Goodbye to a Friend

She was such a good friend.

Wagging her tail, twisting in a circle &

whining all the while holding a shoe or stick

lightly in her teeth. Oh so happy to see everyone.

I will miss you my Penny girl.

A Winter With No Snow

 So this winter we have had less then a quarter of the usual snowfall (as you can tell from these pictures) :( However, it will probably make for the lack of snow in April or May when I am dying for spring Not snow!

Anyways I took these a few weeks ago and finally got around to downloading them to the computer.

A Happy Valentines Day to All and Sundry!

"Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds. . . [it] alters not with

his brief hours and weeks, but bears it out even to the edge of 

doom."

~William Shakespeare~

Whitman's Tribute to the Great Lincoln

Okay so I must admit that in the past this poem has not been a favorite. The few times I was assigned to read it I would lets be nice and say that I "skimmed."
Well, a couple of days ago I was browsing through a volume of poems and came across this one and decided to read it. 
Umm it brought tears to my eyes! 
So now I have dedicated myself to memorize it :)
Anyways here is a new favorite of mine.


O Captain! My Captain!


O Captain! my Captain! our fearful trip is done;

The ship has weathered every rack, the prize we sought is won;

The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting,

While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring: 

But O heart! heart! heart!

O the bleeding drops of red,

Where on the deck my Captain lies,

Fallen cold and dead.

O Captain! my Captain! rise up and hear the bells;

Rise up—for you the flag is flung—for you the bugle trills;

For you bouquets and ribboned wreaths—for you the shores a-crowding;

For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning;

Here Captain! dear father!

This arm beneath your head;

It is some dream that on the deck,

You've fallen cold and dead.

My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still;

My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will;

The ship is anchored safe and sound, its voyage closed and done;

From fearful trip, the victor ship, comes in with object won;

Exult, O shores, and ring, O bells!

But I, with mournful tread,

Walk the deck my Captain lies,

Fallen cold and dead.

-Walt Whitman-

A Moonlit Door

The Listeners 

  BY WALTER DE LA MARE 

‘Is there anybody there?’ said the Traveller,   

   Knocking on the moonlit door;

And his horse in the silence champed the grasses   

   Of the forest’s ferny floor:

And a bird flew up out of the turret,   

   Above the Traveller’s head:

And he smote upon the door again a second time;   

   ‘Is there anybody there?’ he said.

But no one descended to the Traveller;   

   No head from the leaf-fringed sill

Leaned over and looked into his grey eyes,   

   Where he stood perplexed and still.

But only a host of phantom listeners   

   That dwelt in the lone house then

Stood listening in the quiet of the moonlight   

   To that voice from the world of men:

Stood thronging the faint moonbeams on the dark stair,   

   That goes down to the empty hall,

Hearkening in an air stirred and shaken   

   By the lonely Traveller’s call.

And he felt in his heart their strangeness,   

   Their stillness answering his cry,

While his horse moved, cropping the dark turf,   

   ’Neath the starred and leafy sky;

For he suddenly smote on the door, even   

   Louder, and lifted his head:—

‘Tell them I came, and no one answered,   

   That I kept my word,’ he said.

Never the least stir made the listeners,   

   Though every word he spake

Fell echoing through the shadowiness of the still house   

   From the one man left awake:

Ay, they heard his foot upon the stirrup,   

   And the sound of iron on stone,

And how the silence surged softly backward,   

   When the plunging hoofs were gone.