Might I Have a Bit of Earth?

.A Cottage Near Brook  Helen Allingham

Ode on Solitude

By Alexander Pope

Happy the man, whose wish and care

A few paternal acres bound,

Content to breathe his native air,

In his own ground.

Whose herds with milk, whose fields with bread,

Whose flocks supply him with attire,

Whose trees in summer yield him shade,

In winter fire.

Blest, who can unconcernedly find

Hours, days, and years slide soft away,

In health of body, peace of mind,

Quiet by day,

Sound sleep by night; study and ease,

Together mixed; sweet recreation;

And innocence, which most does please,

With meditation.

Thus let me live, unseen, unknown;

Thus unlamented let me die;

Steal from the world, and not a stone

Tell where I lie.

Echoes of the Past

Alnwick Castle at Northumberland  Canaletto

 The Splendor Falls on Castle Walls
by Alfred, Lord Tennyson 

The splendor falls on castle walls
And snowy summits old in story;
The long light shakes across the lakes,
And the wild cataract leaps in glory.
Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying,
Blow, bugle; answer, echoes, dying. dying, dying.

O, hark, O, hear! how thin and clear,
And thinner, clearer, farther going!
O, sweet and far from cliff and scar
The horns of Elfland faintly blowing!
Blow, let us hear the purple glens replying,
Blow, bugle; answer, echoes, dying, dying, dying.

O love, they die in yon rich sky,
They faint on hill or field or river;
Our echoes roll from soul to soul,
And grow for ever and for ever.
Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying,

And answer, echoes, answer, dying, dying, dying.

Daytime and Nighttime Images of Dover

Dover 3  William Daniell

 From Dover Beach

by Matthew Arnold

The sea is calm to-night.
The tide is full, the moon lies fair
Upon the straits; on the French coast the light
Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand;
Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay.
Come to the window, sweet is the night-air!
Only, from the long line of spray
Where the sea meets the moon-blanched land,
Listen! you hear the grating roar
Of pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling,
At their return, up the high strand,
Begin, and cease, and then again begin,
With tremulous cadence slow, and bring
The eternal note of sadness in.

Keeping Secrets

Smugglers  Jean Baptiste Camille Corot

 Smuggler's Song

by Rudyard Kipling

If you wake at Midnight, and hear a horse's feet,
Don't go drawing back the blind, or looking in the street,
Them that asks no questions isn't told a lie.
Watch the wall, my darling, while the Gentlemen go by!

Five and twenty ponies
Trotting through the dark -
Brandy for the Parson.
'Baccy for the Clerk;
Laces for a lady, letters for a spy,
And watch the wall, my darling, while the Gentlemen go by!

Running round the woodlump, if you chance to find
Little barrels, roped and tarred, all full of brandy-wine,
Don't you shout to come and look, nor use 'em for your play.
Put the brushwood back again - and they'll be gone next day!

Five and twenty ponies
Trotting through the dark -
Brandy for the Parson.
'Baccy for the Clerk;
Laces for a lady, letters for a spy,
And watch the wall, my darling, while the Gentlemen go by!

If you see the stable door setting open wide;
If you see a tired horse lying down inside;
If your mother mends a coat cut about and tore;
If the lining's wet and warm - don't you ask no more!

Five and twenty ponies
Trotting through the dark -
Brandy for the Parson.
'Baccy for the Clerk;
Laces for a lady, letters for a spy,
And watch the wall, my darling, while the Gentlemen go by!

If you meet King George's men, dressed in blue and red,
You be careful what you say, and mindful what is said.
If they call you "pretty maid", and chuck you 'neath the chin,
Don't you tell where no one is, nor yet where no one's been!

Five and twenty ponies
Trotting through the dark -
Brandy for the Parson.
'Baccy for the Clerk;
Laces for a lady, letters for a spy,
And watch the wall, my darling, while the Gentlemen go by!

If you do as you've been told, 'likely there's a chance,
You'll be given a dainty doll, all the way from France,
With a cap of pretty lace, and a velvet hood -
A present from the Gentlemen, along o' being good!

Five and twenty ponies
Trotting through the dark -
Brandy for the Parson.
'Baccy for the Clerk;
Laces for a lady, letters for a spy,
And watch the wall, my darling, while the Gentlemen go by!

Who's There?

Wooded Moonlit Landscape with Pool  Thomas Gainsborough

Some One

by Walter de la Mare

Some one came knocking
At my wee, small door;
Some one came knocking,
I'm sure - sure - sure;
I listened, I opened,
I looked to left and right,
But naught there was a-stirring
In the still dark night;
Only the busy beetle
Tap-tapping in the wall,
Only from the forest
The screech-owl's call,
Only the cricket whistling
While the dewdrops fall,
So I know not who came knocking,
At all, at all, at all.

A Fur Coat

Morning in a Pine Forest  Ivan Shishkin

Furry Bear

by A. A. Milne

If I were a bear
And a big bear too,
I shouldn't much care
If it froze or snew;
I wouldn't much mind
If it snowed or friz-
I'd be all fur-lined
With a coat like his!

Winter Wilds

Figures in a Winter Landscape  Frederik Marinus Kruseman

Bilbo's Song of Winter
by J.R.R. Tolkien
When winter first begins to bite
and stones crack in the frosty night,
when pools are black and trees are bare,
'tis evil in the Wild to fare.

Winter Resignations

Winter Landscape  Caspar David Friedrich

Winter: A Dirge

by Robert Burns

The wintry west extends his blast,
And hail and rain does blaw;
Or the stormy north sends driving forth
The blinding sleet and snaw:
While, tumbling brown, the burn comes down,
And roars frae bank to brae;
And bird and beast in covert rest,
And pass the heartless day.

“The sweeping blast, the sky o’ercast,”
The joyless winter day
Let others fear, to me more dear
Than all the pride of May:
The tempest’s howl, it soothes my soul,
My griefs it seems to join;
The leafless trees my fancy please,
Their fate resembles mine!

Thou Power Supreme, whose mighty scheme
These woes of mine fulfil,
Here firm I rest; they must be best,
Because they are Thy will!
Then all I want—O do Thou grant
This one request of mine!—
Since to enjoy Thou dost deny,
Assist me to resign.

The Pull of the Sea

Fishermen at Sea  Joseph Mallord William Turner

Sea Fever

by John Masefield 

I must go 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 gray mist on the sea's face, and a gray dawn breaking. 

I must go 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 go 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. 

Snapshot of Holland

The Avenue at Middelharnis  Meindert Hobbema

Memory of Holland
by Hendrik Marsman

Thinking of Holland
I see wide rivers slowly
flowing through endless
low-lying land,
inconceivably
gossamer poplars
on the horizon
in wispish ranks;
and in the expanses of
space, sunken farmsteads
randomly strewn over
flat countryside,
tree-clusters, hamlets,
truncated steeples,
churches and elm trees
in a net flung wide.
The sky there hangs low
and the sun slowly stifles
in vapours where multiple
greys become blurred,
and in every far corner
the voice of the water
with its countless disasters
is feared and is heard.

Winter's Song

Village at Winter at Midnight  Jacob van Ruisdael

"Be Off!"

 by Victor Hugo

"Be off!" say Winter's snows;

"Now it's my turn to sing!"

So, startled, quivering,

Not daring to oppose

(Our fortitude grows dim in

The face of a Quos ego),

Away, my songs, must we go

Before those virile women!

Rain. We are forced to fly,

Everywhere, utterly.

End of the comedy.

Come, swallows, it's good-bye.

Wind, sleet. The branches sway,

Writhing their stunted limbs,

And off the white smoke swims

Across the heavens' gray.

A pallid yellow lingers

Over the chilly dale.

My keyhole blows a gale

Onto my frozen fingers.

After the Rain

The Rainbow Landscape  Peter Paul Rubens

The Rainbow
                     by Christina Rossetti
Boats sail on the rivers,
And ships sail on the seas;
But clouds that sail across the sky
Are prettier than these.

There are bridges on the rivers,
As pretty as you please;
But the bow that bridges heaven,
And overtops the trees,
And builds a road from earth to sky,
Is prettier far than these.