"Time Will Say Nothing"

If I Could Tell You

Time will say nothing but I told you so
Time only knows the price we have to pay;
If I could tell you I would let you know.

If we should weep when clowns put on their show,
If we should stumble when musicians play,
Time will say nothing but I told you so.

There are no fortunes to be told, although,
Because I love you more than I can say,
If I could tell you I would let you know.

The winds must come from somewhere when they blow,
There must be reason why the leaves decay;
Time will say nothing but I told you so.

Perhaps the roses really want to grow,
The vision seriously intends to stay;
If I could tell you I would let you know.

Suppose the lions all get up and go,
And the brooks and soldiers run away;
Will Time say nothing but I told you so?
If I could tell you I would let you know.
 

By W H Auden :(1907-1973)

Whippoorwill Lake

The Whip-Poor-Will

Do you remember, father,--
    It seems so long ago,--
  The day we fished together
    Along the Pocono?
  At dusk I waited for you,
    Beside the lumber-mill,
  And there I heard a hidden bird
    That chanted, "whip-poor-will,"
    "_Whippoorwill! whippoorwill!_"
    Sad and shrill,--"_whippoorwill!_"

  The place was all deserted;
    The mill-wheel hung at rest;
  The lonely star of evening
    Was quivering in the west;
  The veil of night was falling;
    The winds were folded still;
  And everywhere the trembling air
    Re-echoed "whip-poor-will!"
    "_Whippoorwill! whippoorwill!_"
    Sad and shrill,--"_whippoorwill!_"

  You seemed so long in coming,
    I felt so much alone;
  The wide, dark world was round me,
    And life was all unknown;
  The hand of sorrow touched me,
    And made my senses thrill
  With all the pain that haunts the strain
    Of mournful whip-poor-will.
    "_Whippoorwill! whippoorwill!_"
    Sad and shrill,--"_whippoorwill!_"

  What did I know of trouble?
    An idle little lad;
  I had not learned the lessons
    That make men wise and sad,
  I dreamed of grief and parting,
    And something seemed to fill
  My heart with tears, while in my ears
    Resounded "whip-poor-will."
  "_Whippoorwill! whippoorwill!_"
    Sad and shrill,--"_whippoorwill!_"

  'Twas but a shadowy sadness,
    That lightly passed away;
  But I have known the substance
    Of sorrow, since that day.
  For nevermore at twilight,
    Beside the silent mill,
  I'll wait for you, in the falling dew,
    And hear the whip-poor-will.
    "_Whippoorwill! whippoorwill!_"
    Sad and shrill,--"_whippoorwill!_"

  But if you still remember,
    In that fair land of light,
  The pains and fears that touch us
    Along this edge of night,
  I think all earthly grieving,
    And all our mortal ill,
  To you must seem like a boy's sad dream,
    Who hears the whip-poor-will.
    "_Whippoorwill! whippoorwill!_"
    A passing thrill--"_whippoorwill!_"

By Henry Van Dyke

Bluebird Lake

Pastoral

By Edna St. Vincent Millay

If it were only still!—
With far away the shrill
Crying of a cock;
Or the shaken bell
From a cow's throat
Moving through the bushes;
Or the soft shock
Of wizened apples falling
From an old tree
In a forgotten orchard
Upon the hilly rock!

Oh, grey hill,
Where the grazing herd
Licks the purple blossom,
Crops the spiky weed!
Oh, stony pasture,
Where the tall mullein
Stands up so sturdy
On its little seed!

"A Dream within a Dream"

A Dream Within a Dream

Take this kiss upon the brow!
And, in parting from you now,
Thus much let me avow-
You are not wrong, who deem
That my days have been a dream;
Yet if hope has flown away
In a night, or in a day,
In a vision, or in none,
Is it therefore the less gone?
All that we see or seem
Is but a dream within a dream.

I stand amid the roar
Of a surf-tormented shore,
And I hold within my hand
Grains of the golden sand-
How few! yet how they creep
Through my fingers to the deep,
While I weep- while I weep!
O God! can I not grasp
Them with a tighter clasp?
O God! can I not save
One from the pitiless wave?
Is all that we see or seem
But a dream within a dream?

By Edgar Allen Poe

Close of Day No Longer Walks the Sky

Pity Me Not Because The Light Of Day

Pity me not because the light of day
At close of day no longer walks the sky;
Pity me not for beauties passed away
From field and thicket as the year goes by;
Pity me not the waning of the moon,
Nor that the ebbing tide goes out to sea,
Nor that a man's desire is hushed so soon,
And you no longer look with love on me.
This have I known always: Love is no more
Than the wide blossom which the wind assails,
Than the great tide that treads the shifting shore,
Strewing fresh wreckage gathered in the gales:
Pity me that the heart is slow to learn
What the swift mind beholds at ever turn.      

    

By Edna St. Vincent Millay

"Light Breaks Where No Sun Shines"

Light Breaks Where No Sun Shines

Light breaks where no sun shines;
Where no sea runs, the waters of the heart
Push in their tides;
And, broken ghosts with glowworms in their heads,
The things of light
File through the flesh where no flesh decks the bones.

A candle in the thighs
Warms youth and seed and burns the seeds of age;
Where no seed stirs,
The fruit of man unwrinkles in the stars,
Bright as a fig;
Where no wax is, the candle shows its hairs.

Dawn breaks behind the eyes;
From poles of skull and toe the windy blood
Slides like a sea;
Nor fenced, nor staked, the gushers of the sky
Spout to the rod
Divining in a smile the oil of tears.

Night in the sockets rounds,
Like some pitch moon, the limit of the globes;
Day lights the bone;
Where no cold is, the skinning gales unpin
The winter's robes;
The film of spring is hanging from the lids.

Light breaks on secret lots,
On tips of thought where thoughts smell in the rain;
When logics die,
The secret of the soil grows through the eye,
And blood jumps in the sun;
Above the waste allotments the dawn halts.


By Dylan Thomas                        

"Where Shadows Chases Light"

Where Shadow Chases Light

This is my delight,
thus to wait and watch at the wayside
where shadow chases light
and the rain comes in the wake of the summer.

Messengers, with tidings from unknown skies,
greet me and speed along the road.
My heart is glad within,
and the breath of the passing breeze is sweet.

From dawn till dusk I sit here before my door,
and I know that of a sudden
the happy moment will arrive when I shall see.

In the meanwhile I smile and I sing all alone.
In the meanwhile the air is filling with the perfume of promise.

By Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941)

"A Light Exist In Spring"

A Light Exists In Spring

By Emily Dickinson

A light exists in spring
Not present on the year
At any other period.
When March is scarcely here

A color stands abroad
On solitary hills
That science cannot overtake,
But human naturefeels.

It waits upon the lawn;
It shows the furthest tree
Upon the furthest slope we know;
It almost speaks to me.

Then, as horizons step,
Or noons report away,
Without the formula of sound,
It passes, and we stay:

A quality of loss
Affecting our content,
As trade had suddenly encroached
Upon a sacrament.                         

In The Morning Glow

          

Flower-Gathering

By Robert Frost

I left you in the morning,

And in the morning glow,
You walked a way beside me
To make me sad to go.
Do you know me in the gloaming,
Gaunt and dusty gray with roaming?
Are you dumb because you know me not,
Or dumb because you know?

All for me And not a question
For the faded flowers gay
That could take me from beside you
For the ages of a day?
They are yours, and be the measure
Of their worth for you to treasure,
The measure of the little while
That I've been long away

The Woods that Bring the Sunset

The Woods That Bring The Sunset Near

The wind from out the west is blowing.

The homeward-wandering cows are lowing;

Dark grow the pine-woods, dark and drear--

The woods that bring the sunset near.

 

When o'er wide seas the sun declines,

Far off its fading glory shines,--

Far off, sublime, and full of fear,--

The pine-woods bring the sunset near.

 

This house that looks to east, to west,

This, dear one, is our home, our rest;

Yonder the stormy sea, and here

The woods that bring the sunset near.

By Richard Watson Gilder (1844-1909)

One Misty, Moisty Morning

One misty, moisty morning,
When cloudy was the weather,
I chanced to meet an old man clothed all in leather.
He began to compliment, and I began to grin,
How do you do, and how do you do?
And how do you do again?


 "Mother Goose, the Original Volland Edition," (1915)

Euharlee Covered Bridge

The bridge is located West of Cartersville in Euharlee. This landmark recalls the days of buggies and "horseless carriages." Known as a landmark on Georgia's Covered Bridge Trail, the Euharlee Covered Bridge was built in 1886 by Washington W. King, a black contractor. There was nothing unusual about the history of the bridge except it is the state's oldest remaining covered bridge, and it is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Deep Into the Woods Amicalola Falls

 

 

Under The Waterfall

 

'Whenever I plunge my arm, like this,
In a basin of water, I never miss
The sweet sharp sense of a fugitive day
Fetched back from its thickening shroud of gray.
Hence the only prime
And real love-rhyme
That I know by heart,
And that leaves no smart,
Is the purl of a little valley fall
About three spans wide and two spans tall 
Over a table of solid rock,
And into a scoop of the self-same block;
The purl of a runlet that never ceases
In stir of kingdoms, in wars, in peaces;
With a hollow boiling voice it speaks 
And has spoken since hills were turfless peaks.'

'And why gives this the only prime
Idea to you of a real love-rhyme?
And why does plunging your arm in a bowl
Full of spring water, bring throbs to your soul?'

'Well, under the fall, in a crease of the stone,
Though precisely where none ever has known,
Jammed darkly, nothing to show how prized,
And by now with its smoothness opalized,
Is a grinking glass:
For, down that pass
My lover and I
Walked under a sky
Of blue with a leaf-wove awning of green,
In the burn of August, to paint the scene, 
And we placed our basket of fruit and wine
By the runlet's rim, where we sat to dine;
And when we had drunk from the glass together,
Arched by the oak-copse from the weather,
I held the vessel to rinse in the fall,
Where it slipped, and it sank, and was past recall,
Though we stooped and plumbed the little abyss
With long bared arms. There the glass still is.
And, as said, if I thrust my arm below
Cold water in a basin or bowl, a throe
From the past awakens a sense of that time,
And the glass we used, and the cascade's rhyme.
The basin seems the pool, and its edge
The hard smooth face of the brook-side ledge,
And the leafy pattern of china-ware
The hanging plants that were bathing there.

'By night, by day, when it shines or lours,
There lies intact that chalice of ours, 
And its presence adds to the rhyme of love
Persistently sung by the fall above.
No lip has touched it since his and mine
In turns therefrom sipped lovers' wine.'

By Thomas Hardy

Reflections of Trees

 

Not a single tree is perfect in these photos.  They all have grown crooked or have curved branches growing toward sunlight but yet they are each beautiful.  Their graceful limbs reaching out to the light are reflected in the water.   It is their imperfection that makes them so unique and picture perfect for me.

Aslan Shakes his Mane

These are photos of early spring at the Azalea Garden Overlook in Callaway Gardens.  The entire garden is so manicured that it was nice to see one rustic crooked bird house in the mist of such gorgeous flowers.  The golden colors made me think of Aslan in Narnia.  I love the image of the lantern shining against the snow in Narnia.  This is a quote from C. S. Lewis, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. When Aslan "shakes his mane, we shall have spring again."

"Wrong will be right, when Aslan comes in sight,
At the sound of his roar, sorrows will be no more,
When he bares his teeth, winter meets its death,
And when he shakes his mane, we shall have spring again."

To A Butterfly

These were a few of the butterflies at the Cecil B. Day Butterfly Center.  There were not as many as usual so I did not get photos of  a large variety of butterflies.   I am not sure why the population was so low in early spring when I visited.

To A Butterfly

By William Wordsworth (1770 - 1850)

STAY near me---do not take thy flight!
A little longer stay in sight!
Much converse do I find I thee,
Historian of my infancy !
Float near me; do not yet depart!
Dead times revive in thee:
Thou bring'st, gay creature as thou art!
A solemn image to my heart,
My father's family!

Oh! pleasant, pleasant were the days,
The time, when, in our childish plays,
My sister Emmeline and I
Together chased the butterfly!
A very hunter did I rush
Upon the prey:---with leaps and spring
I followed on from brake to bush;
But she, God love her, feared to brush
The dust from off its wings.                         

Mountain Creek Lake at Callaway Gardens

Early spring at the Discovery Center on Mountain Creek Lake at Callaway Gardens.  I took my mother there for a afternoon visit.  There were very few people there so we enjoyed a quiet and peaceful walk around the center.

Still Waters Run Deep

 

These pictures were taken outside of Ocilla Georgia. The trees are standing in shallow but still water.  I don't know how deep the lake is but the old saying is "Still waters run deep."  A person's calm exterior often conceals great depths of character, just as the deepest streams can have the smoothest surfaces.

"The purposes of a person's heart are deep waters, but one who has insight draws them out..." Proverbs 20

Brasstown Bald Mountain

 

 

In November, we drove to the top of Brasstown Bald Mountain which is located in the Chattahoochee-Oconee National Forest.  Brasstown Bald rises 4,784 feet above sea level and the observation deck offers a beautiful view of four state areas.  It is Georgia's highest mountain and is part of the Southern Appalachians.

A Pine Mountain Christmas

 

 

 

 

Christmas is over but the memories will linger of family time in front of the fireplace.  Grandma and granddaughters enjoying each others company with Peanut, grandma's beloved dog.  A southern Christmas without snow but cold enough for a nice warm fire throughout the evening.  A relax time with bare feet and PJ's, laughter and just the joy of being together.