Songs in My Heart

 I'm not feeling well today. I hurt all over, that wonderful steamroller sensation one gets when you lie down in the road in front of one. I lay down earlier before getting a showerand examined all my pains. They are as follows:

The bottom of my feet, ankles, knees, hips, the palms of my hands, elbows, my left upper arm and shoulder (PT yesterday was extremely rough). The swollen lymph node beneath my left arm hurts and my neck skin hurts. I also have a mild headache.

My sister, Roselynn, asked if I had a fever because my face is very red. I don't run fevers but I am hot after my shower. 

While we sat and chatted, I had a memory. I do not know why, but I remembered a song my Mama used to sing. I can still hear the tune but could find no trace of it online. There are other versions, but they're not at all the same.

A Psalm of Life

BY HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW

What The Heart Of The Young Man Said To The Psalmist.

Tell me not, in mournful numbers,

   Life is but an empty dream!

For the soul is dead that slumbers,

   And things are not what they seem.

Life is real! Life is earnest!

   And the grave is not its goal;

Dust thou art, to dust returnest,

   Was not spoken of the soul.

Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,

   Is our destined end or way;

But to act, that each to-morrow

   Find us farther than to-day.

Art is long, and Time is fleeting,

   And our hearts, though stout and brave,

Still, like muffled drums, are beating

   Funeral marches to the grave.

In the world’s broad field of battle,

   In the bivouac of Life,

Be not like dumb, driven cattle!

   Be a hero in the strife!

Trust no Future, howe’er pleasant!

   Let the dead Past bury its dead!

Act,— act in the living Present!

   Heart within, and God o’erhead!

Lives of great men all remind us

   We can make our lives sublime,

And, departing, leave behind us

   Footprints on the sands of time;

Footprints, that perhaps another,

   Sailing o’er life’s solemn main,

A forlorn and shipwrecked brother,

   Seeing, shall take heart again.

Let us, then, be up and doing,

   With a heart for any fate;

Still achieving, still pursuing,

   Learn to labor and to wait.

Imagine my surprise as a teenager when I picked up a book of Longfellow's poems and found that poem in it! He became my favorite American poet, and I found many poems in the book I loved. I read a lot of classic poems as a teenager and it continued as an adult.

Mama also knew the following poem. See, in the period she grew up, education meant learning a variety of things and the educated person knew poems and pieces of classic literature, even little country girls. The following poem is one I always loved, and I too memorized it. However, today, when trying to recite it, I found I'd forgotten most of it. Mama never forgot a word of either of them. 

The Arrow and the Song

BY HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW

I shot an arrow into the air,

It fell to earth, I knew not where;

For, so swiftly it flew, the sight

Could not follow it in its flight.

I breathed a song into the air,

It fell to earth, I knew not where;

For who has sight so keen and strong,

That it can follow the flight of song?

Long, long afterward, in an oak

I found the arrow, still unbroke;

And the song, from beginning to end,

I found again in the heart of a friend.

I don't think poems today have such sentiments. People don't think of life as anything but a party until the music stops. And they don't go looking for songs in the hearts of friends.  

A Dog's Mistake (In Doggrerel Verse) by A. B. Paterson

He had drifted in among us as a straw drifts with the tide,
He was just a wand'ring mongrel from the weary world outside;
He was not aristocratic, being mostly ribs and hair,
With a hint of spaniel parents and a touch of native bear

He was very poor and humble and content with what he got,
So we fed him bones and biscuits, till he heartened up a lot;
Then he growled and grew aggressive, treating orders with disdain,
Till at last he bit the butcher, which would argue want of brain.

Now the butcher, noble fellow, was a sport beyond belief,
And instead of bringing actions he brought half a shin of beef,
Which he handed on to Fido, who received it as a right
And removed it to the garden, where he buried it at night.

'Twas the means of his undoing, for my wife, who'd stood his friend,
To adopt a slang expression, "went in off the deepest end",
For among the pinks and pansies, the gloxinias and the gorse
He had made an excavation like a graveyard for a horse.

Then we held a consultation which decided on his fate:
'Twas in anger more than sorrow that we led him to the gate,
And we handed him the beef-bone as provision for the day,
Then we opened wide the portal and we told him, "On your way."


I like poetry. I was reading it as a child, began writing some by the time I was a teenager, and to this day, I still love reading it. I ran across this poet looking for something else. He writes about Australia. He is probably best known for "The Man from Snowy River" and the Australian anthem "Waltzing Mathilda". Here is a link to a site containing other poems by him.

A. B. "Banjo" Paterson Poetry