My Small Boat

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Three things are certain:
Death, taxes, and lost data.
Guess which has occurred.

Habit is a cable; we weave a thread of it each day, and at last we cannot break it.

A life lived in the margins and the footnotes of himself… his epitaph: He Digressed

The Blind Men and the Elephant

It was six men of Indostan
To learning much inclined,
Who went to see the Elephant
(Though all of them were blind),
That each by observation
Might satisfy his mind

The First approached the Elephant,
And happening to fall
Against his broad and sturdy side,
At once began to bawl:
God bless me! but the Elephant
Is very like a wall!

The Second, feeling of the tusk,
Cried, Ho! what have we here
So very round and smooth and sharp?
To me tis mighty clear
This wonder of an Elephant
Is very like a spear!

The Third approached the animal,
And happening to take
The squirming trunk within his hands,
Thus boldly up and spake:
I see, quoth he, the Elephant
Is very like a snake!

The Fourth reached out an eager hand,
And felt about the knee.
What most this wondrous beast is like
Is mighty plain, quoth he;
‘Tis clear enough the Elephant
Is very like a tree!

The Fifth, who chanced to touch the ear,
Said: Even the blindest man
Can tell what this resembles most;
Deny the fact who can
This marvel of an Elephant
Is very like a fan!?

The Sixth no sooner had begun
About the beast to grope,
Than, seizing on the swinging tail
That fell within his scope,
I see, quoth he, the Elephant
Is very like a rope!

And so these men of Indostan
Disputed loud and long,
Each in his own opinion
Exceeding stiff and strong,
Though each was partly in the right,
And all were in the wrong!

Moral:

So oft in theologic wars,
The disputants, I ween,
Rail on in utter ignorance
Of what each other mean,
And prate about an Elephant
Not one of them has seen!

Elephants Are Different to Different People

Wilson and Pilcer and Snack stood before the zoo elephant.

Wilson said, “What is its name? Is it from Asia or Africa? Who feeds
it? Is it a he or a she? How old is it? Do they have twins? How much does
it cost to feed? How much does it weigh? If it dies, how much will another
one cost? If it dies, what will they use the bones, the fat, and the hide
for? What use is it besides to look at?”

Pilcer didn’t have any questions; he was murmering to himself, “It’s
a house by itself, walls and windows, the ears came from tall cornfields,
by God; the architect of those legs was a workman, by God; he stands like
a bridge out across the deep water; the face is sad and the eyes are kind;
I know elephants are good to babies.”

Snack looked up and down and at last said to himself, “He’s a tough
son-of-a-gun outside and I’ll bet he’s got a strong heart, I’ll bet he’s
strong as a copper-riveted boiler inside.”

They didn’t put up any arguments.
They didn’t throw anything in each other’s faces.
Three men saw the elephant three ways
And let it go at that.
They didn’t spoil a sunny Sunday afternoon;

“Sunday comes only once a week,” they told each other.

Good things, when short, are twice as good.

Oh, words are action good enough, if they’re the right words.

If you trap the moment before it is ripe
The tears of repentance will certainly wipe
But if once you let the ripe moment go
You can never wipe off the tears of woe.

A stiff apology is a second insult… The injured party does not want to be compensated because he has been wronged; he wants to be healed because he has been hurt.

“Almost any book does for a bed-book,” a woman once said to me. I nearlly replied in a hurry that almost any woman would do for a wife; but that is not the way to bring people to conviction of sin.

I never could believe that Providence had sent a few men into the world, ready booted and spurred to ride, and millions ready saddled and bridled to be ridden.

Sir Walter Ralegh To His Son

Three things there be that prosper up apace,
And flourish while they grow asunder far;
But on a day, they meet all in a place,
And when they meet, they one another mar.

And they be these: the Wood, the Weed, the Wag:
The Wood is that that makes the gallows tree;
The Weed is that that strings the hangman’s bag;
The Wag, my pretty knave, betokens thee.

Now mark, dear boy—while these assemble not,
Green springs the tree, hemp grows, the wag is wild;
But when they meet, it makes the timber rot,
It frets the halter, and it chokes the child.
Then bless thee, and beware, and let us pray,
We part not with thee at this meeting day.

The more he looked inside the more Piglet wasn’t there.

There are many who dare not kill themselves for fear of what the neighbors will say.

The Octopus

Tell me, O Octopus, I begs
Is those things arms, or is they legs?
I marvel at thee, Octopus;
If I were thou, I’d call me Us.

It seldom pays to be rude. It never pays to be only half-rude.

Sonnet

All we need is fourteen lines, well, thirteen now,
and after this one just a dozen
to launch a little ship on love’s storm-tossed seas,
then only ten more left like rows of beans.
How easily it goes unless you get Elizabethan
and insist the iambic bongos must be played
and rhymes positioned at the ends of lines,
one for every station of the cross.
But hang on here wile we make the turn
into the final six where all will be resolved,
where longing and heartache will find an end,
where Laura will tell Petrarch to put down his pen,
take off those crazy medieval tights,
blow out the lights, and come at last to bed.

We may become the makers of our fate when we have ceased to pose as its prophets.

What a wonderful bird the frog are!
When he stand he sit almost;
When he hop he fly almost.
He ain’t got no sense hardly;
He ain’t got no tail hardly either.
When he sit, he sit on what he ain’t got almost.

(to the Times)

Sir, I see that every Christmas Handel gave “live” performances of his Messiah (The Register October 16). But then he would, wouldn’t he?

Yours faithfully

E W Lighton
Crewe, October 16

There are some knightly souls who even go so far as to make their visits to bookshops a kind of chivalrous errantry at large. They go in not because they need any certain volume, but because they feel that there may be some book that needs them. Some wistful, little forgotten sheaf of loveliness, long pining away on an upper shelf….

The New House

Now first, as I shut the door,
I was alone
In the new house; and the wind
Began to moan.

Old at once was the house,
And I was old;
My ears were teased with the dread
Of what was foretold,

Nights of storm, days of mist, without end;
Sad days when the sun
Shone in vain: old griefs and griefs
Not yet begun.

All was foretold me; naught
Could I foresee;
But I learned how the wind would sound
After these things should be.

Tact is to lie about others as you would have them lie about you.

Music is the best means we have of digesting time.

Trainers All Turn Grey
(after Robert Frost’s ‘Nothing Gold Can Stay’)

You buy your trainers new.
They cost a bob or two.
At first they’re clean and white,
The laces thick and tight.
Then they must touch the ground –
(You have to walk around).
You learn to your dismay
Trainers all turn grey.

It is never difficult to distinguish between a Scotsman with a grievance and a ray of sunshine.

Luck is not chance, it’s toil; fortune’s expensive smile is earned.

The source, my friends of half life’s trouble
Is seeking reputation’s bubble,
And though the kids were not ambitious –
Their beds were soft, their food delicious –
Their lives were not entirely cushy:
Their parents were so very pushy.

from “The Peril of the Pushy Parents”

In any sufficiently powerful logical system statements can be formulated which can neither be proved nor disproved within the system, unless possibly the system itself is inconsistent.

Turing’s restatement of Godel’s Incompleteness Theorem.

Habit is habit, and not to be flung out the window by any man, but coaxed downstairs a step at a time.

Whom the gods wish to destroy they first call promising.

Our users don’t want quarter-inch drills, they want quarter inch holes.

“What was the Sherlock Holmes principle? ‘Once you have discounted the impossible, then whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.’”

“I reject that entirely,” said Dirk sharply. “The impossible often has a kind of integrity to it which the merely improbable lacks. How often have you been presented with an apparently rational explanation of something that works in all respects other than one, which is just that it is hopelessly improbable? Your instinct is to say, ‘Yes, but he or she simply wouldn’t do that.’”

“Well, it happened to me today, in fact,” replied Kate.

“Ah, yes,” said Dirk, slapping the table and making the glasses jump. “Your girl in the wheelchair — a perfect example. The idea that she is somehow receiving yesterday’s stock market prices apparently out of thin air is merely impossible, and therefore must be the case, because the idea that she is maintaining an immensely complex and laborious hoax of no benefit to herself is hopelessly improbable. The first idea merely supposes that there is something we don’t know about, and God knows there are enough of those. The second, however, runs contrary to something fundamental and human which we do know about. We should therefore be very suspicious of it and all its specious rationality.”

A collision at sea can ruin your entire day

A Dirge

Rough wind, that moanest loud
grief too sad for a song;
wild wind, when sullen cloud
knells all the night long:
sad storm, whose tear are vain,
bare woods, whose branches strain,
deep caves and dreary main,
wail for the worlds wrong.

The best way out is always through.

The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one’s time defending scoundrels. For it is against scoundrels that oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at all.

I rely on you

I rely on you
like a Skoda needs suspension
like the aged need a pension
like a trampoline needs tension
like a bungee jump needs apprehension
I rely on you
like a camera needs a shutter
like a gambler needs a flutter
like a golfer needs a putter
like a buttered scone involves some butter
I rely on you
like an acrobat needs ice cool nerve
like a hairpin needs a drastic curve
like an HGV needs endless derv
like an outside left needs a body swerve
I rely on you
like a handyman needs pliers
like an auctioneer needs buyers
like a laundromat needs driers
like The Good Life needed Richard Briers
I rely on you
like a water vole needs water
like a brick outhouse needs mortar
like a lemming to the slaughter
Ryan’s just Ryan without his daughter
I rely on you

An unread book is just a block of paper.

It is not a man’s duty, as a matter of course, to devote himself to the eradication of any, even the most enormous wrong; he may still properly have other concerns to engage him; but it is his duty, at least, to wash his hands of it, and, if he gives it no thought longer, not to give it practically his support. If I devote myself to other pursuits and contemplations, I must first see, at least, that I do not pursue them sitting upon another man’s shoulders

The devil made me do it the first time, and after that I did it on my own.

Epitaph

When I am dead i hope that it may be said
“His sins were scarlet, but his books were read”

of George Meredith

His style is chaos illumined by flashes of lightning. As a writer he has mastered everything except language.

It is reason and wisdom which takes away cares, not places affording wide views over the sea.

The World

Love built a stately house, where Fortune came,
And spinning fancies, she was heard to say
That her fine cobwebs did support the frame,
Whereas they were supported by the same;
But Wisdom quickly swept them all away.

The Pleasure came, who, liking not the fashion,
Began to make balconies, terraces,
Till she had weakened all by alteration;
But reverend laws, and many a proclamation
Reforméd all at length with menaces.

Then entered Sin, and with that sycamore
Whose leaves first sheltered man from drought and dew,
Working and winding slily evermore,
The inward walls and summers cleft and tore;
But Grace shored these, and cut that as it grew.

Then Sin combined with death in a firm band,
To raze the building to the very floor;
Which they effected, - none could them withstand;
But Love and Grace took Glory by the hand,
And built a braver palace than before.

Ernest Hemingway was bet $10 that he could not write a story in six words. He won the bet with the following:

For sale: baby shoes, never worn.

Chris Mullin noticed the following hand written note on an invitation to and event that he was attending….

“This is a very low priority. I suggest we pass it to Chris Mullin”

Big Whorls Have Little Whorls

Big whorls have little whorls
That feed on their velocity,
And little whorls have lesser whorls
And so on to viscosity.

This poem summarises Richardson’s 1920 paper ‘The supply of energy from and to Atmospheric Eddies’

A professor is one who talks in someone else’s sleep.

Life is painting a picture, not doing a sum.

All invention and progress comes from finding a link between two ideas that have never met.

The Unknown Citizen

He was found by the Bureau of Statistics to be
One against whom there was no official complaint,
And all the reports on his conduct agree
That, in the modern sense of an old-fashioned word, he was a saint,
For in everything he did he served the Greater Community.
Except for the War till the day he retired
He worked in a factory and never got fired,
But satisfied his employers, Fudge Motors Inc.
Yet he wasn’t a scab or odd in his views,
For his Union reports that he paid his dues,
(Our report on his Union shows it was sound)
And our Social Psychology workers found
That he was popular with his mates and liked a drink.
The Press are convinced that he bought a paper every day
And that his reactions to advertisements were normal in every way.
Policies taken out in his name prove that he was fully insured,
And his Health-card shows he was once in hospital but left it cured.
Both Producers Research and High-Grade Living declare
He was fully sensible to the advantages of the Installment Plan
And had everything necessary to the Modern Man,
A phonograph, a radio, a car and a frigidaire.
Our researchers into Public Opinion are content
That he held the proper opinions for he time of year;
When there was peace, he was for peace; when there was war, he went.
He was married and added five children to the population,
Which our Eugenist says was the right number for a parent of his generation.
And our teachers report that he never interfered with their education.
Was he free? Was he happy? The question is absurd:
Had anything been wrong, we should certainly have heard.

Wordplay

addding
subtrcting
multimultiplying
div id ing

A lady visited Matisse in his studio. Inspecting one of his latest works she unwisely said: “But surely the arm of this woman is much too long”; “Madame,” the artist replied, “you are mistaken. This is not a woman, this is a picture.”

G K Chesterton

When Plain Folk, such as you or I,
See the Sun sinking in the sky,
We think it is the Setting Sun,
But Mr. Gilbert Chesterton
Is not so easily misled.
He calmly stands upon his head,
And upside down obtains a new
And Chestertonian point of view,
Observing thus, how from his toes
The sun creeps nearer to his nose,
He cries with wonder and delight,
“How Grand the SUNRISE is to-night!”

Nothing happens unless first a dream.

Beauty seen is never lost
God’s colours all are fast

South till the butter melts, and then due West.

16th Century navigational saying

Ignorance

Strange to know nothing, never to be sure
Of what is true or right or real,
But forced to qualify or so I feel,
Or Well, it does seem so:
Someone must know.

Strange to be ignorant of the way things work:
Their skill at finding what they need,
Their sense of shape, and punctual spread of seed,
And willingness to change;
Yes, it is strange,

Even to wear such knowledge - for our flesh
Surrounds us with its own decisions -
And yet spend all our life on imprecisions,
That when we start to die
Have no idea why.

To have news value is to have a tin can tied to one’s tail.

I would maintain that thanks are the highest form of thought, and that gratitude is happiness doubled by wonder.

In a Station of the Metro

The apparition of these faces in the crowd;
Petals on a wet, black bough.

A man must love a thing very much if he not only practices it without any hope of fame and money, but even… without any hope of doing it well.

The most dangerous strategy is to jump a chasm in two leaps.

It does not do harm to the mystery to know a little more about it.

I Met a Seer

I met a seer.
He held in his hands
The book of wisdom.
“Sir,” I addressed him,
“Let me read.”
“Child — ” he began.
“Sir,” I said,
“Think not that I am a child,
For already I know much
Of that which you hold.
Aye, much.”

He smiled.
Then he opened the book
And held it before me. –
Strange that I should have grown so suddenly blind.

Buying books would be a good thing if one could also buy the time to read them in: but as a rule the purchase of books is mistaken for the appropriation of their contents.

Bedroominating

I think there
four a.m.

I should sugar and preserve my days like fruit!

last words

Fate’s book, but my italics.

He who desires, but acts not, breeds pestilence.

A Thunderstorm in Town

She wore a ‘terra-cotta’ dress,
And we stayed, because of the pelting storm,
Within the hansom’s dry recess,
Though the horse had stopped; yea, motionless
We sat on, snug and warm.

Then the downpour ceased, to my sharp sad pain,
And the glass that had screened our forms before
Flew up, and out she sprang to her door:
I should have kissed her if the rain
Had lasted a minute more.

The sun, with all those planets revolving around it and dependent on it, can still ripen a bunch of grapes as if it had nothing else in the universe to do.

When I find myself in the company of scientists, I feel like a shabby curate who has strayed by mistake into a room full of dukes.

Fleas

Adam
Had ‘em.

At a dinner for 49 Nobel Laureates (being all the then living laureates from the western hemisphere) at the White House in 1962

I think this is the most extraordinary collection of talent, of human knowledge, that has ever been gathered together at the White House, with the possible exception of when Thomas Jefferson dined alone.

A singular disadvantage of the sea lies in the fact that after successfully surmounting one wave you discover that there is another behind it just as important and just as nervously anxious to do something effective in the way of swamping boats.

Hello and welcome to I’m sorry I haven’t a clue. You join us this week in Manchester, the fine metropolis boasting a wealth of culture and history. As the epicentre of the industrial revolution, it was here that a phrase was coined that has survived to this day. “ What happens in Manchester today, happens in the rest of the world tomorrow”.

So if you’re listening rest-of-the-world, tomorrow it’s going to drizzle.

When You are Old

When you are old and grey and full of sleep,
And nodding by the fire, take down this book,
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;

How many loved your moments of glad grace,
And loved your beauty with love false or true,
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face;

And bending down beside the glowing bars,
Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled
And paced upon the mountains overhead
And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.

Misers get up early in the morning; and burglars, I am informed, get up the night before.

No enemy is worse than bad advice.

There was a Neanderthal man
Who found that is grunts didn’t scan
This hearty meat-eater
Invented the metre
To prove that it certainly can

The trees, though not fully clothed, were in that delightful state, when further beauty is known to be at hand, and when, while much is actually given to the sight, more yet remains for the imagination.

Cats seem to go on the principle that it never does any harm to ask for what you want.

She has a whim of iron

Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.

…but for the study itself, give me a small snug place, almost entirely walled with books. There should be only one window in it, looking upon trees.

I blame the scapegoats.

I know you little, I love you lots,
my love for you could fill ten pots,
fifteen buckets, sixteen cans,
three teacups, and four dishpans.

At 32 Thomas Jefferson could calculate an eclipse, survey an estate, tie an artery, plan an edifice, try a cause, break a horse, dance a minuet, and play the violin.

I travel light; as light,
That is, as a man can travel who will
Still carry his body around because
Of its sentimental value.

Style is not something applied. It is something that permeates. It is of the nature of that in which it is found, whether the poem, the manner of a god, the bearing of a man. It is not a dress.

Mistress of Vision

All things by immortal power,
Near or far, Hiddenly
To each other linked are,
That thou canst not stir a flower
Without troubling of a star.

Kissing don’t last: cookery do!

Colourless green ideas sleep furiously

Uncle and Auntie

my auntie gave me a colouring book and crayons
I begin to colour
after a while auntie leans over and says
you’ve gone over the lines
what do you think they’re there for
eh?
some kind of statement is it?
going to be a rebel are we?
your auntie gives you a lovely present
and you have to go and ruin it
I begin to cry
my uncle gives me a hanky and some blank paper
do some doggies of your own he says
I begin to colour
when I have done
he looks over
and says they are all very good
he is lying
only some of them are

Very few men, properly speaking, live at present, but are providing to live another time.

Song, from Pippa Passes

The year’s at the spring,
And day’s at the morn;
Morning’s at seven;
The hill-side’s dew-pearled;
The lark’s on the wing;
The snail’s on the thorn;
God’s in his Heaven -
All’s right with the world!

History is an account, mostly false, of events, mostly unimportant, which are brought about by rulers, mostly knaves, and soldiers, mostly fools.

Morning

I went out on an April morning
All alone, for my heart was high,
I was a child of the shining meadow,
I was a sister of the sky.

There in the windy flood of morning
Longing lifted its weight from me,
Lost as a sob in the midst of cheering,
Swept as a sea-bird out to sea.

In a sort of ghastly simplicity we remove the organ and demand the function. We make men without chests and expect of them virtue and enterprise. We laugh at honour and are shocked to find traitors in our midst. We castrate and bid the gelding be fruitful.

Here is a very bad aphorism for the purpose of illustrative quotation.

Fear not those who argue but those who dodge.

The Anvil

England’s on the anvil — hear the hammers ring –
Clanging from the Severn to the Tyne!
Never was a blacksmith like our Norman King –
England’s being hammered, hammered, hammered into line.

England’s on the anvil! Heavy are the blows!
(But the work will be a marvel when it’s done.)
Little bits of Kingdoms cannot stand against their foes.
England’s being hammered, hammered, hammered into one!

There shall be one people — it shall serve one Lord –
(Neither Priest nor Baron shall escape!)
It shall have one speech and law, soul and strength and sword.
England’s being hammered, hammered, hammered into shape!

Mistakes are the portals of discovery.

Reason is always a kind of brute force; those who appeal to the head rather than the heart, however pallid and polite, are necessarily men of violence. We speak of ‘touching’ a man’s heart, but we can do nothing to his head but hit it.

Sir. I bear a rhyme excelling
In mystic force and magic spelling.

(3.14159265358)

My wife had an uncle who could never walk down the nave of an abbey without wondering whether it would take spin.

Every generation revolts against its fathers and makes friends with its grandfathers.

How many people ruin themselves by laying out money on trinkets of frivolous utility? What pleases these lovers of toys is not so much the utility, as the aptness of the machines which are fitted to promote it. All their pockets are stuffed with little conveniences. They contrive new pockets, unknown in the clothes of other people, in order to carry a greater number. They walk about loaded with a multitude of baubles, in weight and sometimes in value not inferior to an ordinary Jew’s-box, some of which may sometimes be of some little use, but all of which might at all times be very well spared, and of which the whole utility is certainly not worth the fatigue of bearing the burden.

Economics is extremely useful as a form of employment for economists.

The turtle lives twixt plated decks
Which practically conceal its sex.
I think it clever of the turtle,
In such a fix to be so fertile.

Essentially, all models are wrong, but some are useful.

My attitude toward progress has passed from antagonism to boredom. I have long ceased to argue with people who prefer Thursday to Wednesday because it is Thursday.

God made the integers, all the rest is the work of man.

Mr Toad

The world has held great Heroes,
As history-books have showed;
But never a name to go down to fame
Compared with that of Toad!

The clever men at Oxford
Know all that there is to be knowed.
But they none of them know one half as much
As intelligent Mr Toad!

The animals sat in the Ark and cried,
Their tears in torrents flowed.
Who was it said, “There’s land ahead”?
Encouraging Mr Toad!

The army all saluted
As they marched along the road.
Was it the King? Or Kitchener?
No. It was Mr Toad.

The Queen and her Ladies-in-waiting
Sat at the window and sewed.
She cried, “Look! Who’s that HANDSOME man?”
They answered, “Mr Toad.”

Falling in love is not at all the most stupid thing that people do — but gravitation cannot be held responsible for it.

You can’t live on amusement. It is the froth on water — an inch deep and then the mud.

And so while the great ones depart to their dinner,
the secretary stays, growing thinner and thinner,
racking his brain to record and report
what he thinks that they think that they ought to have thought.

The world is mud-luscious and puddle-wonderful.

In all science, error precedes the truth, and it is better it should go first than last.

Just remember that the things that you put in our head are there forever, … You might want to think about that.

Two sticks and an apple,
Ring the bells at Whitechapel.

Old Father Bald Pate,
Ring the bells Aldgate.

Maids in white aprons,
Ring the bells at St. Catherine`s.

Oranges and Lemons,
Ring the bells at St. Clement`s

When will you pay me?
Ring the bells at the Old Bailey.

When I am rich,
Ring the bells at Fleetditch.

When will that be?
Ring the bells of Stepney.

When I am old,
Ring the great bell at Paul`s.

The Viking Terror

Bitter is the wind tonight.
It tosses the ocean’s white hair.
Tonight I fear not the fierce warriors of Norway
Coursing on the Irish Sea.

To begin at the beginning:

It is Spring, moonless night in the small town, starless and bible-black, the cobblestreets silent and the hunched, courters’-and- rabbits’ wood limping invisible down to the sloeblack, slow, black, crowblack, fishingboat-bobbing sea. The houses are blind as moles (though moles see fine to-night in the snouting, velvet dingles) or blind as Captain Cat there in the muffled middle by the pump and the town clock, the shops in mourning, the Welfare Hall in widows’ weeds. And all the people of the lulled and dumbfound town are sleeping now.

the opening lines from Under Milk Wood

Pa was forced to be a hobo
Because he played the oboe
And the oboe it is clearly understood
Is an ill wind that nobody blows good

We didn’t have metaphors in our day. We didn’t beat about the bush.

An intellectual is someone who can listen to the “William Tell Overture” without thinking of the Lone Ranger.

In science, ‘fact’ can only mean ‘confirmed to such a degree that it would be perverse to withhold provisional assent.’

The Lake Isle of Innisfree

I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,
And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made;
Nine bean rows will I have there, a hive for the honey bee,
And live alone in the bee-loud glade.

And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,
Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;
There midnight’s all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow,
And evening full of the linnet’s wings.

I will arise and go now, for always night and day
I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;
While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements gray,
I hear it in the deep heart’s core.

of a character who is suffering from a hangover

… the noise of the cat stamping about in the passage outside caused him exquisite discomfort.

History is the sum total of things that could have been avoided.

Octopusses

I don’t know what the fuss is,
Cooking’s easy if you try.
Just take two octopusses
And you’ve got an octopi.

…Sir Isaac Newton, renowned inventor of the milled-edge coin and the catflap!”
“The what?” said Richard.
“That catflap! A device of the utmost cunning, perspicuity and invention. It is a door within a door, you see, a …”
“Yes,” said Richard, “there was also the small matter of gravity.”
“Gravity,” said Dirk with a slightly dismissed shrug, “yes, there was that as well, I suppose. Though that, of course, was merely a discovery. It was there to be discovered.” …
“You see?” he said dropping his cigarette butt, “They even keep it on at weekends. Someone was bound to notice sooner or later. But the catflap … ah, there is a very different matter. Invention, pure creative invention. It is a door within a door, you see.”

Success is blocked by concentrating on it and planning for it…Success is shy - it won’t come out while you’re watching.

When A annoys or injures B on the pretense of saving or improving X, A is a scoundrel.

Here is the body pent
Absent from him I roam
Yet nightly pitch my moving tent
A day’s march nearer home

Blackpool is nothing if not magnificent, and it is not magnificent.

It is never worth a first class man’s time to express a majority opinion. By definition, there are plenty of others to do that.

Mathematical Problem

Whilst making love a necklace broke.
A row of pearls mislaid.
One sixth fell to the floor.
One fifth upon the bed.
The young woman saved one third of them.
One tenth were caught by her lover.
If six pearls remained upon the string
How many pearls were there altogether?

The present life of man, O king, seems to me, in comparison of that time which is unknown to us, like to the swift flight of a sparrow through the room wherein you sit at supper in winter, with your commanders and ministers, and a good fire in the midst, whilst the storms of rain and snow prevail abroad; the sparrow, I say, flying in at one door, and immediately out at another, whilst he is within, is safe from the wintry storm; but after a short space of fair weather, he immediately vanishes out of your sight, into the dark winter from which he had emerged. So this life of man appears for a short space, but of what went before, or what is to follow, we are utterly ignorant. If, therefore, this new doctrine contains something more certain, it seems justly to deserve to be followed.

Advice Bede says was given to King Edwin

There are in fact four very different stumbling blocks in the way of grasping the truth, which hinder every man however learned, and scarcely allow anyone to win a clear title to wisdom, namely, the example of weak and unworthy authority, longstanding custom, the feeling of the ignorant crowd, and the hiding of our own ignorance while making a display of our apparent knowledge.

An inordinate fondness for beetles

In reply to the question what he believed could concluded from his study of the natural world as to the nature of the creator

The Destruction of Sennacherib

The Assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold,
And his cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold;
And the sheen of their spears was like stars on the sea,
When the blue wave rolls nightly on deep Galilee.

Like the leaves of the forest when Summer is green,
That host with their banners at sunset were seen:
Like the leaves of the forest when Autumn hath blown,
That host on the morrow lay withered and strown.

For the Angel of Death spread his wings on the blast,
And breathed in the face of the foe as he passed;
And the eyes of the sleepers waxed deadly and chill,
And their hearts but once heaved, and for ever grew still!

And there lay the steed with his nostril all wide,
But through it there rolled not the breath of his pride;
And the foam of his gasping lay white on the turf,
And cold as the spray of the rock-beating surf.

And there lay the rider distorted and pale,
With the dew on his brow, and the rust on his mail:
And the tents were all silent, the banners alone,
The lances unlifted, the trumpet unblown.

And the widows of Ashur are loud in their wail,
And the idols are broke in the temple of Baal;
And the might of the Gentile, unsmote by the sword,
Hath melted like snow in the glance of the Lord!

It is important to do what you don’t know how to do. It is important to see your skills as keeping you from learning what is deepest and most mysterious. If you know how to focus, unfocus. If your tendency is to make sense out of chaos, start chaos.

Valentine

The things about you I appreciate
May seem indelicate:
I’d like to find you in the shower
And chase the soap for half an hour.
I’d like to have you in my power
And see you eyes dilate.
I’d like to have your back to scour
And other parts to lubricate.
Sometimes I feel it is my fate
To chase you screaming up a tower
Or make you cower
By asking you to differentiate
Nietzsche from Schopenhauer.
I’d like to successfully guess your weight
And win you at a fete.
I’d like to offer you a flower.

I like the hair upon your shoulders,
Falling like water over boulders.
I like the shoulders, too: they are essential.
Your collar-bones have great potential
(I’d like all your particulars in folders
Marked Confidential).

I like your cheeks, I like your nose,
I like the way your lips disclose
The neat arrangement of your teeth
(Half above and half beneath)
In rows.

I like your eyes, I like their fringes.
The way they focus on me gives me twinges.
Your upper arms drive me berserk.
I like the way your elbows work,
On hinges.

I like your wrists, I like your glands,
I like the fingers on your hands.
I’d like to teach them how to count,
And certain things we might exchange,
Something familiar for something strange.
I’d like to give you just the right amount
And get some change.

I like it when you tilt your cheek up.
I like the way you nod and hold a teacup.
I like your legs when you unwind them.
Even in trousers I don’t mind them.
I like each softly-moulded kneecap.
I like the little crease behind them.
I’d always know, without a recap,
Where to find them.

I like the sculpture of your ears.
I like the way your profile disappears
Whenever you decide to turn and face me.
I’d like to cross two hemispheres
And have you chase me.
I’d like to smuggle you across frontiers
Or sail with you at night into Tangiers.
I’d like you to embrace me.

I’d like to see you ironing your skirt
And cancelling other dates.
I’d like to button up your shirt.
I like the way your chest inflates.
I’d like to soothe you when you’re hurt
Or frightened senseless by invertebrates.

I’d like you even if you were malign
And had a yen for sudden homicide.
I’d let you put insecticide into my wine.
I’d even like you if you were the Bride
Of Frankenstein
Or something ghoulish out of Mamoulian’s
Jekyll and Hyde.
I’d even like you as my Julian
Of Norwich or Cathleen ni Houlihan
How melodramatic
If you were something muttering in attics
Like Mrs Rochester or a student of boolean
Mathematics.

You are the end of self-abuse.
You are the eternal feminine.
I’d like to find a good excuse
To call on you and find you in.
I’d like to put my hand beneath your chin.
And see you grin.
I’d like to taste your Charlotte Russe,
I’d like to feel my lips upon your skin,
I’d like to make you reproduce.

I’d like you in my confidence.
I’d like to be your second look.
I’d like to let you try the French Defence
And mate you with my rook.
I’d like to be your preference
And hence
I’d like to be around when you unhook.
I’d like to be your only audience,
The final name in your appointment book,
Your future tense.

If what shone afar so grand,
Turn to nothing in thy hand,
On again; the virtue lies
In struggle, not the prize.

All men having power ought to be mistrusted.

The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently.

The only function of economic forecasting is to make astrology look respectable.

Two Voices

Love is a large hope in what,
Unfound, imaginary, leaves us
With a beautifying presence.
Love always grieves us.’

So sang youth to the consenting air
While age in deathly silence, thus:

‘Love is a regret for what,
Lost or never was, assails us
With a beautifying presence.
Love never fails us.’

Many wealthy people are little more than janitors of their possessions.

So they’ve got us surrounded, good! Now we can fire in any direction, those bastards won’t get away this time!

It’s Dark in Here

I am writing these poems
From inside a lion,
And it’s rather dark in here.
So please excuse the handwriting
Which may not be too clear.
But this afternoon by the lion’s cage
I’m afraid I got too near.
And I’m writing these lines
From inside a lion,
And it’s rather dark in here.