I took a deep breath and listened to the old bray of my heart. I am. I am. I am.
|
How do I love thee? Let me count the ways. I love thee to the depth and breadth and height My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight For the ends of Being and ideal Grace. I love thee to the level of every day's Most quiet need; by sun and candle-light. I love thee freely, as men strive for Right; I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise. I love thee with the passion put to use In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith I love thee with a love I seemed to lose With my lost saints,--I love thee with the breath. Smiles, tears, of all my life!--and, if God choose, I shall but love thee better after death.
|
Busy old fool, unruly Sun, why dost thou thus through windows and through curtains call on us? Must to thy motions lovers seasons run?
|
Said the little boy, Sometimes I drop my spoon. Said the little old man, I do that too. The little boy whispered, I wet my pants. I do too, laughed the old man. Said the little boy, I often cry. The old man nodded. So do I. But worst of all, said the boy, it seems Grown-ups don't pay attention to me. And he felt the warmth of a wrinkled old hand. I know what you mean, said the little old man.
|
An old Cherokee is teaching his grandson about life: A fight is going on inside me, he said to the boy. It is a terrible fight and it is between two wolves. One is evil - he is anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego. The other is good - he is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith. This same fight is going on inside you - and inside every other person, too. The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather,Which wolf will win? The old Cherokee simply replied, The one you feed.
|
Where the voice of the wind calls our wandering feet, Through echoing forest and echoing street, With lutes in our hands ever-singing we roam, All men are our kindred, the world is our home. Our lays are of cities whose lustre is shed, The laughter and beauty of women long dead; The sword of old battles, the crown of old kings, And happy and simple and sorrowful things. What hope shall we gather, what dreams shall we sow? Where the wind calls our wandering footsteps we go. No love bids us tarry, no joy bids us wait: The voice of the wind is the voice of our fate.
|
Morning Is Yellow Like A Desk Is Square
He always wanted to explain things. But no one cared. So he drew. Sometimes he would draw and it wasn't anything. He wanted to carve it in stone or write it in the sky. He would lie out on the grass and look up in the sky. And it would be only him and the sky and the things inside him that needed saying. And it was after that he drew the picture. It was a beautiful picture. He kept it under his pillow and would let no one see it. And he would look at it every night and think about it. And when it was dark, and his eyes were closed, he could still see it. And it was all of him. And he loved it. When he started school he brought it with him. Not to show anyone, but just to have with him like a friend. It was funny about school. He sat in a square brown desk Like all the other square brown desks And he thought it should be red And his room was a square brown room. Like all the other rooms. And it was tight and close. And stiff. He hated to hold the pencil and chalk, With his arm stiff and his feet flat on the floor. Stiff. With the teacher watching and watching. The teacher came and spoke to him. She told him to wear a tie like all the other boys. He said he didn't like them. And she said it didn't matter. After that they drew. And he drew all yellow and it was the way he felt about morning. And it was beautiful. The teacher came and smiled at him. 'What's this?' she said. 'Why don't you draw something like Ken's drawing? Isn't it beatiful?' After that his mother bought him a tie. And he always drew airplanes and rocket ships like everyone else. And he threw the old picture away. And when he lay alone looking at the sky, It was big and blue and all of everything, But he wasn't anymore. He was square inside. And brown. And his hands were stiff. And he was like everyone else. And the things inside him that needed saying didn't need it anymore. It had stopped pushing. It was crushed. Stiff. Like everything else.
|
Grow old along with me The best is yet to be, The last of life, for which the first was made Our times are in his hand who saith, A whole I planned, Youth shows but half trust God See all, nor be afraid
|
To be seventy years old is like climbing the Alps. You reach a snow-crowned summit, and see behind you the deep valley stretching miles and miles away, and before you other summits higher and whiter, which you may have strength to climb, or may not. Then you sit down and meditate and wonder which it will be.
|
Beautiful young people are accidents of nature, But beautiful old people are works of art
|
'In the bad old days reference to Blacks/women/Jews/others were in negative language which perpetuated poor treatment/ abuse/ exploitation of these people. Animals have suffered more from negative language stereotyping than all the others, and demeans them so constantly that they created an environment that allows all sorts of cruelties, many too horrendous to describe! An animal is 'it' instead of 'he' or 'she', this perpetuates our view of them as 'things' rather than individuals and is a major first step towards cutting them up for meat and leather, testing drugs/cosmetics/ household products on their bodies, and tearing off their coats for furs!!! Those who have pets are referred to as 'owners' rather than guardians/care givers/companions, reinforcing the idea that they are property much as slaves were considered property. Let's avoid these references: Dirty rat; filthy pig; acting like an ass; dirty dog; she's a bitch; ugly duckling; there's more than one way to skin a cat; behaving like an animal; making a monkey out of someone; killing 2 birds with one stone; working like a horse, you're chicken ... There are many more! Please think before uttering them and tell others. Thank you!'
|
Most of the luxuries, and many of the so-called comforts of life, are not only indispensable, but positive hindrances to the elevation of mankind. Cultivate poverty like a garden herb, like sage. Do not trouble yourself much to get new things, whether clothes or friends. Turn the old; return to them. Things do not change; we change. The very simplicity and nakedness of man's life in the primitive ages imply this advantage, at least, that they left him still but a sojourner in nature. To be awake is to be alive. Time is but the stream I go a-fishing in. Every man is a builder of a temple, called his body, to the god he worships, after a style purely his own, nor can he get off by hammering marble instead. We are all sculptors and painters, and our material is our own flesh and blood and bones. Any nobleness begins at once to refine a man's features, any meanness or sensuality to imbrute them. Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth.
|
Gather ye rosebuds while ye may, Old Times is still a-flying And this same flower that smiles today, Tomorrow will be dying.
|
Gather ye rose-buds while ye may, Old Time is still a-flying; And this same flower that smiles today, Tomorrow will be dying.
|
Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the men of old; seek what they sought.
|
How the old mountains drip with sunset, And the brake of dun! How the hemlocks are tipped in tinsel By the wizard sun! How the old steeples hand the scarlet, Till the ball is full, -- Have I the lip of the flamingo That I dare to tell? Then, how the fire ebbs like billows, Touching all the grass With a departing, sapphire feature, As if a duchess pass! How a small dusk crawls on the village Till the houses blot; And the odd flambeaux no men carry Glimmer on the spot! Now it is night in nest and kennel, And where was the wood, Just a dome of abyss is nodding Into solitude! -- These are the visions baffled Guido; Titian never told; Domenichino dropped the pencil, Powerless to unfold.
|
Beautiful young people are accidents of nature, but beautiful old people are works of art.
|
It is one of the blessings of old friends that you can afford to be stupid with them.
Friendship
|
They laid their hands upon my head, They stroked my cheek and brow; And time could heal a hurt, they said, And time could dim a vow. And they were pitiful and mild Who whispered to me then; The heart that breaks in April, child; Will mend in May again. Oh, many a mended heart they knew; So old they were, and wise. And little did they have to do To come to me with lies! Who flings me silly talk of May Shall meet a bitter soul; For June was nearly spent away Before my heart was whole.
|
And I'd like to roll to Rio / Some day before I'm old!
|
A late lark twitters from the quiet skies: And from the west, Where the sun, his day's work ended, Lingers as in content, There falls on the old, gray city An influence luminous and serene, A shining peace.
|
We are reformers in the spring and summer, but in autumn we stand by the old. Reformers in the morning, and conservers at night.
|
The stage is a concrete physical place which asks to be filled, and to be given its own concrete language to speak. I say that this concrete language, intended for the senses and independent of speech, has first to satisfy the senses, that there is a poetry of the senses as there is a poetry of language, and that this concrete physical language to which I refer is truly theatrical only to the degree that the thoughts it expresses are beyond the reach of the spoken language. These thoughts are what words cannot express and which, far more than words, would find their ideal expression in the concrete physical language of the stage. It consists of everything that occupies the stage, everything that can be manifested and expressed materially on a stage and that is addressed first of all to the senses instead of being addressed primarily to the mind as is the language of words...creating beneath language a subterranean current of impressions, correspondences, and analogies. This poetry of language, poetry in space will be resolved precisely in the domain which does not belong strictly to words...Means of expression utilizable on the stage, such as music, dance, plastic art, pantomime, mimicry, gesticulation, intonation, architecture, lighting, and scenery...The physical possibilities of the stage offers, in order to substitute, for fixed forms of art, living and intimidating forms by which the sense of old ceremonial magic can find a new reality in the theater; to the degree that they yield to what might be called the physical temptation of the stage. Each of these means has its own intrinsic poetry.
|
Had he and I but met By some old ancient inn, We should have sat us down to wet Right many a nipperkin! But ranged as infantry, And staring face to face, I shot at him as he at me, And killed him in his place. I shot him dead because-- Because he was my foe, Just so: my foe of course he was; That's clear enough; although He thought he
|
When all the world is young, lad, And all the trees are green; And every goose a swan, lad, And every lass a queen; Then hey for boot and horse, lad, And round the world away; Young blood must have its course, lad, And every dog his day. When all the world is old, lad, And all the trees are brown; And all the sport is stale, lad, And all the wheels run down; Creep home, and take your place there, The spent and maimed amoung: God grant you find one face there, You loved when all was young.
|
Funny how the new things are the old things.
|
Ebb, ocean of life, (the flow will return,) Cease not your moaning you fierce old mother,...
|
Ring out the old, ring in the new, Ring happy bells, across the snow:...
|
My pipe is out, my glass is dry; My fire is almost ashes too; But once again, before you go, And I prepare to meet the New; Old Year! a parting word that's true, For we've been comrades, you and I-- I thank God for each day of you; There! bless you now! Old Year, good-bye!
|
One compensation of old age is that it excuses you from picnics.
|