10th June – On This Day In History
Born:
1922 Judy Garland (actress)
Died:
1946 Jack Johnson (first black heavyweight boxing champ)
On This Day:
1946 Italian Republic established
Have a great Wednesday, 10th June
A Girl’s Garden
A neighbor of mine in the village
Likes to tell how one spring
When she was a girl on the farm, she did
A childlike thing.
One day she asked her father
To give her a garden plot
To plant and tend and reap herself,
And he said, ‘Why not?’
In casting about for a corner
He thought of an idle bit
Of walled-off ground where a shop had stood,
And he said, ‘Just it.’
And he said, ‘That ought to make you
An ideal one-girl farm,
And give you a chance to put some strength
On your slim-jim arm.’
It was not enough of a garden
Her father said, to plow;
So she had to work it all by hand,
But she don’t mind now.
She wheeled the dung in a wheelbarrow
Along a stretch of road;
But she always ran away and left
Her not-nice load,
And hid from anyone passing.
And then she begged the seed.
She says she thinks she planted one
Of all things but weed.
A hill each of potatoes,
Radishes, lettuce, peas,
Tomatoes, beets, beans, pumpkins, corn,
And even fruit trees.
And yes, she has long mistrusted
That a cider-apple
In bearing there today is hers,
Or at least may be.
Her crop was a miscellany
When all was said and done,
A little bit of everything,
A great deal of none.
Now when she sees in the village
How village things go,
Just when it seems to come in right,
She says, ‘I know!
‘It’s as when I was a farmer…’
Oh never by way of advice!
And she never sins by telling the tale
To the same person twice.
– Robert Frost
http://www.aromaticcoffees.co.uk
9th June – On This Day In History
Born:
1781 George Stephenson (inventor – railway locomotive)
Died:
1870 Charles Dickens (English author)
On This Day:
1931 First appearance of Donald Duck
Have a good Tuesday, 9th June
The Freedom Of The Moon
I’ve tried the new moon tilted in the air
Above a hazy tree-and-farmhouse cluster
As you might try a jewel in your hair.
I’ve tried it fine with little breadth of luster,
Alone, or in one ornament combining
With one first-water start almost shining.
I put it shining anywhere I please.
By walking slowly on some evening later,
I’ve pulled it from a crate of crooked trees,
And brought it over glossy water, greater,
And dropped it in, and seen the image wallow,
The color run, all sorts of wonder follow.
– Robert Frost
http://www.aromaticcoffees.co.uk
8th June – On This Day In History
Born:
1940 Nancy Sinatra (singer)
Died:
1969 Robert Taylor (actor)
On This Day:
1824 Noah Cushing patents the washing machine
Have a good Monday, 7th June
The Peaceful Shepherd
If heaven were to do again,
And on the pasture bars,
I leaned to line the figures in
Between the dotted stars,
I should be tempted to forget,
I fear, the Crown of Rule,
The Scales of Trade, the Cross of Faith,
As hardly worth renewal.
For these have governed in our lives,
And see how men have warred.
The Cross, the Crown, the Scales may all
As well have been the Sword.
– Robert Frost
http://www.aromaticcoffees.co.uk
7th June – On This Day In History
Born:
1940 Tom Jones (Welsh singer)
Died:
1329 Robert the Bruce (Scottish leader)
On This Day:
1775 the United Colonies change their name to the United States
Have a restful Sunday, 7th June
http://www.aromaticcoffees.co.uk
She Walks In Beauty
6th June – On This Day In History
Born:
1935 Dalai Lama (spiritual leader of Tibet’s Buddhists)
Died:
1976 J Paul Getty (oil magnate and philanthropist)
On This Day:
1882 Henry Seely patents the electric iron
Have a great Saturday, 6th June.
Song At Sunset
SPLENDOR of ended day, floating and filling me!
Hour prophetic–hour resuming the past!
Inflating my throat–you, divine average!
You, Earth and Life, till the last ray gleams, I sing.
Open mouth of my Soul, uttering gladness,
Eyes of my Soul, seeing perfection,
Natural life of me, faithfully praising things;
Corroborating forever the triumph of things.
Illustrious every one!
Illustrious what we name space–sphere of unnumber’d spirits; 10
Illustrious the mystery of motion, in all beings, even the tiniest
insect;
Illustrious the attribute of speech–the senses–the body;
Illustrious the passing light! Illustrious the pale reflection on the
new moon in the western sky!
Illustrious whatever I see, or hear, or touch, to the last.
Good in all,
In the satisfaction and aplomb of animals,
In the annual return of the seasons,
In the hilarity of youth,
In the strength and flush of manhood,
In the grandeur and exquisiteness of old age, 20
In the superb vistas of Death.
Wonderful to depart;
Wonderful to be here!
The heart, to jet the all-alike and innocent blood!
To breathe the air, how delicious!
To speak! to walk! to seize something by the hand!
To prepare for sleep, for bed–to look on my rose-color’d flesh;
To be conscious of my body, so satisfied, so large;
To be this incredible God I am;
To have gone forth among other Gods–these men and women I love. 30
Wonderful how I celebrate you and myself!
How my thoughts play subtly at the spectacles around!
How the clouds pass silently overhead!
How the earth darts on and on! and how the sun, moon, stars, dart on
and on!
How the water sports and sings! (Surely it is alive!)
How the trees rise and stand up–with strong trunks–with branches
and leaves!
(Surely there is something more in each of the tree–some living
Soul.)
O amazement of things! even the least particle!
O spirituality of things!
O strain musical, flowing through ages and continents–now reaching
me and America! 40
I take your strong chords–I intersperse them, and cheerfully pass
them forward.
I too carol the sun, usher’d, or at noon, or, as now, setting,
I too throb to the brain and beauty of the earth, and of all the
growths of the earth,
I too have felt the resistless call of myself.
As I sail’d down the Mississippi,
As I wander’d over the prairies,
As I have lived–As I have look’d through my windows, my eyes,
As I went forth in the morning–As I beheld the light breaking in the
east;
As I bathed on the beach of the Eastern Sea, and again on the beach
of the Western Sea;
As I roam’d the streets of inland Chicago–whatever streets I have
roam’d; 50
Or cities, or silent woods, or peace, or even amid the sights of war;
Wherever I have been, I have charged myself with contentment and
triumph.
I sing the Equalities, modern or old,
I sing the endless finales of things;
I say Nature continues–Glory continues;
I praise with electric voice;
For I do not see one imperfection in the universe;
And I do not see one cause or result lamentable at last in the
universe.
O setting sun! though the time has come,
I still warble under you, if none else does, unmitigated
adoration. 60
– Walt Whitman
aromaticcoffees 