"Love the trees until their leaves fall off, then encourage them to try again next year." -- Chad Sugg --

 "I am so glad I live in a world where there are Octobers." -- L. M. Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables --

I Sit Beside the Fire and Think by J. R. R. Tolkien

I Sit Beside the Fire and Think

by J. R. R. Tolkien (Lord of the Rings; The Fellowship of the Ring)

I sit beside the fire and think

of all that I have seen

of meadow flowers and butterflies

In summers that have been;

Of yellow leaves and gossamer

in autumns that there were,

with morning mist and silver sun

and wind upon my hair.

I sit beside the fire and think

of how the world will be

when winter comes without a spring

that I shall ever see.

For still there are so many things

that I have never seen:

in every wood in every spring

there is a different green.

I sit beside the fire and think

of people long ago

and people who will see a world

that I shall never know.

But all the while I sit and think

of times there were before, 

I listen for returning feet

and voices at the door.

 "Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower." -- Albert Camus --

You are Old, Father William by Lewis Carroll

You are Old, Father William

by Lewis Carroll

"You are old, Father William," the young man said,

    "And your hair has become very white;

And yet you incessantly stand on your head--

    Do you think, at your age, it is right?"

"In my youth," Father William replied to his son,

    "I feared it might injure the brain;

But, now that I'm perfectly sure I have none,

    Why, I do it again and again."

"You are old," said the youth, "as I mentioned before,

    And have grown most uncommonly fat;

Yet you turned a back-somersault in at the door--

    Pray, what is the reason of that?"

"In my youth," said the sage, as he shook his gray locks,

    "I kept all my limbs very supple

By the use of this ointment--one shilling the box--

    Allow me to sell you a couple?"

"You are old," said the youth, "and your jaws are too weak

    For anything tougher than suet;

Yet you finished the goose, with the bones and the beak--

    Pray, how did you manage to do it?"

"In my youth," said his father, "I took to the law,

    And argued each case with my wife;

And the muscular strength, which it gave to my jaw,

    Has lasted the rest of my life."

"You are old," said the youth, "one would hardly suppose

    That your eye was as steady as ever;

Yet you balanced an eel on the end of your nose--

    What made you so awfully clever?"

"I have answered three questions, and that is enough,"

    Said his father. "Don't give yourself airs!

Do you think I can listen all day to such stuff?

    Be off, or I'll kick you downstairs!"

I've Had This Shirt by Michael Rosen

I've Had This Shirt

Michael Rosen

I've had this shirt 

that's covered in dirt

for years and years and years.

It used to be red 

but I wore it in bed

and it went gray

cos I wore it all day

for years and years and years.

The arms fell off 

in the Monday wash

and you can see my vest

through the holes in the chest

for years and years and years.

As my shirt falls apart

I'll keep the bits

in a biscuit tin

on the mantelpiece

for years and years and years.

The Owl and the Pussy-cat by Edward Lear

The Owl and the Pussy-cat

Edward Lear

The Owl and the Pussy-cat went to sea

    In a beautifl pea-green boat,

They took some honey, and plenty of money,

    Wrapped up in a five-pound note.

The Owl looked up to the starts above,

    And sang to a small guitar,

"O lovely Pussy! O Pussy, my love, 

    What a beautiful Pussy you are,

       You are,

       You are!

    What a beautiful Pussy you are!"

Pussy said to the Owl, "You elegant fowl!

    How charmingly sweet you sing!

O let us be married! too long we have tarried:

    But what shall we do for a ring?"

They sailed away, for a year and a day, 

    To the land where the Bong-tree grows,

And there in a wood a Piggy-wig stood

    With a ring on the end of his nose,

       His nose,

       His nose,

    With a ring on the end of his nose.

"Dear Pig, are you willing to sell for one shilling

    Your ring?" Said the Piggy, "I will."

So they took it away, and were married next day

    By the Turkey who lives on the hill.

They dined on mince, and slices of quince,

    Which they ate with a runcible spoon;

And hand in hand, on the edge of the sand, 

    They danced by the light of the moon,

    The moon,

    The moon,

        They danced by the light of the moon.

 "The cost of freedom is always high, but Americans have always paid it. And one path we shall never choose, and that is the path of surrender, or submission." -- John F. Kennedy --

 "Freedom is the open window through which pours the sunlight of the human spirit and human dignity." -- Herbert Hoover --

"Freedom is nothing but a chance to be better." -- Albert Camus --

 "Live your truth. Express your love. Share your enthusiasm. Take action towards your dreams. Walk your talk. Dance and sing to your music. Embrace your blessings. Make today worth remembering." -- Steve Maraboli --

 "To find yourself, think for yourself." -- Socrates --

 "Man is free at the moment he wishes to be." -- Voltaire --

 "Music . . . can name the unnameable and communicate the unknowable." -- Leonard Bernstein --

 "A painter paints picture on canvas. But musicians paint their pictures on silence." -- Leopold Stokowski --

 "Music touches us emotionally, where words alone can't." -- Johnny Depp --

 "Music, once admitted to the soul, becomes a sort of spirit, and never dies." -- Edward Bulwer-Lytton --

 "Read the best books first, or you may not have a chance to read them at all." -- Henry David Thoreau --

 "Let's be reasonable and add an eighth day to the week that is devoted exclusively to reading." -- Lena Dunham --

 "I declare after all there is no enjoyment like reading! How much sooner one tires of any thing than of a book! -- When I have a house of my own, I shall be miserable if I have not an excellent library." -- Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice --

 "Read a lot. Expect something big, something exalting or deepening from a book. No book is worth reading that isn't worth re-reading." -- Susan Sontag --

 "Music is the shorthand of emotion." -- Leo Tolstoy --

 "You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read." -- James Baldwin --

The Cremation of Sam McGee by Robert W. Service

 The Cremation of Sam McGee

by Robert W. Service

There are strange things done in the midnight sun

      By the men who moil for gold;

The Arctic trails have their secret tales

      That would make your blood run cold;

The Northern Lights have seen queer sights,

      But the queerest they ever did see

Was that night on the marge of Lake Lebarge

      I cremated Sam McGee.

Now Sam McGee was from Tennessee, where the cotton blooms and blows.

Why he left his home in the South to roam 'round the Pole, God only knows.

He was always cold, but the land of gold seemed to hold him like a spell;

Though he'd often say in his homely way that "he'd sooner live in hell."

On a Christmas Day we were mushing our way over the Dawson trail.

Talk of your cold! through the parka's fold it stabbed like a driven nail.

If our eyes we'd close, then the lashes froze till sometimes we couldn't see;

It wasn't much fun, but the only one to whimper was Sam McGee.

And that very night, as we lay packed tight in our robes beneath the snow,

And the dogs were fed, and the stars o'erhead were dancing heel and toe,

He turned to me, and "Cap," says he, "I'll cash in this trip, I guess;

And if I do, I'm asking that you won't refuse my last request."

Well, he seemed so low that I couldn't say no; then he says with a sort of moan:

"It's the cursèd cold, and it's got right hold till I'm chilled clean through to the bone.

Yet 'tain't being dead—it's my awful dread of the icy grave that pains;

So I want you to swear that, foul or fair, you'll cremate my last remains."

A pal's last need is a thing to heed, so I swore I would not fail;

And we started on at the streak of dawn; but God! he looked ghastly pale.

He crouched on the sleigh, and he raved all day of his home in Tennessee;

And before nightfall a corpse was all that was left of Sam McGee.

There wasn't a breath in that land of death, and I hurried, horror-driven,

With a corpse half hid that I couldn't get rid, because of a promise given;

It was lashed to the sleigh, and it seemed to say: "You may tax your brawn and brains,

But you promised true, and it's up to you to cremate those last remains."

Now a promise made is a debt unpaid, and the trail has its own stern code.

In the days to come, though my lips were dumb, in my heart how I cursed that load.

In the long, long night, by the lone firelight, while the huskies, round in a ring,

Howled out their woes to the homeless snows— O God! how I loathed the thing.

And every day that quiet clay seemed to heavy and heavier grow;

And on I went, though the dogs were spent and the grub was getting low;

The trail was bad, and I felt half mad, but I swore I would not give in;

And I'd often sing to the hateful thing, and it hearkened with a grin.

Till I came to the marge of Lake Lebarge, and a derelict there lay;

It was jammed in the ice, but I saw in a trice it was called the "Alice May."

And I looked at it, and I thought a bit, and I looked at my frozen chum;

Then "Here," said I, with a sudden cry, "is my cre-ma-tor-eum."

Some planks I tore from the cabin floor, and I lit the boiler fire;

Some coal I found that was lying around, and I heaped the fuel higher;

The flames just soared, and the furnace roared—such a blaze you seldom see;

And I burrowed a hole in the glowing coal, and I stuffed in Sam McGee.

Then I made a hike, for I didn't like to hear him sizzle so;

And the heavens scowled, and the huskies howled, and the wind began to blow.

It was icy cold, but the hot sweat rolled down my cheeks, and I don't know why;

And the greasy smoke in an inky cloak went streaking down the sky.

I do not know how long in the snow I wrestled with grisly fear;

But the stars came out and they danced about ere again I ventured near;

I was sick with dread, but I bravely said: "I'll just take a peep inside.

I guess he's cooked, and it's time I looked"; ... then the door I opened wide.

And there sat Sam, looking cool and calm, in the heart of the furnace roar;

And he wore a smile you could see a mile, and he said: "Please close that door.

It's fine in here, but I greatly fear you'll let in the cold and storm—

Since I left Plumtree, down in Tennessee, it's the first time I've been warm."

There are strange things done in the midnight sun

      By the men who moil for gold;

The Arctic trails have their secret tales

      That would make your blood run cold;

The Northern Lights have seen queer sights,

      But the queerest they ever did see

Was that night on the marge of Lake Lebarge

      I cremated Sam McGee.

 "In summer, the song sings itself." -- William Carlos Williams --

 "Ah, summer, what power you have to make us suffer and like it. -- Russell Baker --

 "I need summer to be longer so I have more time to do nothing. -- Unknown --

 "A perfect summer day is when the sun is shining, the breeze is blowing, the birds are singing, and the lawnmower is broken." -- James Dent --

 "Let a man walk ten miles steady on a hot summer's day along a dusty English road, and he will soon discover why beer was invented." -- Gilbert K. Chesterton --

September Update

 Hello, everyone! I hope y'all are continuing to enjoy this blog. Now that the school year is back in full swing we all will be much busier, I'm sure! I am actually very surprised how many people are viewing this blog daily! If you are loving this blog, I challenge you to do one thing: share this blog with a friend or two. Trust me, it helps keep me motivated. I hope you still visit this blog even with a crazy new semester starting!

 "That old September feeling, left over from school days, of summer passing, vacation nearly done, obligations gathering, books and football in the air . . . Another fall, another turned page: there was something of jubilee in that annual autumnal beginning, as if last year's mistakes had been wiped clean by summer." -- Wallace Stegner --