Kubla Khan
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree:
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea.
So twice five miles of fertile ground
With walls and towers were girdled round;
And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills,
Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree;
And here were forests ancient as the hills,
Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.
Find this poem online at Poetry Foundation
If animals could speak, mankind would weep.
Anthony Douglas Williams
We have only a short list of quotes encountered this month …
I reflected, not for the first time, how mistaken it is to suppose there exists some “ordinary” world into which it is possible at will to wander. All human beings, driven as they are at different speeds by the same Furies, are at close range equally extraordinary.
[Anthony Powell; The Acceptance World]
Most “bad” people are actually good people lacking in skills to appropriately get what they legitimately need.
[Dr Chris Stevens]
Capitalism has invented something called “Cost of Living” where your very existence is an ever-inflating expense that you must overcome just to survive.
[unknown]
At all stages of life, people will gladly offer you unsolicited lists of things you “must” do, be, or have. Most of the time you can nod your head, walk away, and ignore them.
[unknown]
If you can imagine something, then someone in history has carved, drawn, painted, etched, handwritten, collaged and sewn it into pornography.
[Hannah Rose Woods]
And finally remember …
Hanlon’s Razor: Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.
The Rolling English Road
GK Chesterton
Before the Roman came to Rye or out to Severn strode,
The rolling English drunkard made the rolling English road.
A reeling road, a rolling road, that rambles round the shire,
And after him the parson ran, the sexton and the squire;
A merry road, a mazy road, and such as we did tread
The night we went to Birmingham by way of Beachy Head.
I knew no harm of Bonaparte and plenty of the Squire,
And for to fight the Frenchman I did not much desire;
But I did bash their baggonets because they came arrayed
To straighten out the crooked road an English drunkard made,
Where you and I went down the lane with ale-mugs in our hands,
The night we went to Glastonbury by way of Goodwin Sands.
His sins they were forgiven him; or why do flowers run
Behind him; and the hedges all strengthening in the sun?
The wild thing went from left to right and knew not which was which,
But the wild rose was above him when they found him in the ditch.
God pardon us, nor harden us; we did not see so clear
The night we went to Bannockburn by way of Brighton Pier.
My friends, we will not go again or ape an ancient rage,
Or stretch the folly of our youth to be the shame of age,
But walk with clearer eyes and ears this path that wandereth,
And see undrugged in evening light the decent inn of death;
For there is good news yet to hear and fine things to be seen,
Before we go to Paradise by way of Kensal Green.
Find this poem online at Poetry Foundation
The difference between pornography and erotica is lighting.
Gloria Leonard
Rather thin pickings in the way of quotes encountered this month.
In a sense, nothing in life is planned – or everything is – because in the dance every step is ultimately the corollary of the step before; the consequence of being the kind of person one chances to be.
[Anthony Powell; The Acceptance World]
Most dictionaries define happiness as “the feeling of being happy”. This has the bizarre quality of being correct while containing no useful information whatsoever.
[Dr Dean Burnett, Science Focus, May 2025]
People were created to be loved. Things were created to be used. The reason why the world is in chaos is because things are being loved and people are being used.
[Dalai Lama]
Every form of addiction is bad, no matter whether the narcotic be alcohol, morphine or idealism.
[Carl Jung]
You can seem like a millionaire to one person and a homeless person to the next. The ants think you are a giant, and the trees don’t even notice you. You think you have a boring life, but the next person might be striving for your lifestyle. Comparison is the thief of joy, so stay kind and keep loving life. Life is all just a big game of perspective.
[unknown]
The general population doesn’t know what’s happening, and it doesn’t even know that it doesn’t know.
[Noam Chomsky]
Chocolate lines up planetarily with the sun. Chocolate is an octave of sun energy. In fact, it’s the energy of the centre of the sun.
[David Avacado Wolfe (b.1970)]
Such indeed is the respect paid to science, that the most absurd opinions may become current, provided they are expressed in language, the sound of which recals [sic] some well-known scientific phrase.
[James Clerk Maxwell (1831-1879)]
Trees
Joyce Kilmer
I think that I shall never see
A poem lovely as a tree.
A tree whose hungry mouth is prest
Against the earth’s sweet flowing breast;
A tree that looks at God all day,
And lifts her leafy arms to pray;
A tree that may in summer wear
A nest of robins in her hair;
Upon whose bosom snow has lain;
Who intimately lives with rain.
Poems are made by fools like me,
But only God can make a tree.
Find this poem online at Poetry Foundation
The average person thinks he isn’t.
Father Larry Lorenzoni
So here is this month’s collection of recently (re-)encountered quotes.
Everything is more beautiful because we’re doomed. You will never be lovelier than you are now. We will never be here again.
[Homer, The Iliad]
Pain and suffering are always inevitable for a large intelligence and a deep heart.
[Fyodor Dostoevsky]
Camel Ride to the Tomb … I grasped at once that’s what life was. How could the description be bettered? Juddering through the wilderness, on an uncomfortable conveyance you can’t properly control, along a rocky, unpremeditated, but indefeasible track, towards the destination crudely, yet truly, stated.
[Anthony Powell, Books Do Furnish A Room]
The real problem of humanity is we have Palaeolithic emotions, medieval institutions and godlike technology.
[EO Wilson]
Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.
[George Carlin]
Consciousness is never experienced in the plural, only in the singular. The total number of minds in the
Universe is one. In fact, consciousness is a singularity phasing within all beings.
[Erwin Schrödinger]
2024 Trump makes 2016 Trump sound like Pericles of Athens by comparison: his speeches have been getting simpler and more repetitive all the time as his vocabulary shrinks and the number of ideas in his head fight it out in an increasingly confined space.
[Derek Lowe; https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/pharmaceutical-tariffs-what-and-how]
The problem with today’s world is that everyone believes they have the right to express their opinion AND have others listen to it. The correct statement of individual rights is that everyone has the right to an opinion, but crucially, that opinion can be roundly ignored and even made fun of, particularly if it is demonstrably nonsense!
[Prof. Brian Cox]
Everyone is entitled to his own opinion but not his own facts.
[Daniel Patrick Moynihan, former US Senator]
Clothing often becomes a mask, one that reflects status, style, and social norms. When we shed that mask, even temporarily, we step into a space of raw authenticity. Going naked outdoors can shift the way we view our bodies: not as objects of judgment, but as instruments of feeling. You begin to feel more in your body than about your body. The texture of tree bark beneath your hand, the warmth of sun on your back, the coolness of a breeze brushing against you – they all serve as reminders that the body is not just a vessel, but a sensory gateway to the world.
[Rick Dorociak]
I admire those with hairstyles. I don’t have a hairstyle. I have hair. Most days, it has zero caterpillars in it. That’s as good as it gets.
[unknown]
A Fairy Song
William Shakespeare
Over hill, over dale,
Through bush, through briar,
Over park, over pale,
Through blood, through fire,
I do wander everywhere,
Swifter than the moone’s sphere;
And I serve the fairy queen,
To dew her orbs upon the green.
The cowslips tall her pensioners be:
In their gold coats spots you see;
Those be rubies, fairy favours,
In those freckles live their savours:
I must go seek some dewdrops here,
And hang a pearl in every cowslip’s ear.
Farewell, thou lob of spirits; I’ll be gone:
Our queen and all her elves come here anon.
Find this poem online at Poetry Lover’s Page