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!

February 6, 1911

Ronald Reagan  Alton Tobey

Above all, we must realize 

that no arsenal, 

or no weapon in the arsenals of the world, 

is so formidable 

as the will and moral courage 

of free men and women. 

It is a weapon our adversaries in today's world do not have. 

Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. 

We didn't pass it to our children in the bloodstream. 

It must be fought for, 

protected, 

and handed on for them to do the same, 

or one day we will spend our sunset years 

telling our children and our children's children

what it was once like in the United States where men were free.

The government's view of the economy 

could be summed up in a few short phrases: 

If it moves, tax it. 

If it keeps moving, regulate it. 

And if it stops moving, subsidize it. 

The nine most terrifying words in the English language are, 

'I'm from the government and I'm here to help.'

The ultimate determinant

in the struggle now going on for the world 

will not be bombs and rockets 

but a test of wills and ideas-

a trial of spiritual resolve: 

the values we hold, 

the beliefs we cherish 

and the ideals to which we are dedicated.

A people free to choose will always choose peace.

You and I have a rendezvous with destiny.

We will preserve for our children this,

the last best hope of man on earth, 

or we will sentence them to take the first step 

into a thousand years of darkness. 

If we fail, 

at least let our children and 

our children's children 

say of us 

we justified our brief moment here. 

We did all that could be done.

Inflation is as violent as a mugger,

 as frightening as an armed robber

 and as deadly as a hit man.

Mr Gorbachev, tear down this wall! 

Man is not free unless government is limited.

Protecting the rights 

of even the least individual among us 

is basically the only excuse the government has 

for even existing.

We can't help everyone, but everyone can help someone. 

We have the duty to protect the life of an unborn child.

 We must reject the idea that every time a law's broken, 

society is guilty rather than the lawbreaker. 

It is time to restore the American precept 

that each individual is accountable for his actions.

Welfare's purpose should be to eliminate, as far as possible, 

the need for its own existence.

We should measure welfare's success 

by how many people leave welfare, 

not by how many are added.

Freedom prospers 

when religion is vibrant 

and the rule of law under God is acknowledged.

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.

How Would You Like Your Pet?

Two Chained Monkeys  Pieter Bruegel the Elder

The Family Monkey 

by Russell Edson
We bought an electric monkey, experimenting rather
recklessly with funds carefully gathered since
grandfather's time for the purchase of a steam monkey.

We had either, by this time, the choice of an electric
or gas monkey.

The steam monkey is no longer being made, said the monkey
merchant.

But the family always planned on a steam monkey.

Well, said the monkey merchant, just as the wind-up monkey
gave way to the steam monkey, the steam monkey has given way
to the gas and electric monkeys.

Is that like the grandfather clock being replaced by the
grandchild clock?

Sort of, said the monkey merchant.

So we bought the electric monkey, and plugged its umbilical
cord into the wall.

The smoke coming out of its fur told us something was wrong.

We had electrocuted the family monkey.

Images of Warmth and Happiness

Bay of Naples 1830  Rober Walter Weir

from Stanzas Written in Dejection near Naples 

by Percy Bysshe Shelley 

The sun is warm, the sky is clear,
The waves are dancing fast and bright,
Blue isles and snowy mountains wear
The purple noon's transparent might:
The breath of the moist earth is light
Around its unexpanded buds;
Like many a voice of one delight—
The winds', the birds', the ocean-floods'—
The city's voice itself is soft like solitude's.

I see the deep's untrampled floor
With green and purple seaweeds strown;
I see the waves upon the shore
Like light dissolved in star-showers thrown.
I sit upon the sands alone;
The lightning of the noontide ocean
Is flashing round me, and a tone
Arises from its measured motion—
How sweet, did any heart now share in my emotion! 

Since the title of this poem does not match the verses I chose to share, I would add that the verses following this excerpt show Shelley's dejection, end with him imagining his cold dead body on the lovely ocean shore described above. 

I thought the cold days we've been having around much of the country warranted the image of sunshine in the verses I included.

Herd of Bison in a Snowy Landscape  Rosa Bonheur

Buffalo Dusk 

by Carl Sandburg 

The buffaloes are gone.
And those who saw the buffaloes are gone.
Those who saw the buffaloes by thousands and how they pawed the prairie sod into dust with their hoofs, their great heads down pawing on in a great pageant of dusk,
Those who saw the buffaloes are gone.
And the buffaloes are gone.

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!