Life Owes Me Nothing

Carlos Palacios, Insectoart.com

Life owes me nothing. Let the years

Bring clouds or azure, joy or tears;

  Already a full cup I've qualified;

  Already wept and loved and laughed,

And seen, in ever-endless ways,

New beauties overwhelm the days.

Life owes me nought. No pain that waits

Can steal the wealth from memory's gates;

  No aftermath of anguish slow

  Can quench the soul fire's early glow.

I can breathe, exulting, each new breath,

Embracing Life, ignoring Death.

Life owes me nothing. One clear morn

Is boon enough for being born;

  And be it ninety years or ten,

  No need for me to question when.

While Life is mine, I'll find it good,

And greet each hour with gratitude.

~ Author Unknown, from A Treasury of Poems compiled by Sarah Anne Stuart, p 233

The Nymph's Reply To the Shepherd

By: ~ Florian Imgrund http://www.inthoughts.de/portfolio.html

If all the world and love were young,
And truth in every Shepherd’s tongue,
These pretty pleasures might me move,
To live with thee, and be thy love.

Time drives the flocks from field to fold,
When Rivers rage and Rocks grow cold,
And Philomel becometh dumb,
The rest complains of cares to come.

The flowers do fade, and wanton fields,
To wayward winter reckoning yields,
A honey tongue, a heart of gall,
Is fancy’s spring, but sorrow’s fall.

Thy gowns, thy shoes, thy beds of Roses,
Thy cap, thy kirtle, and thy posies
Soon break, soon wither, soon forgotten:
In folly ripe, in reason rotten.


Thy belt of straw and Ivy buds,
The Coral clasps and amber studs,
All these in me no means can move
To come to thee and be thy love.

But could youth last, and love still breed,
Had joys no date, nor age no need,
Then these delights my mind might move
To live with thee, and be thy love.

~ SIR WALTER RALEIGH, 1600

Raleigh was responding to another poem, The Passionate Shepherd to His Love by Christopher Marlowe, 1599.  When Raleigh wrote his poem, nymph was essentially the same as saying girl/woman but with a mythical context.  In my opinion, the nymph or female is in essence replying to the 'Passionate Shepherd' from Marlowe's poem by being a bit cynical in the first 4 stanzas particularly setting the mood in the first stanza by utilizing the word "if".... Raleigh is setting up the "IF"/"THEN" argument (whether implied or stated.  IF this is true, THEN that must be true. If all things were perfect, if no man (Shepherd) betrayed his love, if flowers never died, if clothing and shoes did not fade or wear, ect. THEN love would be possible... Happiness, joy, delight would be possible.....

In the last stanza the nymph, girl, upon pronouncing all these things she likely finds joy, happiness, and even love in softens her blows and perhaps she realizes that these things are superficial - flowers, spring, fruit, silk for clothing, and leather for shoes but they all have their time.... and IF "...joys no date, nor age no need, THEN these delights my mind might move / To live with thee, and be they love."  

Time After Time, by, Roland Guballa aka ROLOFOTO who wrote on this photograph, "Love is truly an amazing thing to have; especially if it can withstand the test of time.  I saw this old couple on Younge street and couldn’t help but take a photograph of them. Not only are they adorable, but their genuine love is something truly to be admired! I can already hear Adam Sandler’s “I want to grow old with you” song playing on top of my head as I write this." Please see more of this artist's work at http://rolofoto.tumblr.com/ and at www.rolofoto.net/apps/blog

Ode - The Past and Present Dreamers of Dreams

Ode

Golden Dreams, Richard Johnson

We are the music makers, 
And we are the dreamer of dreams, 
Wandering by lone sea-breakers, 
And sitting by desolate streams; 
World-losers and world-forsakers, 
On whom the pale moon gleams: 
Yet we are the movers and shakers 
Of the world for ever, it seems. 

With wonderful deathless ditties, 
We build up the world's great cities, 
And out of a fabulous story 
We fashion an empire's glory: 
One man with a dream, at pleasure, 
Shall go forth and conquer a crown; 
And three with a new song's measure 
Can trample an empire down. 

Le Danse de la Sylphide, Richard Johnson 

We, in the ages lying 
In the buried past of earth, 
Built Nineveh with our sighing, 
And Babel itself with our mirth; 
And o'erthrew them with prophesying 
To the old of the new world's worth; 
For each age is a dream that is dying, 
Or one that is coming to birth. 


A breath of our inspiration, 
Is the life of each generation. 
A wondrous thing of our dreaming, 
Unearthly, impossible seeming- 
The soldier, the king, and the peasant 
Are working together in one, 
Till our dream shall become their present, 
And their work in the world be done. 

They had no vision amazing 
Of the goodly house they are raising. 
They had no divine foreshowing 
Of the land to which they are going: 
But on one man's soul it hath broke, 
A light that doth not depart 
And his look, or a word he hath spoken, 
Wrought flame in another man's heart. 

Break of Day, Richard Johnson

And therefore today is thrilling, 
With a past day's late fulfilling. 
And the multitudes are enlisted 
In the faith that their fathers resisted, 
And, scorning the dream of tomorrow, 
Are bringing to pass, as they may, 
In the world, for it's joy or it's sorrow, 
The dream that was scorned yesterday. 


But we, with our dreaming and singing, 
Ceaseless and sorrowless we! 
The glory about us clinging 
Of the glorious futures we see, 
Our souls with high music ringing; 
O men! It must ever be 
That we dwell, in our dreaming and singing, 
A little apart from ye. 

For we are afar with the dawning 
And the suns that are not yet high, 
And out of the infinite morning 
Intrepid you hear us cry- 
How, spite of your human scorning, 
Once more God's future draws nigh, 
And already goes forth the warning 
That ye of the past must die. 

Evening Comes, Richard Johnson

Great hail! we cry to the corners 
From the dazzling unknown shore; 
Bring us hither your sun and your summers, 
And renew our world as of yore; 
You shall teach us your song's new numbers, 
And things that we dreamt not before; 
Yea, in spite of a dreamer who slumbers, 
And a singer who sings no more. 

Arthur William Edgar O’Shaughnessy (1844-1881)

Richard S. Johnson Fine Arts - http://rjohnson.fineartstudioonline.com/

Joy

Michael Grab, From Gravity Glue Blog

He who binds to himself a joy

Doth the winged life destroy;

But he who kisses the joy as it is flies

Lives in Eternity's sun rise.

Michael Grab, From Gravity Glue Blog

William Blake