Featuring the art of Jesse M. King… who I have had a long love for, and her work has appeared here before of course…
This entry is all over the place, so dig in.
Our friend Mike Crowley is visiting as he is at a seminar in town for programmers. Nice evenings, long talks… hilarity!
Hope your weekend is a sweet one.
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Listen to the radio!
Blessings,
Gwyllm
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Link Of The Day:Seymour Busts it open!
CNN:Busted-Bush Admin Funding Al Qaeda w/Iraq $$ Thru Lebanon Govt.
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The Wisdom Of Jerry Falwell
– “If you’re not a born-again Christian, you’re a failure as a human being.”
– “I hope I live to see the day when, as in the early days of our country, we won’t have any public schools. The churches will have taken them over again and Christians will be running them. What a happy day that will be!”
– “Grown men should not be having sex with prostitutes unless they are married to them.”
– “There is no separation of church and state. Modern US Supreme Courts have raped the Constitution and raped the Christian faith and raped the churches by misinterpreting what the Founders had in mind in the First Amendment to the Constitution.”
– “AIDS is the wrath of a just God against homosexuals. To oppose it would be like an Israelite jumping in the Red Sea to save one of Pharaoh’s charioteers.”
– “Textbooks are Soviet propaganda.”
– “The whole (global warming) thing is created to destroy America’s free enterprise system and our economic stability.”
– “(9/11 is the result of) throwing God out of the public square, out of the schools, the abortionists have got to bear some burden for this because God will not be mocked and when we destroy 40 million little innocent babies, we make God mad…I really believe that the pagans and the abortionists and the feminists and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People for the American Way, all of them who try to secularize America…I point the thing in their face and say you helped this happen.”
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Gold-Tree and Silver-Tree
Once upon a time there was a king who had a wife, whose name was Silver-tree, and a daughter, whose name was Gold-tree. On a certain day of the days, Gold-tree and Silver-tree went to a glen, where there was a well, and in it there was a trout.
Said Silver-tree, “Troutie, bonny little fellow, am not I the most beautiful queen in the world?”
“Oh indeed you are not.”
“Who then?”
“Why, Gold-tree, your daughter.”
Silver-tree went home, blind with rage. She lay down on the bed, and vowed she would never be well until she could get the heart and the liver of Gold-tree, her daughter, to eat.
At nightfall the king came home, and it was told him that Silver-tree, his wife, was very ill. He went where she was, and asked her what was wrong with her.
“Oh! only a thing which you may heal if you like.”
“Oh! indeed there is nothing at all which I could do for you that I would not do.”
“If I get the heart and the liver of Gold-tree, my daughter, to eat, I shall be well.”
Now it happened about this time that the son of a great king had come from abroad to ask Gold-tree for marrying. The King now agreed to this, and they went abroad.
The king then went and sent his lads to the hunting-hill for a he-goat, and he gave its heart and its liver to his wife to eat; and she rose well and healthy.
A year after this Silver-tree went to the glen, where there was the well in which there was the trout.
“Troutie, bonny little fellow,” said she, ” am not I the most beautiful queen in the world?”
“Oh! indeed you are not.”
“Who then?”
“Why, Gold-tree, your daughter.”
“Oh! well, it is long since she was living. It is a year since I ate her heart and liver.”
“Oh! indeed she is not dead. She is married to a great prince abroad.”
Silver-tree went home, and begged the king to put the long-ship in order, and said, “I am going to see my dear Gold-tree, for it is so long since I saw her.” The long-ship was put in order, and they went away.
It was Silver-tree herself that was at the helm, and she steered the ship so well that they were not long at all hefore they arrived.
The prince was out hunting on the hills. Gold-tree knew the long-ship of her father coming.
“Oh!” said she to the servants, “my mother is coming, and she will kill me.”
“She shall not kill you at all; we will lock you in a room where she cannot get near you.”
This is how it was done; and when Silver-tree came ashore, she began to cry out: “Come to meet your own mother, when she comes to see you,” Gold-tree said that she could not, that she was locked in the room, and that she could not get out of it.
“Will you not put out,” said Silver-tree, “your little finger through the keyhole, so that your own mother may give a kiss to it?”
She put out her little finger, and Silver-tree went and put a poisoned stab in it, and Gold-tree fell dead.
When the prince came home, and found Gold-tree dead, he was in great sorrow, and when he saw how beautiful she was, he did not bury her at all, but he locked her in a room where nobody would get near her. In the course of time he married again, and the whole house was under the hand of this wife but one room, and he himself always kept the key of that room. On a certain day of the days he forgot to take the key with him, and the second wife got into the room. What did she see there but the most beautiful woman that she ever saw.
She began to turn and try to wake her, and she noticed the poisoned stab in her finger. She took the stab out, and Gold-tree rose alive, as beautiful as she was ever.
At the fall of night the prince came home from the hunting-hill, looking very downcast.
“What gift,” said his wife, “would you give me that I could make you laugh?”
“Oh! indeed, nothing could make me laugh, except Gold-tree were to come alive again.”
“Well, you’ll find her alive down there in the room.”
When the prince saw Gold-tree alive he made great rejoicings, and he began to kiss her, and kiss her, and kiss her. Said the second wife, “Since she is the first one you had it is better for you to stick to her, and I will go away.”
“Oh! indeed you shall not go away, but I shall have both of you.”
At the end of the year, Silver-tree went to the glen, where there was the well, in which there was the trout.
“Troutie, bonny little fellow,” said she, “am not I the most beautiful queen in the world?”
“Oh! indeed you are not.”
“Who then?”
“Why, Gold-tree, your daughter.”
“Oh! well, she is not alive. It is a year since I put the poisoned stab into her finger.”
“Oh! indeed she is not dead at all, at all.”
Silver-tree went home, and begged the king to put the long-ship in order, for that she was going to see her dear Gold-tree, as it was so long since she saw her. The long-ship was put in order, and they went away. It was Silver-tree herself that was at the helm, and she steered the ship so well that they were not long at all before they arrived.
The prince was out hunting on the hills. Gold-tree knew her father’s ship coming.
“Oh!” said she, “my mother is coming, and she will kill me.”
“Not at all,” said the second wife; “we will go down to meet her.”
Silver-tree came ashore. “Come down, Gold-tree, love,” said she, “for your own mother has come to you with a precious drink.”
“It is a custom in this country,” said the second wife, “that the person who offers a drink takes a draught out of it first.”
Silver-tree put her mouth to it, and the second wife went and struck it so that some of it went down her throat, and she fell dead. They had only to carry her home a dead corpse and bury her.
The prince and his two wives were long alive after this, pleased and peaceful.
I left them there.
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Three 19th Century Irish Poems…
A Lamentation: For the Death of Sir Maurice Fitzgerald, Knight, of Kerry, who was killed in Flanders, 1642.
-From The Irish, Clarence Mangan
There was lifted up one voice of woe,
One lament of more than mortal grief,
Through the wide South to and fro,
For a fallen Chief.
In the dead of night that cry thrilled through me,
I looked out upon the midnight air?
My own soul was all as gloomy,
As I knelt in prayer.
O’er Loch Gur, that night, once–twice-yea, thrice–
Passed a wail of anguish for the Brave
That half curled into ice
Its moon-mirroring wave.
Then uprose a many-toned wild hymn in
Choral swell from Ogra’s dark ravine,
And Mogeely’s Phantom Women
Mourned the Geraldine!
Far on Carah Mona’s emerald plains
Shrieks and sighs were blended many hours,
And Fermoy in fitful strains
Answered from her towers.
Youghal, Keenalmeaky, Eemokilly,
Mourned in concert, and their piercing keen
Woke wondering life the stilly
Glens of Inchiqueen.
From Loughmoe to yellow Dunanore
There was fear; the traders of Tralee
Gathered up their golden store,
And prepared to flee;
For, in ship and hall from night till morning,
Showed the first faint beamings of the sun,
All the foreigners heard the warning
Of the Dreaded One!
“This,” they spake, “portendeth death to us,
If we fly not swiftly from our fate!
Self-conceited idiots! thus
Ravingly to prate!
Not for base-born higgling Saxon trucksters
Ring laments like those by shore and sea!
Not for churls with souls like hucksters
Waileth our Banshee!
For the high Milesian race alone
Ever flows the music of her woe!
For slain heir to bygone throne,
And for Chief laid low!
Hark! … Again, methinks, I hear her weeping
Yonder! is she near me now, as then?
Or was but the night-wind sweeping
Down the hollow glen?
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A Dream
– William Allingham
I heard the dogs howl in the moonlight night;
I went to the window to see the sight;
All the Dead that ever I knew
Going one by one and two by two.
On they pass’d, and on they pass’d;
Townsfellows all, from first to last;
Born in the moonlight of the lane,
Quench’d in the heavy shadow again.
Schoolmates, marching as when we play’d
At soldiers once–but now more staid;
Those were the strangest sight to me
Who were drown’d, I knew, in the awful sea.
Straight and handsome folk; bent and weak, too;
Some that I loved, and gasp’d to speak to;
Some but a day in their churchyard bed;
Some that I had not known were dead.
A long, long crowd–where each seem’d lonely,
Yet of them all there was one, one only,
Raised a head or look’d my way.
She linger’d a moment,–she might not stay.
How long since I saw that fair pale face!
Ah! Mother dear! might I only place
My head on thy breast, a moment to rest,
While thy hand on my tearful cheek were prest!
On, on, a moving bridge they made
Across the moon-stream, from shade to shade,
Young and old, women and men;
Many long-forgot, but remember’d then.
And first there came a bitter laughter;
A sound of tears the moment after;
And then a music so lofty and gay,
That every morning, day by day,
I strive to recall it if I may.
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Song Of the Ghost
-Alfred Percival Graves
When all were dreaming
But Pastheen Power,
A light came streaming
Beneath her bower:
A heavy foot
At her door delayed,
A heavy hand
On the latch was laid.
“Now who dare venture,
At this dark hour,
Unbid to enter
My maiden bower?”
“Dear Pastheen, open
The door to me,
And your true lover
You’ll surely see.”
“My own true lover,
So tall and brave,
Lives exiled over
The angry wave.”
“Your true love’s body
Lies on the bier,
His faithful spirit
Is with you here.”
“His look was cheerful,
His voice was gay;
Your speech is fearful,
Your face is grey;
And sad and sunken
Your eye of blue,
But Patrick, Patrick,
Alas! ’tis you!”
Ere dawn was breaking
She heard below
The two cocks shaking
Their wings to crow. p. 136
“Oh, hush you, hush you,
Both red and grey,
Or will you hurry
My love away.
“Oh, hush your crowing,
Both grey and red,
Or he’ll be going
To join the dead;
Or, cease from calling
His ghost to the mould,
And I’ll come crowning
Your combs with gold.”
When all were dreaming
But Pastheen Power,
A light went streaming
From out her bower,
And on the morrow,
When they awoke,
They knew that sorrow
Her heart had broke.