A Friend to Man
This week’s choice is “The House by the Side of the Road” by Sam Walter Foss which I have chosen for David and Hannah who are house-hunting.
Ride, Boldly Ride
This week’s choice is “Eldorado” by Edgar Allan Poe and it’s partly inspired by Jesse Gilbert’s musical version and partly by last week’s poem “La Belle Dame Sans Merci”.
Footprints on the Sands of Time
This week’s choice is A Psalm of Life by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and it is one of the poems performed by Jesse Gillespie who I mentioned last week.
Just Running On
This week’s choice is “Running on Empty” by Jackson Browne, which is an oblique tribute to those friends who ran in the London and Manchester Marathons last weekend, as well as a comment on reaching a point where it’s hard to see which way to turn.
A Calm Delight
This week’s choice is “Gifts” by James Thomson which I have chosen because I was mulling over birthdays.
Nearer to the Heart’s Desire
This week marks the end of the Rubaiyat as the narrator asks us to toast his memory should we ever be present at his grave.
A Chequer-board of Nights and Days
This week’s quatrains emphasise our powerlessness in the hands of Fate.
The Loveliest and the Best
This week is the second examining the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam which takes a reflective turn before decrying the time wasted in pointless argument about the whys and wherefores of the world.
The Hunter of the East
For this week and the next four weeks I am looking at the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam as translated by Edward Fitzgerald in his first edition of the translation.
The New Years Come
This week’s poem is “The Year” by Ella Wheeler Wilcox and it marks the end of another year and the beginning of a new one.