This Piece of Music

In honour of the fact that I've been trying to switch the music around, or at least ensure that more than one song plays for the duration of your visit, I am sharing here the lyrics of this beautiful piece of music, which until I can figure out, might be the only piece of music you hear every time you visit. Until I work this out and actually have what they call a "playlist".

For the record, IMHO Leonard Bernstein was a true musical genius. Apart from everything else, this shows it, above all.

CANDIDE

You've been a fool, and so have I,
But come and be my wife.
And let us try,
Before we die,
To make some sense of life.
We're neither pure, nor wise, nor good
We'll do the best we know.
We'll build our house and chop our wood
And make our garden grow...
And make our garden grow.

CUNEGONDE

I thought the world
Was sugar cake
For so our master said.
But, now I'll teach
My hands to bake
Our loaf of daily bread.

CANDIDE AND CUNEGONDE

We're neither pure, nor wise, nor good
We'll do the best we know.
We'll build our house and chop our wood
And make our garden grow...
And make our garden grow.

(ensemble enters in gardening gear and a cow walks on)
CANDIDE, CUNEGONDE, MAXIMILLIAN, PAQUETTE, OLD LADY, DR. PANGLOSS

Let dreamers dream
What worlds they please
Those Edens can't be found.
The sweetest flowers,
The fairest trees
Are grown in solid ground.

ENSEMBLE (a cappella)
[which means the music stops, and normally here I catch my breath ... and get a bit choked up]

We're neither pure, nor wise, nor good
We'll do the best we know.
We'll build our house and chop our wood
And make our garden grow.
And make our garden grow!
(The cow dies)

That's life, hey?

Kitty poem

I keep remembering the first five lines of this rhyme, when I scoop Ginger into my arms and cuddle him. It's very twee, granted, but I think it's cute, and I was happy to find it from a Google search.

I knew this poem from a child when we had cat after cat, until, if some of you remember, I became allergic at the age of 9 (this is Muffin).




So, without further ado, I present you with this anonymous poem. Unfortunately, I had to change the gender, so I lose one particular rhyme ...

I love little Kitty,
His coat is so warm,
And if I don't hurt him,
He'll do me no harm.





So I'll not pull his tail,
Nor drive him away,
But Kitty and I
Very gently will play.




He shall sit by my side,
And I'll give him some food;
And he'll love me because
I am gentle and good.




I'll pat pretty Kitty,
And then he will purr;
And thus show his thanks
For my kindness to him;



But I'll not pinch his ears,
Nor tread on his paw,
Lest I should provoke him
To use his sharp claw.




I never will vex him,
Nor make him displeased -
For Kitty don't like
To be worried or teased.




-Anon

Apparently it first appeared in 1830 to teach young children to respect their cat. As well one should because they can, if they want to, dig all five claws into your hand for no apparent reason.

To Autumn

by the brilliant John Keats.


SEASON of mists and mellow fruitfulness!
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eaves run;
To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
For Summer has o'er-brimm'd their clammy cells.



Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?
Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,
Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;
Or on a half-reap'd furrow sound asleep,
Drowsed with the fume of poppies, while thy hook
Spares the next swath and all its twinèd flowers;
And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep
Steady thy laden head across a brook;
Or by a cider-press, with patient look,
Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours.



Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?
Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,—
While barrèd clouds bloom the soft-dying day,
And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;
Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn
Among the river sallows, borne aloft
Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;
Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft
The redbreast whistles from a garden-croft;
And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.

Cats are like buses

You can see one all day, then four come along at once!

Ginger hung out with me most of the day outside on Saturday, but later on was joined by his brother.



Bagpuss of course came by, closely followed by Blackie.




I have come to have closer acquaintance with Blackie recently.

Of an evening, you might find me here at my computer in the sitting room. The kitchen door is open, the weather being very temperate, and as Ginger is usually out and about, I generally don't close it until we settle down for the night. I can hear the "tick tick tick" of little cat feet on the wooden hall floor, once they come past the kitchen. Lately, I'm not sure who I'm going to find - could be Bagpuss, could be Big Ginger. The other night it was Blackie! He liked the petting. He ate the food. He enjoyed the scratching behind the ears.

How many cats are going to feel they have carte blanche to walk freely into my house??

Now, I can handle this, as long as they don't do the spraying thing. I have found a solution, however, for when I'm working in the garden, and someone or other wanders in looking for food.

I found this lovely bit of trellis at Aldi on Saturday, intending to put it up for one of the climbers and see how it looked. In the meantime, however, it works extremely well as a "catgate" so that anyone can wander in and have a bite of food, but not get further in and do something objectionable. This also saves me from having to stop what I'm doing to monitor them.

This will also stop me muttering under my breath, "push off, pussy". I say this due to the following poem, which has been part of my life for as long as I can remember.

So without further ado and with grateful thanks to Emerson Clarke, I share his poem with you, "Requiem for a Departed Cat".

Push off, pussy
To your reward
At some distant mousehole
Or midnight walk.
Pussy, push off.

Push off, pussy,
Nevermore to roll you dish
Out of reach beneath sink
Or Frigidaire.
Pussy, push off.

Push off, pussy,
Gone are your claws
Ripping to shreds
The sofa seat.
Pussy, push off.

Push off, pussy.
The trace of you begone
From corners secretive
And redolent with your
Careful deposit.
Pussy, push off.

Push off, pussy,
To some distant Edelweiss
Where cans of your snacks
Are stacked high and smellwise.
Pussy, push off.

Push off, pussy,
To some catnip land
Where the moon hangs high
Over an endless alley.
Pussy, push off -
Push off.

The Glory of the Garden

A selection of stanzas from Rudyard Kipling's poem, "The Glory of the Garden" for a Sunday morning.

Our England is a garden, and such gardens are not made
By singing:--"Oh, how beautiful!" and sitting in the shade,
While better men than we go out and start their working lives
At grubbing weeds from gravel-paths with broken dinner-knives.


There's not a pair of legs so thin, there's not a head so thick,
There's not a hand so weak and white, nor yet a heart so sick,
But it can find some needful job that's crying to be done,
For the Glory of the Garden glorifieth every one.

Then seek your job with thankfulness and work till further orders,
If it's only netting strawberries or killing slugs on borders;
And when your back stops aching and your hands begin to harden,
You will find yourself a partner in the Glory of the Garden.

One of my favourites, and it seemed appropriate what with all the digging I did yesterday ( resulting in an aching back). The attack on the slugs begins now, as well.

I visited Kipling's home last year, a National Trust property (Bateman's) in Burwash, Sussex. Beautiful place, beautiful gardens of course, and I bought myself a laminated copy of the poem above. Laminated, so I could mount it on the wall outside as inspiration.

Also during my visit, I picked up a plant (I always seem to come home with at least one plant when I visit a National Trust property), this beautiful euphorbia which is coming along so nicely.

The weather is cooperating this Bank Holiday weekend, for the most part (a bit of rain yesterday during my forking session). Today is cloudy, and there may be spots of rain but so far, so good. So back out there I go! It is my dearest hope to get the potatoes in today but oh my, there is a lot of stuff down there.










That bad boy took me about half an hour to lever out as it was pretty deep. Still, needs must if I hope to have a successful crop of potatoes.

The good news is, the onions are beginning to sprout! Very exciting!

My fork is calling me ...

West Winds

You may have heard that the British mainland has been buffeted by storms recently. Or perhaps not; is this really international news?




Well, on Sunday afternoon, and the weekend was better than forecast (it had threatened rain all weekend but I actually did a lot of weeding - again - and some planting!), we battened down the hatches in preparation for the coming, promised gale force winds set to hit overnight on Sunday (and peak during Monday morning rush hour, oh joy). Husband added some brackets to the left fence which included a fair amount of drilling into the concrete posts, and they have held everything in place wonderfully - not a panel down!


The winds weren't so bad here in London, but Monday morning was no picnic. Yes, strong wind and rain, on the walk to the train, followed by boughts of sunshine (unexpected) and more sideways rain (definitely expected) during the day. Coastally, of course, it was a different story, but this is an island, after all.



But today, even though we were promised some more of those winds, and it certainly is picking up out there, they seem to have a nicer, friendlier breath - which puts me in mind of one of my favourite poets, and poems.



So if you'll allow me, I'm going to throw poetry at you. You know how you can smell Spring in the air? That's what I scented tonight in the rising winds - not harsh and wintery like Monday, but almost warm and slightly sweet, and certainly a harbinger of the coming new season.



Without further ado:

Ode to the West Wind by Percy Bysshe Shelley

I

O wild West Wind, thou breath of Autumn's being,
Thou, from whose unseen presence the leaves dead
Are driven, like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing,
Yellow, and black, and pale, and hectic red,
Pestilence-stricken multitudes: O thou,
Who chariotest to their dark wintry bed
The wingèd seeds, where they lie cold and low,
Each like a corpse within its grave,until
Thine azure sister of the Spring shall blow
Her clarion o'er the dreaming earth, and fill
(Driving sweet buds like flocks to feed in air)
With living hues and odours plain and hill:
Wild Spirit, which art moving everywhere;
Destroyer and Preserver; hear, O hear!

II

Thou on whose stream, 'mid the steep sky's commotion,
Loose clouds like Earth's decaying leaves are shed,
Shook from the tangled boughs of Heaven and Ocean,
Angels of rain and lightning: there are spread
On the blue surface of thine airy surge,
Like the bright hair uplifted from the head
Of some fierce Maenad, even from the dim verge
Of the horizon to the zenith's height,
The locks of the approaching storm. Thou dirge
Of the dying year, to which this closing night
Will be the dome of a vast sepulchre
Vaulted with all thy congregated might
Of vapours, from whose solid atmosphere
Black rain, and fire, and hail will burst: O hear!

III

Thou who didst waken from his summer dreams
The blue Mediterranean, where he lay,
Lulled by the coil of his crystalline streams,
Beside a pumice isle in Baiae's bay,
And saw in sleep old palaces and towers
Quivering within the wave's intenser day,
All overgrown with azure moss and flowers
So sweet, the sense faints picturing them! Thou
For whose path the Atlantic's level powers
Cleave themselves into chasms, while far below
The sea-blooms and the oozy woods which wear
The sapless foliage of the ocean, know
Thy voice, and suddenly grow grey with fear,
And tremble and despoil themselves: O hear!

IV

If I were a dead leaf thou mightest bear;
If I were a swift cloud to fly with thee;
A wave to pant beneath thy power, and share
The impulse of thy strength, only less free
Than thou, O Uncontrollable! If even
I were as in my boyhood, and could be
The comrade of thy wanderings over Heaven,
As then, when to outstrip thy skiey speed
Scarce seemed a vision; I would ne'er have striven
As thus with thee in prayer in my sore need.
Oh! lift me as a wave, a leaf, a cloud!
I fall upon the thorns of life! I bleed!
A heavy weight of hours has chained and bowed
One too like thee: tameless, and swift, and proud.

V

Make me thy lyre, even as the forest is:
What if my leaves are falling like its own!
The tumult of thy mighty harmonies
Will take from both a deep, autumnal tone,
Sweet though in sadness. Be thou, Spirit fierce,
My spirit! Be thou me, impetuous one!
Drive my dead thoughts over the universe
Like withered leaves to quicken a new birth!
And, by the incantation of this verse,
Scatter, as from an unextinguished hearth
Ashes and sparks, my words among mankind!
Be through my lips to unawakened Earth
The trumpet of a prophecy! O Wind,
If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?

Five perfect stanzas, and the last line, of course, every gardener's dream.



More soon (gardening, I mean, not poetry!).