Some poetry...

Today is, apparently, National Poetry Day (so I have gathered from another blog). Doubtless we'll have the clergy muscling in on it at evensong, so before they go and spoil it (they are such an illiterate lot!) I thought I'd offer my own choice of verse to mark the day. Here it is...

Lorenzo:

How sweet the moonlight sleeps upon this bank!
Here will we sit and let the sounds of music
Creep in our ears: soft stillness and the night
Become the touches of sweet harmony
Sit, Jessica: Look how the floor of heaven
Is thick inlaid with patines of bright gold:
There's not the smallest orb that thou behold'st
But in his motion like an angel sings,
Still quiring to the young-eyed cherubins;
Such harmony is in immortal souls;
But whilst this muddy vesture of decay
Doth grossly close it in, we cannot hear it.
Come, ho! and wake Diana with a hymn!
With sweetest touches pierce your mistress' ear,
And draw her home with music.
Jessica:

I am never merry when I hear sweet music.

Lorenzo:
The reason is, your spirits are attentive...
The man that hath no music in himself,
Nor is not mov'd with concord of sweet sounds,
Is fit for treasons, stratagems and spoils;
The motions of his spirit are dull as night
And his affections dark as Erebus:

Let no such man be trusted. Mark the music.

***

Act V, scene 1 of The Merchant of Venice

A stalker!

Forgive the note of alarm this evening, but I have just 'logged on' (as we say) to find a stalker, er... stalking me. Somebody by the name of 'Working Mum' (though with clearly insufficient in the way of gainful employment) has elected to 'follow' me (whatever that means) and a shadowy image has thus attached itself to my dashboard. This disturbing turn of events comes at a most unfortunate time. As those of you kind enough to comment on my last post may have deduced, things have 'moved on' apace between myself and a certain member of the cathedral team of servers. So much so that I informed her, the other day, of my activities here on the world-wide internet. Suffice to say that it was nearly the end of what I still hope will one day blossom into a beautiful friendship. But after I disabused her of the mistaken (but entirely understandable, given a somewhat sheltered upbringing) conclusion she had reached about me and persuaded her once more to answer the telephone, she decided to book an hour at the local library and 'take a look'. And I'm afraid I could not resist the tempation to browse the stacks in the vincinity of the library's 'web zone'. I know, I know; please don't remind me. But once I had ascertained that she was finding what she read mildly interesting, I leapt out of my hiding place and whisked her off her feet and danced with her all the way to Ye Olde Wisdom of Solomon. Only kidding, dear reader, only kidding. We went to Ma Batty's Tea Shoppe instead! But seriously, it was strangely important for me to receive the lady's tacit approval of my scribblings. But what will she make of my 'following'? And by a married, grown-up lady to boot! Oh dear, the course of true love never did run smooth, I suppose. But at least Shakespeare didn't, to the best of my knowledge, run a blog.