nodding by the fire, take down this book,
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;
How many loved your moments of glad grace,
And loved your beauty with love false or true,
But one man loved the pilgrim Soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face;
And bending down beside the glowing bars,
Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled
And paced upon the mountains overhead
And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.
W.B.Yeats
————————————————————-
Music I heard
Music I heard with you was more than music,
And bread I broke with you was more than bread;
Now that I am without you, all is desolate;
All that was once so beautiful is dead.
Your hands once touched this table and this silver,
And I have seen your fingers hold this glass.
These things do not remember you, beloved,
And yet your touch upon them will not pass.
For it was in my heart that you moved among them,
And blessed them with your hands and with your eyes;
And in my heart they will remember always, -
They knew you once, O beautiful and wise.
Conrad Aiken
————————————————————-
When I am dead
When I am dead
And this strange spark of life that in me lies
Is fled to join the great white core of life
That surely flames beyond eternities,
And all I ever thought of as myself
Is mouldering to dust and cold death ash,
This pride of nerve and muscle – merest dross,
This joy of brain and eye and touch but trash,
Bury me not, I pray thee
In the dark earth where there comes not any ray
Of light or warmth or aught that make life dear;
But take my whitened bones far, far away
Out of the hum and turmoil of the town,
Find me a wind – swept boulder for a bier
And on it lay me down
Where far beneath drops sheer the rocky ridge
Down to the gloomy valley, and the streams
Fall foaming white against black beetling rocks:
Where the suns kindly radiance seldom gleams:
Where some tall peak, defiant, steadfast mocks
The passing gods: and all the ways of men
Forgotten.
So I may know
Even in that death which comes to everything
The swiftly silent swish of hurrying snow;
The lash of rain; the savage bellowing
Of stags; the bitter keen – knife – edge embrace of the rushing
wind: and the still tremulous dawn
Will touch the eyeless sockets of my face;
And I shall see the sunset and anon
Shall know the velvet kindness of the night
And see the stars.
Hugh A. Barrie
(Barrie and his climbing companion Thomas Baird died in a blizzard in the Cairngorms on New Year’s day 1928. See here for an account, and also here for a short account.)
————————————————————-
Sea Fever
I must down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky,
And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by,
And the wheel’s kick and the wind’s song and the white sail’s shaking,
And a grey mist on the sea’s face, and a grey dawn breaking.
I must down to the seas again, for the call of the running tide
Is a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied;
And all I ask is a windy day with the white clouds flying,
And the flung spray and the blown spume, and the sea-gulls crying.
I must down to the seas again, to the vagrant gypsy life,
To the gull’s way and the whale’s way where the wind’s like a whetted knife;
And all I ask is a merry yarn from a laughing fellow-rover
And quiet sleep and a sweet dream when the long trick’s over.
John Masefield
————————————————————-
Nuc lento sonitu dicunt, morieris.
Now this bell tolling softly for another, says to me, Thou must die.
…No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend’s or of thine own were. Any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee…
John Donne
————————————————————-
I Leave Tonight From Euston
I shall leave tonight from Euston
By the seven-thirty train,
And from Perth in the early morning
I shall see the hills again.
From the top of Ben Macdhui
I shall watch the gathering storm,
And see the crisp snow lying
At the back of Cairngorm.
I shall feel the mist from Bhrotain
and the pass by Lairig Ghru
To look on dark Loch Einich
From the heights of Sgoran Dubh.
From the broken Barns of Bynack
I shall see the sunrise gleam
On the forehead of Ben Rinnes
And Strathspey awake from dream.
And again in the dusk of evening
I shall find once more alone
The dark water of the Green Loch,
And the pass beyond Ryvoan.
For tonight I leave from Euston
And leave the world behind;
Who has the hills as a lover,
Will find them wondrous kind.
A.M.Lawrence
(Poem that used to be fixed to the inside of the door at Ryvoan bothy, see here for a little more detail.)
————————————————————-
Mangez sur l’herbe
Dépêchez-vous
Un jour ou l’autre
L’herbe mangera sur vous.
Jacques Prévert
————————————————————-
PARLEZ-MOI D’AMOUR
paroles et musique: Jean Lenoir
REFRAIN:
Parlez-moi d’amour,
Redites-moi des choses tendres.
Votre beau discours,
Mon coeur n’est pas las de l’entendre.
Pourvu que toujours
Vous répétiez ces mots suprêmes:
Je vous aime.
(1er couplet)
Vous savez bien
Que dans le fond je n’en crois rien
Mais cependant je veux encore
Écouter ce mot que j’adore.
Votre voix aux sons caressants
Qui le murmure en frémissant
Me berce de sa belle histoire
Et malgré moi je veux y croire.
(2e couplet)
Il est si doux,
Mon cher trésor, d’être un peu fou.
La vie est parfois trop amère
Si l’on ne croit pas aux chimères.
Le chagrin est vite apaisé
Et se console d’un baiser.
Du coeur on guérit la blessure
Par un serment qui le rassure.
————————————————————-
Camino poem
(on a wall just outside Nájera on the Camino de Santiago)
Polvo, barro, sol y lluvia
es Camino de Santiago.
Millares de peregrinos
y más de un millar de años.
Peregrino ¿quién te llama?
¿qué fuerza oculta te atrae?.
Ni el campo de las estrellas
ni las grandes catedrales.
No es la bravura Navarra
ni el vino de los riojanos
ni los mariscos gallegos
ni los campos castellanos.
Peregrino ¿quién te llama?
¿qué fuerza oculta te atrae?.
Ni las gentes del Camino
ni las costumbres rurales.
No es la historia y la cultura
ni el gallo de la Calzada
ni es el palacio de Gaudi
ni el castillo Ponferrada.
Todo lo veo al pasar
y es un gozo verlo todo;
más la voz que a mí me llama
la siento mucho mas hondo.
La fuerza que a mí me empuja,
la fuerza que a mí me atrae
no sé explicarla ni yo.
¡Sólo El de arriba lo sabe!
Eugenio Garibay Baños
