Forgotten Poetry I

I have always had the silly habit of thinking that every beautiful word written on paper is worth keeping, no matter how terrible the writing talent of the author. Ever since I can recall writing poems for a class, I have been sneaking graded, unwanted ones from the trashcans. Once I even saved a poem some kid had written in a geometry book. It was half in English and half in Spanish; I couldn't make heads or tails of most of it, but...I just didn't have the heart to let it get erased forever (to tell you the truth, I just couldn't comprehend that one of that sarcastic high-school lot had the...humility? certainly interest...to write a poem on their own). I have desperatly tried to preserve every scrap of writing I've ever done, no matter how dreadful it is. Call it pack-ratish and unnecesary, but it tears me to let words go...

Which reminds me...

I happen to have in my possesion 21 small, blue, ancient books. They are a series from 1922 entitled "The Pocket University". They are collectons of various poems, short stories and other writings by various well-known as well as obscure authors. I'm not sure how well known and/or distributed these books are, but I think it is safe to say that some of their contents are not likely to be found anywhere else.

I would like to start a second series, a series of Forgotten Poetry. Many or most of the poems I put on here will probably not really be forgotten by everyone, but at least by most people. I hope to draw some attention to poetry that many people may never get the chance to read - poetry that actually deserves to be preserved and is not just some silly spluttering of a ninth grader. Of course there's always the chance that anyone who reads these will scoff and cry out "How perfectly absurd! How is it possible that this person really thinks these poems are forgotten? What ignorance! What gall!!!".......but somehow I think not. If you have read any of these, forgive me. At the very least I have refreshed them in your mind. Here is the first one...one that I know for sure is not entirely forgotten.

The Fool's Prayer

                           by Edward Rowland Sill

The royal feast was done; the King

Sought some new sport to banish care,

And to his jester cried: "Sir Fool,

Kneel now, and make for us a prayer!"

The jester doffed his cap and bells,

And stood the mocking court before;

They could not see his bitter smile

Behind the painted grin he wore.

He bowed his head, and bent his knee

Upon the silken stool;

His pleading voice arose: "Oh Lord,

Be merciful to me, a fool!

"No pity, Lord, could change the heart

From red with wrong to white as wool:

The rod must heal the sin; but, Lord,

Be merciful to me, a fool!

"'T is not by guilt the onward sweep

Of truth and right, O Lord, we stay;

'T is by our follies that so long

We hold the earth from heaven away.

"These clumsy feet, still in the mire,

Go crushing blossoms without end;

These hard, well-meaning hands we thrust

Among the heart-strings of a friend.

"The ill-timed truth we might have kept-

Who knows how sharp it pierced and stung!

The word we had not sense to say-

Who knows how grandly it had rung!

"Our faults no tenderness should ask,

The chastening stripes must cleanse them all;

But for our blunders-oh, in shame

Before the eyes of heaven we fall.

"Earth bears no balsalm for mistakes;

Men crown the knave, and scourge the tool

That did his will; but Thou, O Lord,

Be merciful to me, a fool!"

The room was hushed; in silence rose

The King, and sought his gardens cool,

And walked apart, and murmered low,

"Be merciful to me, a fool!"

I've always found the "wise fool" theme to be a very interesting one...for where is knowledge without wisdom? Without wisdom, knowledge (and indeed wealth and power and almost anything else) can be a terrible and dangerous thing. As Alexander Pope wisely observed,

A little learning is a dangerous thing;  

drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring: 

there shallow draughts intoxicate the brain, 

and drinking largely sobers us again.

Whereas with wisdom, a little seems to be better then none at all. 

English Wants Macrons Too!

If you look at any text in Classical Latin, there's a good chance that it will be splattered throughout with macrons (if you don't know what they are, they are the little lines above some vowels -  ā, ē, ī, ō, ū). Macrons are helpful fellows who tell you if  the vowel it hovers over is long as opposed to short. Short, meaning pronounced for one mora (literally, delay), or long, pronounced for two morae. When the average English speaker first attempts to practice this peculiar thing, it seems very strange indeed. Because, of course, in English long and short describes the quality of the vowel, not the literal length of it!

However...if you think about it...all may not be what it seems.

I would like you to say "beat" out loud - or under your breath, if  you're in a public place :) -
(bear with me, there is a point to this)

Now, say "bead".

Let it soak in...

It's the same sound (ee) but when said in "beat" you must say it for only one mora, and in "bead," two. If you switch it around,  it just does not work. It sounds wrong. When I discovered this (I think it was on some Anglo-Saxon site) I was absolutely bowled over. Yes, I am easily impressed. I drove everyone I knew crazy for a week telling them to say "bead" and "beat". Yeah, most people weren't that excited. But I know it sure made me think.
I think English wants (and rightly deserves) macrons too!
I feel so strongly about this that I made a ribbon for the cause!

Yeah! For English!!!!!!!!!

Now we just have to figure what letter to put it over...beād, bēad...hmm... bēād?

A Told Number of Negations, Said with Strong Givings.

I ran across this on Ojo's Linguistic Fun Page. This is absolutely hilarious! I won't give away what it's about. Figure it out yourself.

How I Met My Wife

-Jack Winter/The New Yorker

It had been a rough day, so when I walked into the party I was very chalant, despite my efforts to appear gruntled and consolate.

I was furling my wieldy umbrella for the coat check when I saw her standing alone in a corner. She was a descript person, a woman in a state of total array. Her hair was kempt, her clothing shevelled, and she moved in a gainly way.

I wanted desperately to meet her, but I knew I'd have to make bones about it since I was travelling cognito. Beknownst to me, the hostess, whom I could see both hide and hair of, was very proper, so it would be skin off my nose if anything bad happened. And even though I had only swerving loyalty to her, my manners couldn't be peccable. Only toward and heard-of behavior would do.

Fortunately, the embarrassment that my maculate appearance might cause was evitable. There were two ways about it, but the chances that someone as flappable as I would be ept enough to become persona grata or a sung hero were slim. I was, after all, something to sneeze at, someone you could easily hold a candle to, someone who usually aroused bridled passion.

So I decided not to risk it. But then, all at once, for some apparent reason, she looked in my direction and smiled in a way that I could make heads or tails of.

I was plussed. It was concerting to see that she was communicado, and it nerved me that she was interested in a pareil like me, sight seen. Normally, I had a domitable spirit, but, being corrigible, I felt capacitated--as if this were something I was great shakes at--and forgot that I had succeeded in situations like this only a told number of times. So, after a terminable delay, I acted with mitigated gall and made my way through the ruly crowd with strong givings.

Nevertheless, since this was all new hat to me and I had no time to prepare a promptu speech, I was petuous. Wanting to make only called-for remarks, I started talking about the hors d'oeuvres, trying to abuse her of the notion that I was sipid, and perhaps even bunk a few myths about myself.

She responded well, and I was mayed that she considered me a savory character who was up to some good. She told me who she was. "What a perfect nomer," I said, advertently. The conversation become more and more choate, and we spoke at length to much avail. But I was defatigable, so I had to leave at a godly hour. I asked if she wanted to come with me. To my delight, she was committal. We left the party together and have been together ever since. I have given her my love, and she has requited it.

If for some reason you haven't figured out what the deal is (which may be due to density or an overly Carrolistic view of language), the "story"  uses nonstandard negations throughout the text. It would be interesting to make a list and find out how many of those words are technically correct, or even used to be used frequently and simply dropped out of usage. It seems hard to imagine that all (or even most) never had a positive form. Maybe I'll look into it sometime. Then I can chalantly slide a few into my conversations.

For Your Listening Pleasure I

I intend to start a little series titled "For Your Listening Pleasure" for your listening pleasure, in which I shall post some of the best songs Youtube has to offer (in my humble opinion, of course). I can guarantee you with 350% certainty that no rap or hip-hop songs will ever appear under that heading. This is the first video of the series.

(Now I can't hear this song below without thinking of Jamie Hyneman from the Mythbusters.)

The Bonny Ship The Diamond by The Connemara Stone Company

Hearing this song, you can get the ghost of a feeling of what it must have been like to be those hard, weatherworn fishermen...you can feel their awe and terror of the mighty seas they travel. This song (but not quite this version)  more than any other has given me a genuine understanding and appreciation for those men who "sailed the ocean wide, where the sun she never sets, me lads, nor darkness dims the skys..." Unless, of course, it storms, but who lives to tell of that?

The Mystery of the Magical Forearm Lines

Maybe you can help me solve it.

Sometimes you find or think of something very interesting - something you would like to know more about. You search and search and ask and ask...but no one seems to have the answer. There's only one thing you can do...find the answer for yourself.

The other day my cousin pointed out to me a little horizontal line about an inch or two above her elbow crease. It was faint, and looked kind of like a scar or wrinkle. She told me that only the girls in our family have it. I looked and discovered (to my intense confusion) that I had them too, on both of my arms. We did a little survey and it appeared that while most of the girls (except one) seemed to have them on one or both arms, the boys didn't - except one, but his were very faint. Another thing we noticed was that the lines appeared to be more prominent on the left arm, excepting two cases (there were about nine "test subjects" in all). It seemed highly improbable that this was something peculiar to our family, so we decided to do some research.

While searching the internet, we found nearly nothing about this mysterious "crease". However, we did run across a few things. There were only two articles we found that mentioned this "crease" at all. What we found was that some people think that this line is found in people of Han Chinese descent. This was perplexing, because our family has absolutely no Asian ancestry AT ALL. However one site has a whole forum discussing this. It appears that people of Scandinavian or Celtic blood may have these as well. My mother's side is Irish and Scandinavian, and most of her family have them. Other people say that they're just wrinkles, stretch marks, caused by the sun etc. I suppose it may be something like this, but if they are genetic (and specific to a few specific races) that would be a really interesting thing to know. I'm dreadfully sorry that I couldn't come up with any picture.

So maybe you can help me get a bit closer to the answer to this Riddle of the Line.
Here are some things to think about:

1. Do you have these lines?
2. Do you have them on one or both forearms?
3. Which side of your elbow crease are they on (above or below)?
4. Do you have "doubles" (my little sister has one above and below her elbow crease on both arms)
5. How faint are they?
6. Are they more prominent on one arm?
7. What is your ancestry?

I encourage you to report your findings to the Comment Box.

What Middle-Earth Race Do You Most Resemble?

Yes, I am a Tolkien Nut (Ringer, is the correct term, I think), and yes, I am a teenage girl. And yes, I know plenty of people such as myself who are interested in the answer to the question in the heading. And NO, people are NOT generally good at making in-depth, unbiased online quizzes. I got tired of searching fruitlessly and decided to make one myself. With the help of my dwarvish brother, I have hopefully somewhat succeeded in creating a quiz that searches your true personality and is not incredibly silly and predictable (ie. Q. Are you short and have hairy feet?). And no, Orcs, Cave-trolls, Nazgûls and Emancipated Hobbits are not options. Neither are Wizards. Sorry.

And, please,

1. Don't be offended if you disagree with what you get - I tried to make it as accurate as possible based on my own knowledge and suppositions. And I'm sorry if the questions are silly.
2. The more honest you are, the better.
3. This quiz does not really take physicality into account.
4. Do not be put off that my user name is I am Cow. There is a story behind this.
5. COMMENT!!! It's been up there for ages and I only have 2 comments!!! This makes me distraught. Comments make me happy. In fact, while you're at it, comment here, on this blog. So far I have no comments and am very sad.

Here are my results. Fairly accurate, I think.

Which Middle-Earth Race do you Most Resemble? Your Result: Elves   You most resemble the Elves, the first-born children of Arda. Elves tend to be mysterious and thoughtful, wise and skilled. They are extremely curious (which may lead to trouble) and excel in music, poetry, and song. The Elves were the favored race of Tolkien, and therefore are a beautiful race. However, they may be seen as unconcerned with the troubles of other races, and can be easily seduced by power.
Ents
Hobbits
Men
Dwarves

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Ye Olde Thorn

If you've ever been to a Renaissance Festival (or even if you haven't), chances are you've run across plenty of "Ye Olde fill in the blank"s. Generally Ye Olde Inne or Ye Olde Coffee Shoppe or something like that. Well, maybe I'm the only person on earth who didn't know this - and thought they were perhaps clumsily telling me that it was my coffee shoppe - but apparently Y used be the printer's adaptation of the thorn (þ). So, basically, "ye" is just "the". The Olde Inne. The Olde Coffee Shoppe. Well, that clears that up. Now I just have to figure out why the Disney logo has a big, deformed, backwards G where the D should be. Oh, and the Y is a P.


Yes, I am very stupid. I'm working on it.