A little Lamb…

” We gain nothing by being with such as ourselves. We encourage one another in mediocrity. I am always longing to be with men more excellent than myself.”               –  Charles Lamb

“The greatest pleasure I know is to do a good action by stealth, and have to have it found out by accident.” –  Charles Lamb 

“I love to lose myself in other men’s minds.”  – Charles Lamb

The Old Familiar Faces

I have had playmates, I have had companions,

In my days of childhood, in my joyful school-days,

All, all are gone, the old familiar faces.

I have been laughing, I have been carousing,

Drinking late, sitting late, with my bosom cronies,

All, all are gone, the old familiar faces.

I loved a love once, fairest among women;

Closed are her doors on me, I must not see her –

All, all are gone, the old familiar faces.

I have a friend, a kinder friend has no man;

Like an ingrate, I left my friend abruptly;

Left him, to muse on the old familiar faces.

Ghost-like, I paced round the haunts of my childhood

Earth seemed a desert I was bound to traverse,

Seeking to find the old familiar faces.

Friend of my bosom, thou more than a brother,

Why wert not thou born in my father’s dwelling?

So might we talk of the old familiar faces –

How some have died, and some they have left me,

And some are taken from me; all are departed;

All, all are gone, the old familiar faces.

Charles Lamb 1775 – 1834

Bisous,

Léa

Joyeux Anniversaire Monsieur William Shakespeare!

“We are such stuff as dreams are made on, and our little life is rounded with a sleep.”      – The Tempest Act 4, Scene 1

 

“Lord, what fools these mortals be.”  – A Midsummer Night’s Dream

 

JOYEUX ANNIVERSAIRE! In honor of the Bard’s birthday, I offer one of his well known and much-loved sonnets. Yet when I read it, or think of its message, for me it is not just about romantic love but the love of family, friends, humanity, and our struggling environment.

 

Sonnet 116: Let me not to the marriage of true minds

 

Let me not to the marriage of true minds

Admit impediments. Love is not love

Which alters when it alteration finds,

Or bends with the remover to remove.

O no! It is an ever-fixed mark

That looks on tempests and is never shaken;

It is the star to every wand’ring bark,

Whose worth’s unknown, although his height be taken.

Love’s not Time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks

Within his bending sickle’s compass come;

Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,

But bears it out even to the edge of doom.

If this be error and upon me prov’d,

I never writ, nor no man ever lov’d.

 

Perhaps you have a favorite, and perhaps there is too much to choose from to eliminate others?

 

Bisous, Léa

Wednesday’s words to ponder…

“Any person of honor chooses rather to lose his honor than to lose his conscience.”  – Michel de Montaigne  

“The public weal requires that men should betray, and lie, and massacre; let us leave this commission to men who are more obedient and more supple.”                      – Michel de Montaigne

Michel de Montaigne was an influential and key figure of the French Renaissance. The father of modern skepticism is best known for his essays which are among the best ever composed. Furthermore, it is he who is credited with establishing the essay as a recognized genre in literature and was the first to use the word essay when speaking of his writings. Among the most famous writers influenced by the essays of Montaigne were Isaac Asmiov, René Decartes and William Shakespeare.

Bisous,

Léa

Le berre de rivière (The river Berre)

“Look deep into nature, and you will understand everything better.”   –  Albert Einestein

“One touch of nature makes the whole world kin.”   –  William Shakespeare

“There are always flowers for those who want to see them.”   –  Henri Matisse

Le berre de rivière  (The river Berre)

Tables and chairs

Against an ancient

Stone wall

Across from le

Café

Si vous êtes chanceux

A seat can be yours

Pageant of color

Paints the sky

As the sun disappears

West

Beneath lies

La berre

Dried up

Fish to dust

Few remaining puddles

Disappear rapidly

To be reborn with

November rains

Un verre de vin rouge

For now

A book

As I wait

Stars

Take center

Stage

A show that takes

Ma soufflé loin

*

 Bisous,

Léa

dans le sable des mots / in the sand of words

“To see the world in a grain of sand, and to see heaven in a wild flower, hold infinity in the palm of your hands, and eternity in an hour.”   –  William Blake

 

“When words are scarce they are seldom spent in vain.”   –  William Shakespeare

 

“All our words are but crumbs that fall down from the fest of the mind.”   –  Khalil Gibran

*

dans le sable des mots / in the sand of words

my hands plunge deeply

this insatiable quest

finding the right verbs,

adjectives and adverbs

the preposition

which when assembled

like Rubik’s puzzle

lead me to what is missing

yet words like sand are

flexible

capable of embracing

the power of

la mer

or sliding through my

fingers

so strong, she restrains the oceans

 large ships skim

across their surface

she cradles the ravaged

cities swallowed in the

tsunami’s of time

concealing their final

resting place

so delicate

a breeze thrusts them

into oblivion

starfish, shells the

similes and metaphors

dans le sable des mots

*

bisous,

léa