PRICELESS WORDS

2012-02-12T08:14:00.001-08:00

When I do good, Ifeel good.
When I do bad, I feel bad.
That's my religion.
- Abraham Lincoln

If you look for the bad in people
expecting to find it, you surely will.
- Abraham Lincoln

To sin by silence when they should protest makes cowards of men.
- Abraham Lincoln

Die when I may, I want it said by those who knew me best
that I always plucked a thistle and planted a flower
where I thought a flower would grow.
- Abraham Lincoln

2012-01-29T05:58:00.001-08:00

THIS PUTS THINGS IN PERSPECTIVE

FAVORITE POEM

2012-01-23T07:36:00.001-08:00

The Chambered Nautilus

Oliver Wendell Holmes (1809-1894)

“This is the ship of pearl, which, poets feign…”

This
is the ship of pearl, which, poets feign,
Sail the unshadowed main,–
The venturous bark that flings
On the sweet summer wind its purpled wings
In gulfs enchanted, where the Siren sings,
And coral reefs lie bare,
Where the cold sea-maids rise to sun their streaming hair.
Its webs of living gauze no more unfurl;
Wrecked is the ship of pearl!
And every chambered cell,
Where its dim dreaming life was wont to dwell,
As the frail tenant shaped his growing shell,
Before thee lies revealed,–
Its irised ceiling rent, its sunless crypt unsealed!
Year after year beheld the silent toil
That spread his lustrous coil;
Still, as the spiral grew,
He left the past year’s dwelling for the new,
Stole with soft step its shining archway through,
Built up its idle door,
Stretched in his last-found home, and knew the old no more.
Thanks for the heavenly message brought by thee,
Child of the wandering sea,
Cast from her lap, forlorn!
From thy dead lips a clearer note is born
Than ever Triton blew from wreathed horn;
While on mine ear it rings,
Through the deep caves of thought I hear a voice that sings:–
Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul,
As the swift seasons roll!
Leave thy low-vaulted past!
Let each new temple, nobler than the last,
Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast,
Till thou at length art free,
Leaving thine outgrown shell by life’s unresting sea!

Magic Margot Shoebox

PRICELESS WORDS

FAVORITE POEM

The Chambered Nautilus

Oliver Wendell Holmes (1809-1894)

“This is the ship of pearl, which, poets feign…”