Beech Tree News Network

Meandering- sometimes on the edge of common sense: 

When I was a schoolboy with a schoolboy’s brain; I, like most kids, I suppose, saw no point in being required to stand before my class and recite poetry. Then, “I saw through a glass darkly,” as it were. Now I enjoy trying to recall some of those poems… not all word for word: here are a few lines of remembrance from some.  

I must down to the seas again, down to the lonely sea and sky, and all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by… (Sea Fever by John Maysheild). I believe this is a line from a poem called Thanatopsis: Go not like the quarry slave at night; but sustained and soothed… like one who wraps the drapery of his couch about him and lies down to pleasant dreams. 

For the depressed- the day is cold and dark and dreary. It rains and the wind is ever weary. The vine still clings to the moldering wall and at every gust the dead leaves fall, and the day is dark and dreary. 

Be still sad heart and cease repining, for behind the clouds the suns’ still shining; thy fate is the common fate of fall, into each life some rain must fall; some days must be dark and dreary… (From the “Rainy Day”). 

Blessings on thee little man; barefoot boy with cheeks of tan. With thy upturned pantaloons, and thy merry whistle tunes, and thy red lips-redder still, kissed by strawberries on the hill. 

There is a kind of Japanese poetry called Haiku. (Non-rhyming)

House under plum trees flowering in the soft rain. Open thy doors before nightfall. In the evening of life when the shadows begin to darken, and the cold rain of bereavement has chilled me; let me find peace in such a house. 

The moon glances over the hill, and admires his image in our gold fish pond. 

Tonight the full moon woke-up the white camellia with a lover’s touch. 

Mother Goose: 

Pussy cat, pussy cat, where have you been? I’ve been to London to visit the Queen. Pussy cat, pussy cat, what did you there? I frightened a little mouse under her chair. 

Lesson:

Here was the Queen in all her glory and splendor, and all the pussy cat could see was the little mouse under her chair. Sometimes we are like that aren’t we? We miss the glory and splendor. We can’t see the forest for the trees. 

… to the passing parade. 

Kindest regards….