It appears I have chosen Sunday as my day to blog, because Monday is such a frantic day -- the new week, school, often meetings of some sort, certainly rehearsals as well. This Sunday morning, I woke up to sun streaming in my window and a bright red mark on the side of my knee to show that I had slept so soundly that I hadn't moved!
It felt like spring and Daisy and I got up eagerly and went out for our walk. The boys and I have decided to take part in the Daffodil 5 K Run in April (to raise money to care for people living with cancer, which is, of course, very close to our hearts) and so I am trying to train a bit and run/walk and go further than we do on weekdays. As always, we saw lots of waterbirds on the inlet and this morning the water was as smooth and silky as a lovely piece of dark blue satin. We made our way through the park to the marsh and were treated with the song of an unseen song sparrow (they are such dull-looking birds, but such great singers -- like Susan Boyle, or someone like that). It made me think of poetry about bird song, like Shelley's "Ode to a Skylark" from which the above quote comes. Percy Bysshe Shelley was a pre-eminent poet and progressive thinker, far ahead of his time (which was Victorian). "Ozymandias" is a terrific sonnet of his that is one of my favourite poems.
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."[4]
Can't you just picture the scene?
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