Happy Valentine's Day!

Wooing~Howard Pyle

Sonnet 79

By Edmund Spenser 

Men call you fair, and you do credit it,

For that youself ye daily do see.

But the true fair,that is the gentle wit

And virtuous mind, is much more prais'd of me.

For all the rest, however fair it be,

Shall turn to nought and lose that glorious hue.

But only that is permanent and free

From frail coruption, that doth flesh ensue.

That is true beauty. that doth argue you

To be divine and born of heavenly seed,

Deriv'd from that fair Spirit from whom all true

And perfect beauty did at first proceed.

He only fair, and what He fair hath made;

All other fair like flowers untimely fade.

Jacqueline wanted me to put her favorite romantic  poem( and the only one she knows) up also.

Sonnet 116

By William Shakespeare

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 proved,

I never writ, nor no man ever loved.  

New Furniture!

In late November, I ordered a chair and a complimentary side table from L.L. Bean. The chair got here in early December and the table was supposed to come soon after. However, paperwork got misplaced and so the table took a lot longer. But on Tuesday the UPS man delivered my table! They are both beautiful and look very well together. 

I placed the chair under one of my windows and set the table next to it. I have some large coffee-table books that have been taking up space in my bookcase stacked on the bottom shelf of my table and a dish shaped like a fish with a lot of seashells in it on top. I have a lamp and pencil jar on top and plenty of space for all the books I am reading too.

A blanket that I had been working on and and old pillow go in the chair (the Tiger is a present from Cecile; She loves sleeping in that chair) .

The pictures above the chair are my favorites. They look like a paintings of two shelves with baskets of shells, beautiful blue hydrangeas, old bottles,a wood sandpiper statue and a model boat.

                Now I have a really nice place to curl up and read or write !

Against Idleness and Mischief

Pierre-Célestin Billet 1837 – 1922

by Isaac Watts

How doth the little busy bee
Improve each shining hour,
And gather honey all the day
From every opening flower !


How skillfully she builds her cell! 
How neatly spreads the wax! 
And labors hard to store it well
With the sweet food she makes                                                                                             


In works of labor or of skill,
I would be busy too;
For Satan finds some mischief still 
For idle hands to do. 


In books, or work, or healthful play,
Let my first years be passed, 
That I may give for every day 
Some good account a last. 

 

I thought that this poem was a really good though gentle reminder to be busy and active. And with that reminder rattling around in my head, I know today will be profitable!