Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds – It’s Really about a Kid’s Drawing!
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Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds – It’s Really about a Kid’s Drawing!
Tuesday, September 29th, 2009I clearly remember being seven years old and listening to Elton John’s rendition of the Beatle’s Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds in my suburban backyard… Looking up at the sky and imagining a girl there, possibly me, floating with diamonds, a rainbow in the background (I guess due to the colorful imagery in the song), and clouds, in a jungle of tall flowers.
That’s the image I saw in my head every time I heard the song… until years later, when I became a teenager, it was dashed to the ground, and shattered upon being told that the song was about drug use. Somehow that tainted the song for me and made it less interesting… somehow mundane… not of a person’s own, pure imagination, but drug induced.
Today, my childhood image has been redeemed. I learned that the song actually came from a childhood drawing by John Lennon’s son Julian. You can see the drawing below. When John asked his son what the drawing was about, Julian said, “It’s Lucy in the sky with diamonds.” Lucy was Julian’s playmate in school.
The song “Lucy in the Song with Diamonds” was also influenced by Lewis Carroll. Paul McCartney said, “We did the whole thing like an Alice in Wonderland idea, being in a boat on the river, slowly drifting downstream with those great cellophane flowers towering over your head. Every so often it broke off and you saw Lucy with Diamonds all over the sky.”
That is a much more interesting origin of this song! What’s more, it lets me remember my original conception of it… and feel like that’s what it was really about… the feeling of the innocent, colorful, originality of childhood.
Oh happy day! To regain a childhood perspective!
Hattip: Steve Bunche’s Blog
*****
On a sadder note, the real Lucy Vodden (née O’Donnell), Julian’s playmate, recently passed away from Lupus at the age of 46.
Robert Frost’s Proverb: “Good fences make good neighbors.”
Friday, September 18th, 2009The proverb “Good fences make good neighbors” has been around for a couple of centuries in different forms. One place it can be found is in Poor Richard’s Almanack by Benjamin Franklin. His version is: “Love your neighbor; yet don’t pull down your hedge.”
It’s interesting that the specific wording of the proverb, “Good fences make good neighbors” is fairly modern. It comes from Robert Frost’s poem Mending Wall from 1914. The poem centers around this concept and questions whether it’s true or not. Here’s the poem…
Mending Wall
Something there is that doesn’t love a wall,
That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it
And spills the upper boulders in the sun,
And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.
The work of hunters is another thing:
I have come after them and made repair
Where they have left not one stone on a stone,
But they would have the rabbit out of hiding,
To please the yelping dogs. The gaps I mean,
No one has seen them made or heard them made,
But at spring mending-time we find them there.
I let my neighbor know beyond the hill;
And on a day we meet to walk the line
And set the wall between us once again.
We keep the wall between us as we go.
To each the boulders that have fallen to each.
And some are loaves and some so nearly balls
We have to use a spell to make them balance:
‘Stay where you are until our backs are turned!’
We wear our fingers rough with handling them.
Oh, just another kind of outdoor game,
One on a side. It comes to little more:
There where it is we do not need the wall:
He is all pine and I am apple orchard.
My apple trees will never get across
And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.
He only says, “Good fences make good neighbors”.
Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder
If I could put a notion in his head:
“Why do they make good neighbors? Isn’t it
Where there are cows? But here there are no cows.
Before I built a wall I’d ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offense.
Something there is that doesn’t love a wall,
That wants it down.” I could say “Elves” to him,
But it’s not elves exactly, and I’d rather
He said it for himself. I see him there,
Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top
In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed.
He moves in darkness as it seems to me,
Not of woods only and the shade of trees.
He will not go behind his father’s saying,
And he likes having thought of it so well
He says again, “Good fences make good neighbors.”Listen to an MP3 of Mending Wall as read by Alan Davis-Drake for LibriVox
Listen to a different MP3 of Mending Wall as read by Teresa Montgomery for Librivox
The narrator of the poem is annoyed by his neighbor’s insistence that there has to be a fence between them. If only his neighbor would get beyond his father’s beliefs – originating in an old proverb – and reconsider his thinking.
What’s ironic is that Frost coined the new wording of a proverb: “Good fences make good neighbors”, while questioning the very wisdom behind it!
Poem – The Bee by Emily Dickinson
Friday, August 7th, 2009The Bee His labor is a chant,
His idleness a tune;
Oh, for the bee’s experience
Of clovers and of noon!Emily Dickinson – Poems XV
The Online Children’s Book, "Our Children" ("Les enfants") by Anatole France
Thursday, May 7th, 2009Project Gutenberg just released an online version of Anatole France’s book "Les enfants" in English. It’s called "Our Children", which is a collection of little stories for kids. It has some lovely illustrations.
I read a couple of stories from it to my daughter yesterday and she enjoyed them. The book is from around 1886. So I think it was interesting for her to see how they lived then. The first story, Fanny, is about a little girl visiting her grandmother. Her grandmother cooks by the hearth and the little girl carries a pocket knife to cut her food. It’s very quaint! Here are some of my favorite illustrations from the story.
Some of the stories have ideas that we might find a bit different in today’s day and age. There’s the story called The School. It starts out with an interesting idea, even if the way these children comport themselves in school would be stiff by today’s standards – at least in the US…
I declare I believe Miss Genseigne’s school is the best school for girls anywhere in the world. I maintain that those who believe and say the contrary are false and misleading. All Miss Genseigne’s scholars are well-behaved and diligent. There is nothing so pleasant as to see them, with their little stiff bodies and their heads so erect. You would say they were so many little bottles into which Miss Genseigne was pouring knowledge.
It’s the illustration that goes with this idea that’s so great…
The last story in the book is called The Little Sea Dogs. It’s about children whose relatives are sailors. They’re waiting for them to return from sea.
This story reminds us of how much harder life was in those times. It ends by discussing the fickleness of the weather. A storm can capsize a ship, leaving women widowed. Sad ending, but it’s important for children to know that we generally live in a safer, more comfortable world than ever before.
The book Nos enfants is online in French too. I found that one a bit difficult to navigate. Perhaps it might be easier to check out the text only version of Nos enfants in combination with the English version that has the illustrations.
Enjoy!
Mama Lisa
Feel the Breeze, Smell the Earth
Sunday, May 3rd, 2009The noiseless little noises of earth
Come with softest rustle;
The shy, sweet feet of life;
The silky flutter of moth-wings
Against my restraining palm;
The strident beat of insect-wings,
The silvery trickle of water;
Little breezes busy in the summer grass;
The music of crisp, whisking, scurrying leaves,
The swirling, wind-swept, frost-tinted leaves;
The crystal splash of summer rain,
Saturate with the odors of the sod…With alert fingers I listen
To the showers of sound
That the wind shakes from the forest.
I bathe in the liquid shade
Under the pines, where the air hangs cool
After the shower is done…This lovely passage was written By H. Keller. Many of us have preconceived notions about Helen… having grown up with hearing her story. This passage, gives a different perspective, of living life through feeling… feeling subtle things that we don’t normally pay attention to, but that were Helen’s whole world. The idea of noise as felt through a rustle… The idea of silver as imagined through the feel of a trickle of water. Shade being simply the feeling of cool air on your body… the smell of sod, the forest after the rain.
What a lovely passage!
You can read the whole text this comes from online. It’s called A Chant of Darkness from the book, The World I Live In (1910). If you click on the PDF, it starts on page 183.
“Where the Wild Things Are” Trailer
Monday, March 30th, 2009Check out the trailer for the upcoming movie adaptation of Maurice Sendak’s Where the Wild Things Are. (Coming out on October 16, 2009.) It looks awesome!
Thanks to Troy McDonald at PeekaBookaZoo for pointing this out!
Portrait of Shakespeare – It might be him… yet it just might not…
Monday, March 9th, 2009A lot of mystery still surrounds the life of William Shakespeare (1564 – 1616). No one can really say for certain… but this is now believed by some scholars to be the only portrait painted of Shakespeare that he actually sat for during his lifetime. It’s thought to have been painted in 1610, when he was 46 years old.
What some scholars find interesting about it is that if it is Shakespeare, he appears to be more affluent than previously thought.
Not all scholars are convinced that it is actually Shakespeare though.
You can see other “portraits” of Shakespeare online at the BBC – most thought to have been done posthumously.
You can read more about why this portrait is thought to be authentic and about its history at The Shakespeare Birthplace Trust and other points of view about it at Times Online – Is this the real Shakespeare at last?
Walter de la Mare Poem “SOME ONE”
Thursday, March 5th, 2009Nancy wrote to me looking for: “the complete poem by Walter de la Mare which starts with: ‘Someone came a-knocking on my wee small door….’”
Here is Walter de la Mare’s poem called SOME ONE:
SOME ONE
Some one came knocking
At my wee, small door;
Some one came knocking,
I’m sure – sure – sure;
I listened, I opened,
I looked to left and right,
But naught there was a-stirring
In the still dark night;
Only the busy beetle
Tap-tapping in the wall,
Only from the forest
The screech-owl’s call,
Only the cricket whistling
While the dewdrops fall,
So I know not who came knocking,
At all, at all, at all.You can find this poem online in PEACOCK PIE A Book of Rhymes by Walter de la Mare.
Here’s another poem from the book you might like…
SILVER
Slowly, silently, now the moon
Walks the night in her silver shoon:
This way, and that, she peers and sees
Silver fruit upon silver trees;
One by one the casements catch
Her beams beneath the silvery thatch;
Couched in his kennel, like a log,
With paws of silver sleeps the dog
From their shadowy cote the white breasts peep
Of doves in a silver-feathered sleep;
A harvest mouse goes scampering by,
With silver claws and silver eye;
And moveless fish in the water gleam
By silver reeds in a silver stream.Hope you enjoy them!
Mama Lisa
Coraline… A Film Worth Seeing in the Theater
Saturday, February 21st, 2009I read Neil Gaiman’s book Coraline when it came out in 2002 and enjoyed it – so I figured the film was a good bet.
I was worried by the clips of this film, that it might be a little scary for my 7 year old daughter. But it looked wonderful and I knew it was a good story. So, I let her know it had a happy ending and said let’s try it out.
My husband, daughter and I all enjoyed it.
It was a 3D film – so it was fun to wear the glasses – but I don’t think that was even necessary. It was really beautifully made even without that. The colors in parts remind you of how you see colors in your childhood – everything it brighter and more vivid.
Afterward, I asked my daughter if she thought it was scary and she said, “Not really”. I checked with her 6 year old friend who had seen it a day or two ago. She said it was scary, but worth seeing. Though her 3 year old brother was really frightened by it.
Here you can see a trailer. If it seems like your type of film, I’d recommend trying to see this one in the theater.
Abe Lincoln the Boy
Friday, February 20th, 2009This week I started reading Abraham Lincoln by Carl Sandburg. It’s very well written.
In the early pages of this book, you realize that Abe was a kid just like any other kid. For example, he wrote this at about eleven (can’t you imagine your kid writing this?):
Abraham Lincoln is my nam[e]
And with my pen I wrote the same
I wrote in both hast[e] and speed
and left it here for fools to readAbraham Lincoln his hand and his pen
he will be good but god knows WhenKids love to write poems like this one!
Earlier in the book you realize what a different world Abe really grew up in. When he was seven, his family moved from Kentucky to Indiana. Though Abe was only at that point nearly eight, he helped his father build their family a log cabin, with the help of neighbors.
Now every time my poor kids have a little chore to do and they complain about it, I can’t help but say, “Abe Lincoln helped his father build a log cabin when he was only 7 years old!”
Here’s how Sandburg described that time in Abe’s life: “It had been a hard year… They had to chop down trees, clear away underbrush, on what few acres they planted after plowing the hard unbroken sod. Their food was mostly game shot in the woods nearby… One drawback was water supply. Abe or Sarah (his sister) had to walk nearly a mile to fetch spring water… They were part of the American Frontier, many others like them breaking ground never before broken, settling a new midwest territory.”
This makes you think how different and difficult life was back then. Yet it’s part of what helped shape who Abraham Lincoln was to become as a man.
Many thanks to Lila for the drawing of Abe!
The Three Witches Spell in Macbeth – Double, Double Toil and Trouble
Wednesday, October 29th, 2008The Three Witches Spell from Shakespeare’s Macbeth is great to read or listen to for Halloween.
Some of the lines in this speech are offensive to our twenty-first century ears, and I hesitated to print it here, on a site with significant family traffic. But rather than censor the greatest writer in the English language, I think it’s better to present his words honestly, and I encourage my readers with children to use the opportunity to discuss the changes in attitudes that society has gone through in the four hundred years since Shakespeare lived.
Below is The Witches Spell from Act 4, Scene 1, of Macbeth. I’ve added annotations in parentheses below any lines where I thought it’d be helpful for the meaning. I’ve also posted a couple of interesting renditions from YouTube of this scene. One is a “straight” rendition. The other is by David Solomons. He did a very Halloween-like singing rendition of it. At the end, I posted the whole spell as a poem, so you can read it all the way through without distractions.
Enjoy! -Mama Lisa
The Tragedy of Macbeth
Act 4, Scene 1SCENE I. A cavern. In the middle, a boiling cauldron.
Thunder. Enter the three WitchesFirst Witch
Thrice the brinded cat hath mew’d.
(Brinded means tawny or streaked.)Second Witch
Thrice and once the hedge-pig whined.
(A hedge-pig is a hedgehog.)Third Witch
Harpier cries ‘Tis time, ’tis time.
(A harpier is believed to be a harpy which is a Greek and Latin mythological monster – having a woman’s head and body, but with a bird’s wings and claws.)First Witch
Round about the cauldron go;
In the poison’d entrails throw.
Toad, that under cold stone
Days and nights has thirty-one
Swelter’d venom sleeping got,
Boil thou first i’ the charmed pot.ALL
Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn, and cauldron bubble.Second Witch
Fillet of a fenny snake,
(Fenny means coming from a bog)
In the cauldron boil and bake;
Eye of newt and toe of frog,
Wool of bat and tongue of dog,
Adder’s fork and blind-worm’s sting,
(An adder is a venomous snake)
Lizard’s leg and owlet’s wing,
(An owlet is a young owl)
For a charm of powerful trouble,
Like a hell-broth boil and bubble.ALL
Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn and cauldron bubble.Third Witch
Scale of dragon, tooth of wolf,
Witches’ mummy, maw and gulf
(Witches’ mummy was a medicinal substance)
(Maw is the stomach, gulf is the throat)
Of the ravin’d salt-sea shark,
(Ravin’d means ravenous)
Root of hemlock digg’d i’ the dark,
Liver of blaspheming Jew,
Gall of goat, and slips of yew
(Gall is bile, slip of yew means a cutting from a yew tree)
Silver’d in the moon’s eclipse,
(Sliver’d means to cut off a piece)
Nose of Turk and Tartar’s lips,
Finger of birth-strangled babe
Ditch-deliver’d by a drab,
(Drab = whore – these lines mean the baby
was delivered in a ditch by a whore).
Make the gruel thick and slab:
(Slab means viscid/semi-liquid)
Add thereto a tiger’s chaudron,
(Chaudron is a coppery color)
For the ingredients of our cauldron.ALL
Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn and cauldron bubble.Second Witch
Cool it with a baboon’s blood,
Then the charm is firm and good.Witches Spell Poem
Thrice the brinded cat hath mew’d.
Thrice and once the hedge-pig whined.Harpier cries ‘Tis time, ’tis time.
Round about the cauldron go;
In the poison’d entrails throw.
Toad, that under cold stone
Days and nights has thirty-one
Swelter’d venom sleeping got,
Boil thou first i’ the charmed pot.Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn, and cauldron bubble.Fillet of a fenny snake,
In the cauldron boil and bake;
Eye of newt and toe of frog,
Wool of bat and tongue of dog,
Adder’s fork and blind-worm’s sting,
Lizard’s leg and owlet’s wing,
For a charm of powerful trouble,
Like a hell-broth boil and bubble.Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn and cauldron bubble.Scale of dragon, tooth of wolf,
Witches’ mummy, maw and gulf
Of the ravin’d salt-sea shark,
Root of hemlock digg’d i’ the dark,
Liver of blaspheming Jew,
Gall of goat, and slips of yew
Silver’d in the moon’s eclipse,
Nose of Turk and Tartar’s lips,
Finger of birth-strangled babe
Ditch-deliver’d by a drab,
Make the gruel thick and slab:
Add thereto a tiger’s chaudron,
For the ingredients of our cauldron.Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn and cauldron bubble.Cool it with a baboon’s blood,
Then the charm is firm and good.
Children and Idiomatic Expressions, and a Great New Kids Book
Friday, October 17th, 2008Kids are funny.
My daughter was recently playing on her Gameboy (the handheld gaming system). I said something to her, but she was so absorbed that she completely didn’t hear. So I commented to her friend, who was also there, that my daughter was lost in another world. Her friend asked, “Why? Was she trapped?” I explained that, no, I was just using an expression meaning “when someone is so involved in what they’re doing that they don’t notice anything around them”.
It’s in this type of spirit that the book Butterflies in My Stomach, by Serge Bloch was written. You follow the main character though his first day of school. It’s full of idiomatic expressions that are illustrated literally. For example, the kid has butterflies in his stomach – so there’s an ink drawing of the kid with actual butterflies in his stomach.
Many of these expressions are funny on their own. Children love the expression, “It’s raining cats and dogs.” Bloch has a page where cats and dogs are raining down from the sky. It’s a hoot for kids to see this actually illustrated in a book.
The book gives you a chance to discuss these unique expressions with your child, in a funny way.
The Noblest Question in the World
Friday, September 5th, 2008Quote by Ben Franklin:
The noblest question in the world is, What good may I do in it?
-Poor Richard’s Almanack
About the Old Proverb “Early to Bed, Early to Rise…”
Tuesday, February 12th, 2008I have a correction to make – and investigating my error has led me to an interesting discovery. Way back in 2005, I was asked about the saying, “Early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise.” At the time I attributed it to Benjamin Franklin. The saying was in Franklin’s book “Poor Richard’s Almanac” in 1735.
(An aside: Everyone has heard about Almanacs. They used to be very important. In Benjamin Franklin’s time, everyone had one. They gave information about the tides, the cycles of the moon, seasons, the dates of the holidays, etc. You have to consider the times to realize their significance. For example, if you were going out at night, the cycle of the moon was important, since there weren’t street lamps lighting the whole way!)
Franklin, as well as other almanac writers, peppered his book with witticisms and proverbs. “Early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise” is one of the sayings he used. This proverb actually originated long before Franklin’s time. It was seen in print as early as 1496, in a piece called The Treatise of Fishing with an Angle. There it is referred to as an old English proverb:
Also whoever wishes to practice the sport of angling, he must rise early, which thing is profitable to a man in this way. That is, to wit: most for the welfare of his soul. For it will cause him to be holy, and for the health of his body. For it will cause him to be well, also for the increase of his goods, for it will make him rich. As the old English proverb says: “Whoever will rise early shall be holy, healthy, and happy.”
So the proverb was around in some form before 1496, since they were already calling it old, even then.
After 1496, the proverb is found in print in other variations:
1523 – Early rising maketh a man whole in body, holer (holier?) in soul and richer in goods.
(Found in The Book of Husbandry by Sir Anthony Fitzherbert)
1577 – Rise you early in the morning, for it hath properties three: holiness, health and happy wealth, as my father taught me.
(Found in the Boke of Nurture by Hugh Rhodes)Finally, in 1639 the proverb is seen in print in its current form in a book called Paroemiologia by John Clarke: “Early to bed and early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise.”
Interestingly, there’s another similar proverb from around 1830, “The cock doth crow to let you know, If you be wise, ‘Tis time to rise.”
The two proverbs came together to form the nursery rhyme:
The cock crows in the morn
To tell us to rise,
And he that lies late
Will never be wise:
For early to bed,
And early to rise,
Is the way to be healthy,
And wealthy and wise.So remember – Go to bed early tonight!
-Mama Lisa
Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer’s Day?
Wednesday, June 21st, 2006Today’s the first day of summer. In honor of the day, here’s one of the best known poems in the English language that refers to the summer. It’s Shakespeare’s Sonnet #18.
Sonnet 18
Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer’s lease hath all too short a date:
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimmed,
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance, or nature’s changing course untrimmed:
But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st,
Nor shall death brag thou wand’rest in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou grow’st,
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.Hope you enjoy reading this classic poem and that you have a nice summer!
Lisa
“Wizard of Oz” MP3 Reading of the Complete Novel
Saturday, May 6th, 2006My husband, Jason Pomerantz of Fiddle And Burn, has just completed his reading of L. Frank Baum’s classic novel The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. It’s lots of fun to hear!
Come listen to an MP3 Recording of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.
Jason says…
I hope you have as much fun listening as I’ve had recording!
Thanks, Jason!
-Lisa
“Beware the Ides of March” on March 15th!
Thursday, March 9th, 2006The Ides of March is on March 15th every year.
The expression Beware the Ides of March can mean beware of impending danger.
If someone says Beware the Ides of March referring to March 15th itself, it can have the sense of March 15th being a bad luck day, just like Friday the 13th.
The word “ides” originally referred to the day of the full moon every month. Eventually, with the change in the calendar system, it referred to the 15th of the month in any month that has 31 days (March, May, July and October) and it referred to the 13th of the month in all other months of the year.
The origin of the sinister meaning of the Ides of March is the fact that this is the actual day that Julius Caesar was assassinated in 44 BC by some Roman Senators.
The Romans had gotten rid of their kings hundreds of years earlier and they were proud of the fact that they were a Republic. (Although only the rich had a say in government and a large proportion of the population were slaves.) The Senators killed Caesar because they were worried that he was gaining too much power for any one man.
After Caesar was killed, the people of Rome were unhappy about his death. Those senators involved in his assassination had to leave the city.
The Senators’ plans to forestall despotic rule in Rome failed. After Caesar’s death, his adopted son Augustus became Emperor. The Republic was never restored.
Over 1500 years later, William Shakespeare wrote the play Julius Caesar. That’s where the phrase Beware the Ides of March comes from. In the play, a soothsayer said it to Julius Caesar on the day of his assassination.
So, if it’s March 15th… Beware!
Lisa
A Pancake Song
Sunday, February 26th, 2006A couple of days ago I talked about Pancake Day in England. Here’s another song about pancakes. This one’s by Christina Rossetti (1830 -1894)…
Pancake Song
Mix a pancake,
Stir a pancake,
Pop it in the pan;
Fry the pancake,
Toss the pancake,
Catch it if you can.Happy Pancake Day!
Lisa
Link to Listen Online to Folk Music from Florida, U.S.A.
Saturday, February 25th, 2006I just noticed a link to Music from the Florida Folklife Collection on Neil Gaiman’s Blog.
If you’re into folk music, check it out! It’s pretty good.
I also noticed while reading over Neil Gaiman’s Blog that he recently added some video clips. So if you’re a Neil Gaiman fan, take a look.
-Lisa
St. Valentine’s Day
Sunday, February 12th, 2006How did February 14th become associated with romance?
It started with a pretty little story that on the eve of St. Valentine’s Day the birds begin to sing. On Valentine’s Day itself, so the legend went, they mate. This idea of birdly courtship hopped over to humans and developed into the custom of celebrating love and finding a mate.
Tales of birds mating on St. Valentine’s Day go back to the time of Chaucer (1342 – 1400). It’s first seen in print in his “The Parliament of Foules (Fowls)”.
Here’s a sample.
In Middle English (spoken at the time of Chaucer)…
For this was on Seynt Valentynes day Whan euery bryd comyth there to chese his make.
In more Modern English…
For this was on St. Valentine’s Day when every bird cometh there to choose his mate.
Chaucer goes on to mention the birds singing, the end of winter, and the coming of summer.
In Middle English…
Now welcom somer, with thy sonne softe,
That hast this wintres weders over-shake,
And driven awey the longe nightes blake!Saynt Valentyn, that art ful hy on-lofte;
Thus singen smale foules for thy sake
Now welcom somer, with thy sonne softe,
That hast this wintres weders over-shake.Loosely in Modern English…
Now welcome summer, with thy soft sun,
That has this winter’s storms shaken off,
And driven away the the long black nights!Saint Valentine, who is high aloft;
Thus sings small birds for thy sake,
Now welcome summer, with thy soft sun,
That has this winter’s storms shaken off.I hope you all find love on Valentine’s Day!
Lisa
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Copyright ©2009 by Lisa Yannucci. All rights reserved.
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