Seventy years of writing comes down to basically a screaming fight. That’s really sad.
Day: July 4, 2008
Andre Norton’s Estate in Question
Seventy years of writing comes down to basically a screaming fight. That’s really sad.
After the Owl: Poetry Friday
I have owed you all this, since you put up with my very grouchy winter mood and drippy winter poetry.
We whinge a lot about the weather in Scotland, about the freak June hailstorms, the incessant rain, and driving wind and the fact that it seems like the body wants to stay in hibernation mode and hang on to warm insulating fat, but the truth is that it’s really lovely here, and I’m enjoying the temperate and modestly warm summer weather. I feel a little guilty almost for not being in California with the breath-stealing wildfires this season; it seems like it’s almost cheating that we’ve had one day that’s been over eighty, and the rest of the time has been days where it has rained every afternoon and the high has been a balmy sixty-eight. It feels like one long springtime, which is why today’s poem is kind of a chuckle. Summer has come in — but we won’t really notice until winter comes back.
Oh well.
Sumer Is Icumen In
Svmer is icumen in
Lhude sing cuccu!
Groweþ sed and bloweþ med
and springþ þe wde nu.
Sing cuccu!
Awe bleteþ after lomb,
lhouþ after calue cu,
Bulluc sterteþ, bucke uerteþ.
Murie sing cuccu!
Cuccu, cuccu,
Wel singes þu cuccu.
ne swik þu nauer nu!
Sing cuccu nu, Sing cuccu!
Pes
Sing cuccu, Sing cuccu nu!
Summer Has Come In!
Summer has come in!
Loud sing cuckoo!
Grows seed and blooms mead,
And springs the woods anew.
Sing, cuckoo!
Ewe bleats after lamb,
Lows after calf the cow.
Bull starts, buck farts,
Merrily sing, cuckoo!
Cuckoo! Cuckoo!
Will sing you, cuckoo.
Nor stop you ever now.
Sing cuckoo now! Sing cuckoo!
Sing cuckoo now! Sing cuckoo!
This is not, in fact, terribly patriotic, but I am, of course, in Scotland, which didn’t manage to get away from England, but has the usual lovely summer light and their gorgeous countryside to celebrate today instead. Poetry Friday’s host today, complete with cucumber sandwiches, is In Search of Giants. Happy 4th! Enjoy a summer holiday.
DON’Ts for today
Elsewhere in the world it is the Fabulous Fourth; here in the UK it’s another Friday and everyone has to work. However, should you be an unwary citizen of childhood and in need of assistance to lead you through this most dangerous weekend, I am here for you, and can help. Thus I bring to you, with a hat tip to friend Ananka, The Book of Accidents from the rare book collection at Yale University. Wise children will want to keep a copy of this handy, as it’s really more of a how-to manual…
What not to do this weekend:
Children, please; though the revelry of explosions ripping through your neighborhoods might entice you to join in, resist, I entreat you, resist the lure of Daddy’s cannon behind the living room drapes. What kind of weekend would you have if you shot your sister dead? And for the love of God, dears, leave the scissors alone. You know what happens when you start annoying the housemaid. Remember how much vodka burns? And what will you tell Mummy when there are rope burns on your thighs… Again?
You can encounter this book in its hilarious entirety (LINK FIXED NOW!) here. The Victorian Age. So many accidents, so many suddenly angelic children…