17th July – On This Day In History
Born:
1900 James Cagney (actor)
Died:
1959 Billie Holliday (Blues singer)
On This Day:
2005 Tiger Woods wins his 10th major (The British Open) by five strokes
Have a good Friday, 17th July
Written On A Summer Evening
The church bells toll a melancholy round,
Calling the people to some other prayers,
Some other gloominess, more dreadful cares,
More harkening to the sermon’s horrid sound.
Surely the mind of man is closely bound
In some blind spell: seeing that each one tears
Himself from fireside joys and Lydian airs,
And converse high of those with glory crowned.
Still, still they toll, and I should feel a damp,
A chill as from a tomb, did I not know
That they are dying like an outburnt lamp, –
That ’tis their sighing, wailing, ere they go
Into oblivion -that fresh flowers will grow,
And many glories of immortal stamp.
– John Keats
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16th July – On This Day In History
Born:
1872 Roald Amundsen (Norwegian explorer, South Pole)
Died:
2008 Jo Stafford (singer)
On This Day:
1951 JD Salinger’s “Catcher in the Rye” published
Have a good Thursday, 16th July
Summer Stars
Bend low again, night of summer stars.
So near you are, sky of summer stars,
So near, a long-arm man can pick off stars,
Pick off what he wants in the sky bowl,
So near you are, summer stars,
So near, strumming, strumming,
So lazy and hum-strumming.
– Carl Sandburg
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15th July – On This Day In History
Born:
1606 Rembrandt van Rijn (Dutch painter)
Died:
1997 Gianni Versace (designer) shot
On This Day:
1856 Natal (South Africa) established as a separate British Colony from the Cape Colony
Have a good Wednesday, 15th July
Between The Dusk of a Summer Night
Between the dusk of a summer night
And the dawn of a summer day,
We caught at a mood as it passed in flight,
And we bade it stoop and stay.
And what with the dawn of night began
With the dusk of day was done;
For that is the way of woman and man,
When a hazard has made them one.
Arc upon arc, from shade to shine,
The World went thundering free;
And what was his errand but hers and mine —
The lords of him, I and she?
O, it’s die we must, but it’s live we can,
And the marvel of earth and sun
Is all for the joy of woman and man
And the longing that makes them one.
– William Ernest Henley
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14th July – On This Day In History
Born:
1918 Ingmar Bergman (director)
Died:
1881 Billy The Kid (outlaw)
On This Day:
1789 Citizens of Paris storm the Bastille Prison (Bastille Day)
Have a good Tuesday, 14th July
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Before Summer Rain
Suddenly, from all the green around you,
something-you don’t know what-has disappeared;
you feel it creeping closer to the window,
in total silence. From the nearby wood
you hear the urgent whistling of a plover,
reminding you of someone’s Saint Jerome:
so much solitude and passion come
from that one voice, whose fierce request the downpour
will grant. The walls, with their ancient portraits, glide
away from us, cautiously, as though
they weren’t supposed to hear what we are saying.
And reflected on the faded tapestries now;
the chill, uncertain sunlight of those long
childhood hours when you were so afraid.
– Rainer Maria Rilke
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13th July – On This Day In History
Born:
1942 Harrison Ford (actor)
Died:
1955 Ruth Ellis (murderess) last woman in England to be hanged
On This Day:
1930 First Soccer World Cup begins (Uruguay)
Have a good Monday, 13th July
A Summer Day
I
The dawn laughs out on orient hills
And dances with the diamond rills;
The ambrosial wind but faintly stirs
The silken, beaded gossamers;
In the wide valleys, lone and fair,
Lyrics are piped from limpid air,
And, far above, the pine trees free
Voice ancient lore of sky and sea.
Come, let us fill our hearts straightway
With hope and courage of the day.
II
Noon, hiving sweets of sun and flower,
Has fallen on dreams in wayside bower,
Where bees hold honeyed fellowship
With the ripe blossom of her lip;
All silent are her poppied vales
And all her long Arcadian dales,
Where idleness is gathered up
A magic draught in summer’s cup.
Come, let us give ourselves to dreams
By lisping margins of her streams.
III
Adown the golden sunset way
The evening comes in wimple gray;
By burnished shore and silver lake
Cool winds of ministration wake;
O’er occidental meadows far
There shines the light of moon and star,
And sweet, low-tinkling music rings
About the lips of haunted springs.
In quietude of earth and air
‘Tis meet we yield our souls to prayer.
– Lucy Maude Montgomery
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