Lives of great men will remind us
We can make our lives sublime
And,departing, leave behind us
Footprints on the sands of time.
Footprints, that perhaps another,
Sailing o’er life’s solemn main,
A forlorn and shipwrecked brother,
Seeing, shall take heart again.
Longfellow
----------------------
I saw a jolly hunter
With a jolly gun
Walking in the country
In the jolly sun.
In the jolly meadow
Sat a jolly hare.
Saw the jolly hunter.
Took jolly care.
Hunter jolly eager-
Sight of jolly prey.
Forgot gun pointing
Wrong jolly way.
Jolly hunter jolly head
Over heels gone.
Jolly old safety catch
Not jolly on.
Bang went the jolly gun.
Hunter jolly dead.
Jolly hare got clean away.
Jolly good, I said.
Charles Causey - (24 August 1917 – 4 November 2003) was a Cornish poet, schoolmaster and writer. His work is noted for its simplicity and directness and for its associations with folklore, especially when linked to his native Cornwall.
I know you delighted in those days when you weighed up (literally) the avoirdupois advantages of a titanium pannikin over a cupro-nickel one, a single-piece body sock knitted in llama wool over a three-piecer from Burtons and a poly-diethylene-ribotoxin-cro-magnon tent equipped with hovering mechanism (thus preserving your sleeping bag from damp nights), but it is immensely cheering to read of you saying, in effect, to-hell-with-weight and referring to the audio quality - and nothing else! - of your headphones. I know you secretly yearn for the world encapsulated in the hymn:
ReplyDeleteNot for ever by still waters,
Do we ask the way to be,
But the steep and rugged pathway,
May we treat rejoicingly.
but Colin Davies, Sir Colin Davies, actually, should have been Lord Davies, isn't a bad compensation for wonky knees. An lo, you are even launching into music criticism. I suggested some months ago that music might be a perfect accompaniment to walking, given that the environment is tranquil. Not one or the other, but both. Mind you I doubt that the Kennet Canal deserved the Mahler Resurrection, probably an arrangement of Linden Lea by Eric Coates would have have been more seemly. But you may adjust. And eventually bring out your magnum opus: Ten Great British Walks With Music To Hum Along To.
Two bulls' eyes in a row. The first w my Mac comment on your blog, ou rose to that one like killer shark to horsemeat. Anyway I fel wiite buoyed up with this one esprcially the hymn
ReplyDeleteErr .... Dad please tell me that last post was a victim of auto type??????
ReplyDeleteThat's as far as Blogger would let me go not allowed to tupe or coreect any more.
ReplyDeleteHigh Horse - not sure what you mean.
ReplyDeleteIt was full of spelling mistakes -MOST unlike you!
ReplyDeleteIt was full of spelling mistakes -MOST unlike you!
ReplyDeleteHH- as I try to keep explaining i get to a certain point with Blogger when it won' let me type anymore, never mind going back to correct the typos.
ReplyDeleteYou seem - rather pathetically - pleased to have triggered a response. But say nothing of the quality of the response. There is imagination, sympathy and a thin vein of seriousness in that comment. From now on I will merely transpose quotes from Robert Peston's new work: Articulacy And The Challenge Of Television.
ReplyDeleteI did acknowledge my reaction to your comment, and the appropriate choice of the hymn verse.
ReplyDeleteI am being hampered because Blogger keeps switching off my ability to continue typing, so I can't even go back and correct typos. I had turned off auto correction because it was bugging me and that may be the cause, so I have now put it back on. I seem to be typing this ok now.
I think Peston is a thinly disguised robot.