Voices from the Civil War
A discussion at the Caledon Library
September 28 2011, 4pm SLT.
Caledon Library Meeting Room
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Caledon%20Victoria%20City/155/118/23
This is the 150-year anniversary of the American Civil War. Historians continue to tell its story, but at the bottom of the historians’ accounts are the voices of the men and women who experienced it first hand.Soldiers, nurses, slaves, and mothers all expressed the tragedies and triumphs of war, regardless of where their loyalties resided. Through letters, diaries, essays and excerpts, the Voices from the Civil War series will explore many of these voices and will help us gain insight into one of the defining events in American history. On the 4th Wednesday of each month we’ll meet to discuss a contemporary account of the war, and what it tells us about the war and the people who lived through it.
This week we'll discuss the reminiscences of Elijah P. Marrs, an African-American who fought with the Union Army during the latter part of the war. All history buffs, Civil War enthusiasts, people interested in this defining period for the US, and lovers of good conversation are cordially invited to join us.
The reading for this week's discussion is taken from Life and History of the Rev. Elijah P. Marrs, published in 1885
http://docsouth.unc.edu/neh/marrs/marrs.html#p17
your servant
JJ Drinkwater
A discussion at the Caledon Library
September 28 2011, 4pm SLT.
Caledon Library Meeting Room
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Caledon%20Victoria%20City/155/118/23
This is the 150-year anniversary of the American Civil War. Historians continue to tell its story, but at the bottom of the historians’ accounts are the voices of the men and women who experienced it first hand.Soldiers, nurses, slaves, and mothers all expressed the tragedies and triumphs of war, regardless of where their loyalties resided. Through letters, diaries, essays and excerpts, the Voices from the Civil War series will explore many of these voices and will help us gain insight into one of the defining events in American history. On the 4th Wednesday of each month we’ll meet to discuss a contemporary account of the war, and what it tells us about the war and the people who lived through it.
This week we'll discuss the reminiscences of Elijah P. Marrs, an African-American who fought with the Union Army during the latter part of the war. All history buffs, Civil War enthusiasts, people interested in this defining period for the US, and lovers of good conversation are cordially invited to join us.
The reading for this week's discussion is taken from Life and History of the Rev. Elijah P. Marrs, published in 1885
http://docsouth.unc.edu/neh/marrs/marrs.html#p17
your servant
JJ Drinkwater
Poetic Ponderings at the Caledon Library
Wednesday, January 26
4pm SLT
Caledon Library Meeting Rooms, Caledon Victoria City
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Caledon%20Victoria%20City/155/118/23
The 19th century was a time of poetic inspiration and innovation. In both style and subject, poets experimented with characterizing their emotions and perceptions within the frame of verse. At the beginning of the century the Romantic school, in reaction against Enlightenment ideals, sought inspiration in the workings of intuition and in pastoral settings. In mid-century, Emily Dickinson wrote of death and immortality, drawing on her own rarefied sensibility and using the unconventional device of slant rhyme. At the end of the century William Butler Yeats made the Celtic twilight come alive for his readers. Our series will read and consider these poets and more, focusing on the force and individuality of the poetic voice. Join us for a new poem each month.
Here are our poems for this month:
Percy Bysshe Shelley 1792-1822
Mutability
We are as clouds that veil the midnight moon;
How restlessly they speed, and gleam, and quiver,
Streaking the darkness radiantly! -yet soon
Night closes round, and they are lost for ever:
Or like forgotten lyres, whose dissonant strings
Give various response to each varying blast,
To whose frail frame no second motion brings
One mood or modulation like the last.
We rest. -A dream has power to poison sleep;
We rise. -One wandering thought pollutes the day;
We feel, conceive or reason, laugh or weep;
Embrace fond woe, or cast our cares away:
It is the same! -For, be it joy or sorrow,
The path of its departure still is free:
Man's yesterday may ne'er be like his morrow;
Nought may endure but Mutablilty.
Ozymandias
I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: "Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
`My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!'
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away".
Wednesday, January 26
4pm SLT
Caledon Library Meeting Rooms, Caledon Victoria City
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Caledon%20Victoria%20City/155/118/23
The 19th century was a time of poetic inspiration and innovation. In both style and subject, poets experimented with characterizing their emotions and perceptions within the frame of verse. At the beginning of the century the Romantic school, in reaction against Enlightenment ideals, sought inspiration in the workings of intuition and in pastoral settings. In mid-century, Emily Dickinson wrote of death and immortality, drawing on her own rarefied sensibility and using the unconventional device of slant rhyme. At the end of the century William Butler Yeats made the Celtic twilight come alive for his readers. Our series will read and consider these poets and more, focusing on the force and individuality of the poetic voice. Join us for a new poem each month.
Here are our poems for this month:
Percy Bysshe Shelley 1792-1822
Mutability
We are as clouds that veil the midnight moon;
How restlessly they speed, and gleam, and quiver,
Streaking the darkness radiantly! -yet soon
Night closes round, and they are lost for ever:
Or like forgotten lyres, whose dissonant strings
Give various response to each varying blast,
To whose frail frame no second motion brings
One mood or modulation like the last.
We rest. -A dream has power to poison sleep;
We rise. -One wandering thought pollutes the day;
We feel, conceive or reason, laugh or weep;
Embrace fond woe, or cast our cares away:
It is the same! -For, be it joy or sorrow,
The path of its departure still is free:
Man's yesterday may ne'er be like his morrow;
Nought may endure but Mutablilty.
Ozymandias
I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: "Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
`My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!'
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away".
Poetic Ponderings at the Caledon Library
Wednesday, November 24
4pm SLT
Caledon Library Meeting Rooms, Caledon Victoria City
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Caledon%20Victoria%20City/155/118/23
The 19th century was a time of poetic inspiration and innovation. In both style and subject, poets experimented with characterizing their emotions and perceptions within the frame of verse. At the beginning of the century the Romantic school, in reaction against Enlightenment ideals, sought inspiration in the workings of intuition and in pastoral settings. In mid-century, Emily Dickinson wrote of death and immortality, drawing on her own rarefied sensibility and using the unconventional device of slant rhyme. At the end of the century William Butler Yeats made the Celtic twilight come alive for his readers. Our series will read and consider these poets and more, focusing on the force and individuality of the poetic voice. Join us for a new poem each month.
Here is our poem for this month:
William Butler Yeats (1865-1939)
The Stolen Child
Where dips the rocky highland
Of Sleuth Wood in the lake,
There lies a leafy island
Where flapping herons wake
The drowsy water rats;
There we've hid our faery vats,
Full of berrys
And of reddest stolen cherries.
Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand.
Where the wave of moonlight glosses
The dim gray sands with light,
Far off by furthest Rosses
We foot it all the night,
Weaving olden dances
Mingling hands and mingling glances
Till the moon has taken flight;
To and fro we leap
And chase the frothy bubbles,
While the world is full of troubles
And anxious in its sleep.
Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand.
Where the wandering water gushes
From the hills above Glen-Car,
In pools among the rushes
That scarce could bathe a star,
We seek for slumbering trout
And whispering in their ears
Give them unquiet dreams;
Leaning softly out
From ferns that drop their tears
Over the young streams.
Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand.
Away with us he's going,
The solemn-eyed:
He'll hear no more the lowing
Of the calves on the warm hillside
Or the kettle on the hob
Sing peace into his breast,
Or see the brown mice bob
Round and round the oatmeal chest.
For he comes, the human child,
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world's more full of weeping than he can understand.
Wednesday, November 24
4pm SLT
Caledon Library Meeting Rooms, Caledon Victoria City
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Caledon%20Victoria%20City/155/118/23
The 19th century was a time of poetic inspiration and innovation. In both style and subject, poets experimented with characterizing their emotions and perceptions within the frame of verse. At the beginning of the century the Romantic school, in reaction against Enlightenment ideals, sought inspiration in the workings of intuition and in pastoral settings. In mid-century, Emily Dickinson wrote of death and immortality, drawing on her own rarefied sensibility and using the unconventional device of slant rhyme. At the end of the century William Butler Yeats made the Celtic twilight come alive for his readers. Our series will read and consider these poets and more, focusing on the force and individuality of the poetic voice. Join us for a new poem each month.
Here is our poem for this month:
William Butler Yeats (1865-1939)
The Stolen Child
Where dips the rocky highland
Of Sleuth Wood in the lake,
There lies a leafy island
Where flapping herons wake
The drowsy water rats;
There we've hid our faery vats,
Full of berrys
And of reddest stolen cherries.
Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand.
Where the wave of moonlight glosses
The dim gray sands with light,
Far off by furthest Rosses
We foot it all the night,
Weaving olden dances
Mingling hands and mingling glances
Till the moon has taken flight;
To and fro we leap
And chase the frothy bubbles,
While the world is full of troubles
And anxious in its sleep.
Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand.
Where the wandering water gushes
From the hills above Glen-Car,
In pools among the rushes
That scarce could bathe a star,
We seek for slumbering trout
And whispering in their ears
Give them unquiet dreams;
Leaning softly out
From ferns that drop their tears
Over the young streams.
Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand.
Away with us he's going,
The solemn-eyed:
He'll hear no more the lowing
Of the calves on the warm hillside
Or the kettle on the hob
Sing peace into his breast,
Or see the brown mice bob
Round and round the oatmeal chest.
For he comes, the human child,
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world's more full of weeping than he can understand.
Poetic Ponderings at the Caledon Library
Wednesday, October 27
4pm SLT
Caledon Library Meeting Rooms, Caledon Victoria City
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Caledon%20Victoria%20City/155/118/23
The 19th century was a time of poetic inspiration and innovation. In both style and subject, poets experimented with characterizing their emotions and perceptions within the frame of verse. At the beginning of the century the Romantic school, in reaction against Enlightenment ideals, sought inspiration in the workings of intuition and in pastoral settings. In mid-century, Emily Dickinson wrote of death and immortality, drawing on her own rarefied sensibility and using the unconventional device of slant rhyme. At the end of the century William Butler Yeats made the Celtic twilight come alive for his readers. Our series will read and consider these poets and more, focusing on the force and individuality of the poetic voice. Join us for a new poem each month.
Here is our poem for this month:
La Belle Dame Sans Merci
John Keats (1795-1821)
I.
O WHAT can ail thee, knight-at-arms,
Alone and palely loitering?
The sedge has wither’d from the lake,
And no birds sing.
II.
O what can ail thee, knight-at-arms!
So haggard and so woe-begone?
The squirrel’s granary is full,
And the harvest’s done.
III.
I see a lily on thy brow
With anguish moist and fever dew,
And on thy cheeks a fading rose
Fast withereth too.
IV.
I met a lady in the meads,
Full beautiful—a faery’s child,
Her hair was long, her foot was light,
And her eyes were wild.
V.
I made a garland for her head,
And bracelets too, and fragrant zone;
She look’d at me as she did love,
And made sweet moan.
VI.
I set her on my pacing steed,
And nothing else saw all day long,
For sidelong would she bend, and sing
A faery’s song.
VII.
She found me roots of relish sweet,
And honey wild, and manna dew,
And sure in language strange she said—
“I love thee true.”
VIII.
She took me to her elfin grot,
And there she wept, and sigh’d fill sore,
And there I shut her wild wild eyes
With kisses four.
IX.
And there she lulled me asleep,
And there I dream’d—Ah! woe betide!
The latest dream I ever dream’d
On the cold hill’s side.
X.
I saw pale kings and princes too,
Pale warriors, death-pale were they all;
They cried—“La Belle Dame sans Merci
Hath thee in thrall!”
XI.
I saw their starved lips in the gloam,
With horrid warning gaped wide,
And I awoke and found me here,
On the cold hill’s side.
XII.
And this is why I sojourn here,
Alone and palely loitering,
Though the sedge is wither’d from the lake,
And no birds sing.
Wednesday, October 27
4pm SLT
Caledon Library Meeting Rooms, Caledon Victoria City
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Caledon%20Victoria%20City/155/118/23
The 19th century was a time of poetic inspiration and innovation. In both style and subject, poets experimented with characterizing their emotions and perceptions within the frame of verse. At the beginning of the century the Romantic school, in reaction against Enlightenment ideals, sought inspiration in the workings of intuition and in pastoral settings. In mid-century, Emily Dickinson wrote of death and immortality, drawing on her own rarefied sensibility and using the unconventional device of slant rhyme. At the end of the century William Butler Yeats made the Celtic twilight come alive for his readers. Our series will read and consider these poets and more, focusing on the force and individuality of the poetic voice. Join us for a new poem each month.
Here is our poem for this month:
La Belle Dame Sans Merci
John Keats (1795-1821)
I.
O WHAT can ail thee, knight-at-arms,
Alone and palely loitering?
The sedge has wither’d from the lake,
And no birds sing.
II.
O what can ail thee, knight-at-arms!
So haggard and so woe-begone?
The squirrel’s granary is full,
And the harvest’s done.
III.
I see a lily on thy brow
With anguish moist and fever dew,
And on thy cheeks a fading rose
Fast withereth too.
IV.
I met a lady in the meads,
Full beautiful—a faery’s child,
Her hair was long, her foot was light,
And her eyes were wild.
V.
I made a garland for her head,
And bracelets too, and fragrant zone;
She look’d at me as she did love,
And made sweet moan.
VI.
I set her on my pacing steed,
And nothing else saw all day long,
For sidelong would she bend, and sing
A faery’s song.
VII.
She found me roots of relish sweet,
And honey wild, and manna dew,
And sure in language strange she said—
“I love thee true.”
VIII.
She took me to her elfin grot,
And there she wept, and sigh’d fill sore,
And there I shut her wild wild eyes
With kisses four.
IX.
And there she lulled me asleep,
And there I dream’d—Ah! woe betide!
The latest dream I ever dream’d
On the cold hill’s side.
X.
I saw pale kings and princes too,
Pale warriors, death-pale were they all;
They cried—“La Belle Dame sans Merci
Hath thee in thrall!”
XI.
I saw their starved lips in the gloam,
With horrid warning gaped wide,
And I awoke and found me here,
On the cold hill’s side.
XII.
And this is why I sojourn here,
Alone and palely loitering,
Though the sedge is wither’d from the lake,
And no birds sing.
Poetic Ponderings at the Caledon Library
Wednesday, September 22
4pm SLT
Caledon Library Meeting Rooms, Caledon Victoria City
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Caledon%20Victoria%20City/155/118/23
The 19th century was a time of poetic inspiration and innovation. In both style and subject, poets experimented with characterizing their emotions and perceptions within the frame of verse. At the beginning of the century the Romantic school, in reaction against Enlightenment ideals, sought inspiration in the workings of intuition and in pastoral settings. In mid-century, Emily Dickinson wrote of death and immortality, drawing on her own rarefied sensibility and using the unconventional device of slant rhyme. At the end of the century William Butler Yeats made the Celtic twilight come alive for his readers. Our series will read and consider these poets and more, focusing on the force and individuality of the poetic voice. Join us for a new poem each month.
Here is our poem for this month:
She Walks in Beauty
by Lord Byron
She walks in beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
And all that’s best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes;
Thus mellowed to that tender light
Which heaven to gaudy day denies.
One shade the more, one ray the less,
Had half impaired the nameless grace
Which waves in every raven tress,
Or softly lightens o’er her face;
Where thoughts serenely sweet express,
How pure, how dear their dwelling-place.
And on that cheek, and o’er that brow,
So soft, so calm, yet eloquent,
The smiles that win, the tints that glow,
But tell of days in goodness spent,
A mind at peace with all below,
A heart whose love is innocent!
Wednesday, September 22
4pm SLT
Caledon Library Meeting Rooms, Caledon Victoria City
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Caledon%20Victoria%20City/155/118/23
The 19th century was a time of poetic inspiration and innovation. In both style and subject, poets experimented with characterizing their emotions and perceptions within the frame of verse. At the beginning of the century the Romantic school, in reaction against Enlightenment ideals, sought inspiration in the workings of intuition and in pastoral settings. In mid-century, Emily Dickinson wrote of death and immortality, drawing on her own rarefied sensibility and using the unconventional device of slant rhyme. At the end of the century William Butler Yeats made the Celtic twilight come alive for his readers. Our series will read and consider these poets and more, focusing on the force and individuality of the poetic voice. Join us for a new poem each month.
Here is our poem for this month:
She Walks in Beauty
by Lord Byron
She walks in beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
And all that’s best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes;
Thus mellowed to that tender light
Which heaven to gaudy day denies.
One shade the more, one ray the less,
Had half impaired the nameless grace
Which waves in every raven tress,
Or softly lightens o’er her face;
Where thoughts serenely sweet express,
How pure, how dear their dwelling-place.
And on that cheek, and o’er that brow,
So soft, so calm, yet eloquent,
The smiles that win, the tints that glow,
But tell of days in goodness spent,
A mind at peace with all below,
A heart whose love is innocent!
