A lovely poem Tis.I have never heard it before.

''So having said, a while he stood, expecting
Their universal shout and high applause
To fill his ear; when contrary, he hears,
On all sides, from innumerable tongues
A dismal universal hiss, the sound
Of public scorn.''

John Milton - excerpt from Paradise Lost

Thank you. Dr Livingstone. Have never been in here before and have enjoyed so much reading the beautiful poetry which has always been a love of mine.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson
The Eagle

He clasps the crag with hooked hands;
Close to the sun in lonely lands,
Ring'd with the azure world, he stands.

The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls;
He watches from his mountain walls,
And like a thunderbolt he falls.

Choric Song by Alfred Lord Tennyson.

There is sweet music here that softer falls
Than petals from blown roses on the grass,
Or night-dews on still waters between walls
Of shadowey granite,in a gleaming pass,
Music that gentlier on the spirit lies,
Than tir'd eyelids upon tir'd eyes
Music that brings sweet sleep down from the blissful
skies
Here are cool mosses deep,
And thro' the moss the ivies creep,
And in the stream the long-leaved flowers weep,
And from the craggy ledge the poppy hangs in sleep

And that's a Tennyson I'd not heard before Dr, - the words and the way he phrases them take you right to the scene like a beautiful painting.

I know this one has been posted before in it's entirety - but this verse runs around in my head so often, and I feel it so deeply that I just had to include it.

I love a sunburnt country,
A land of sweeping plains,
Of ragged mountain ranges,
Of droughts and flooding rains.
I love her far horizons,
I love her jewel-sea,
Her beauty and her terror -
The wide brown land for me!

My Country by Dorothea Mackellar

Wild Geese by Mary Oliver.

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert,repenting
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair,yours,and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the praires and the deep trees,
the mountains and rivers.
Meantime the wild geese,high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are,no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese,harsh and exciting--
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

Ref 643 - Sorry taking so long to get back to you Doc, but Spring has sprung here:

My Shadow
By Robert Louis Stevenson 1850–1894
I have a little shadow that goes in and out with me,
And what can be the use of him is more than I can see.
He is very, very like me from the heels up to the head;
And I see him jump before me, when I jump into my bed.


The funniest thing about him is the way he likes to grow—
Not at all like proper children, which is always very slow;
For he sometimes shoots up taller like an india-rubber ball,
And he sometimes gets so little that there's none of him at all.


He hasn't got a notion of how children ought to play,
And can only make a fool of me in every sort of way.
He stays so close beside me, he's a coward you can see;
I'd think shame to stick to nursie as that shadow sticks to me!


One morning, very early, before the sun was up,
I rose and found the shining dew on every buttercup;
But my lazy little shadow, like an errant sleepy-head,
Had stayed at home behind me and was fast asleep in bed.

Strangeron/Shore, You are in US. Right.?Welcome.

The naming of parts

Today we have naming of parts. Yesterday,
We had daily cleaning. And tomorrow morning,
We shall have what to do after firing. But today,
Today we have naming of parts. Japonica

Glistens like coral in all of the neighboring gardens,
And today we have naming of parts.
This is the lower sling swivel. And this
Is the upper sling swivel, whose use you will see,
When you are given your slings. And this is the piling swivel,
Which in your case you have not got. The branches
Hold in the gardens their silent, eloquent gestures,
Which in our case we have not got.
This is the safety-catch, which is always released
With an easy flick of the thumb. And please do not let me
See anyone using his finger. You can do it quite easy
If you have any strength in your thumb. The blossoms
Are fragile and motionless, never letting anyone see
Any of them using their finger.
And this you can see is the bolt. The purpose of this
Is to open the breech, as you see. We can slide it
Rapidly backwards and forwards: we call this
Easing the spring. And rapidly backwards and forwards
The early bees are assaulting and fumbling the flowers:
They call it easing the Spring.
They call it easing the Spring: it is perfectly easy
If you have any strength in your thumb: like the bolt,
And the breech, and the cocking-piece, and the point of balance,
Which in our case we have not got; and the almond-blossom
Silent in all of the gardens and the bees going backwards and forwards,
For today we have naming of parts.

Henry Reed.

Brightstar (Written on a Blank Page in Shakespeare,s Poems facing "A Lovers Complaint.)"
Bright star would I were stedfast as thou art-
Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night
And watching with eternal lids apart,
Like natures patient,sleepless Eremite,
The moving waters at their priestlike task
Of pure ablution round earths human shores
Or gazing on the new soft-fallen mask
Of snow upon the mountains and the moors--
No-yet still stedfast,still unchangeable,
Pillowed upon my fair love,s ripening breast,
To feel forever its soft fall and swell,
Awake forever in a sweet unrest,
Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath,
And so live ever- or else swoon to death.

A PSALM OF LIFE By Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.(two verses) of 9.

Tell me not in mournful numbers
Life is but an empty dream!
For the soul is dead that slumbers.
And things are not what they seem.

Life is real.!Life is earnest!
And the grave is not its goal!
Dust thou are,to dust thou returnest.
Was not spoken of the soul.