Bit of Babble…&…Dr. John Polidori

Happy May Day [Beltane]!
As such…While I’m at the school today, making sure Harley behaves himself, the kindergarten class is going to be making May baskets! [We did this when Sonja was in kindergarten too.]

Sonja’s field trip went fairly well. I wasn’t sick, that’s good. And I had 3 well behaved Critters to watch…Sonja being one of them. Her friend Jordan another…Then a 4th grader [As they seem to mix the 3rd & 4th grade field trips together] named Dillon. I was actually very impressed with how well behaved my little group was. Not that I paid them much attention after they did their first round of putt-putt, and made their pizza. [I was reading…Absorbing words…Some of which I still need translated, but alas, my faithful (or seemingly not so at the moment) translator is not cooperating with me.]

I have read all but the novel Ernestus Berchtold; or, The Modern Oedipus. A Tale in my book.

Sharing, a sonnet and a poem by Dr. John Polidori

To the Night

O Starry night! thou art most beauteous fair,
And I could gaze on thee, till my sight ached –
Thy cooling zephyrs play amidst my hair,
And cool my fever’d brain, which long has waked –
Such stillness seizes on the ear – the beams
Of yonder galaxy steal on the eye
With such soft soothing power – the whole it seems
Would bid us seek for heaven above that sky –
And hope for peace beyond that bright’ning zone,
Which seems to keep her near yon heave’nly throne; –
But still thou pleasest more, ’cause thou canst show
The image of _ _ _’ s pow’r when flow
Such magic words, as still man’s stormy breast,
Such rays as sooth e’en mem’ry, future fears to rest.

The Wreath
To _______

O thou! For whom this humble Wreath is formed,
Not from the flow’rs that deck the lowly meads,
But from those flow’rs Apollo’s ray has warmed,
On which the dance Thalia often leads.

Despise it not, because the flow’rs are dull,
Or ill arranged – my heart beat high with fears,
My eyes with love’s despairing tears were full,
Looking to pluck the robe Parnassus wears.

For since they image burst upon my sight,
My fancy paints but heaven as a meet place,
Where thou couldst dwell, and I a mortal wight,
But pine to see the spot, which thou may’st grace.
Despise then not my Wreath, they beauty blame alone,
And let thy lover’s sufferings for the crime atone.
 

And just for the heck of it…I threw together some screen shots of Timothy Spall as Dr. John William Polidori.