Under southern skies

Sonnets

~ Mary Hannay Foott

I. CHRISTMAS DAY.

O happy day, with seven-fold blessings set

Amid thy hallowed hours—the memories dear

Of childhood’s holidays—and household cheer,

When friends and kin in loving circle met—

And youth’s glad gatherings, where the sands were wet

By waves that hurt not, whilst the great cliffs near,

With storms erewhile acquaint, gave echo clear

Of voices gay and laughter gayer yet.

And graver thoughts and holier arise

Of how, ’twixt that first eve and dawn of thine,

The Star ascended which hath lit our skies

More than the sun himself; and ’mid the kine

The Child was born whom shepherds, and the wise;

Who came from far, and angels, called Divine.

II. THE NEW YEAR.

With supple boughs and new-born leaflets crowned,

Rejoicing in fresh verdure stands the tree,

Though weather-scarred and scooped by fire may be

Its ancient trunk. So may our lives be found

(God leaving still our roots within His ground.)

Where gaps of loss and waste show brokenly

May each new year that comes to greet us see

Branches, and foliage, and flowers abound.

Where Fortune, spoiling wayfarer, hath left

Unsightly rents, may garlands spring apace.

And if, perchance, some pitiless wind hath reft

Away what newer green shall ne’er replace,

May heaven-light come the closer for the cleft

O’er which no tender fronds shall interlace.

Mary Hannay Foott was born in in Glasgow, Scotland in 1846.  She migrated to Australia with her family in 1853.  She and her husband, Thomas Wade Foott, a stock inspector, lived in Bourke until 1877 when they drove overland to their station, Dundoo, in south-west Queensland. Mary's father was a sleeping partner in the undertaking but the station had its troubles: mortgages were raised in 1880 and 1882. Her husband died on 2 February 1884 after a long illness and in 1885 Mary and her father relinquished all interests in Dundoo. After her husband died she took her two young sons to Toowoomba. There she lived until 1885 when she moved to Rocklea, Brisbane. In 1886 she ran a small school and then became editor of the women's page in the Queenslander. By this time she had written most of the poems by which she was to be remembered.   From her letters and the memories of her elder son, Mary Hannay Foott emerges as a woman of great courage and initiative. Despite her hardships and difficulties she preserved a bright vitality. Though a minor poet, she was probably the first woman in Queensland to make a mark in Australian literature.

Summer holidays

Summer time an' the livin' is easy, Fish are jumpin' an' the cotton is high. Oh, yo' daddy's rich, and yo' ma' is good-lookin', So hush, little baby, don' yo' cry.  ~ Ira Gershwin and DuBose Heyward

We're off shortly on our annual road trip.  This year to Melbourne, then Adelaide along the Great Ocean Road and home to Canberra following the Murray River and the locust plagues.  Last year we circumnavigated Tassie and we've previously driven to Brisbane and Rockhampton in Queensland.  I think we will have pretty much covered the south-east part of Australia after this trip, and what is achievable by road in a radius from our drive-way.  We have lots of stops planned and many visits to friends and family along the way. It will be loads of fun.  Except for the packing part, which I am about to tackle in earnest.  Right now. 

Visitors come knocking

Some one came knocking

~ Walter de la Mare

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.

It was a huge day yesterday.  Plans to have a BBQ picnic at the Cotter River were thrown into disarray thanks to the rain.  So we hosted the 'other-side-of-the-family' Christmas party at our house instead.  You have never seen such a whirl of activity getting the house in order in two hours {so that was a good outcome}.  The children hung by the study window waiting for Nanna and Grampa, and Uncles and Aunties, and cousins to arrive.  The moment the cars pulled up in the driveway, they stood at the ready on the inside of the door waiting for the buzzer to sound and then pulled it open immediately and bounced about excitedly, giggling and beaming at the visitors as they hovered on the porch, head and shoulders damp and with arms full of bounty.  It was as good, if not better, than waiting for Santa to come through that same door, as he usually does, since we do not have a chimney. 

Working on enjoying the holidays

Holidays

~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

The holiest of all holidays are those

Kept by ourselves in silence and apart;

The secret anniversaries of the heart,

When the full river of feeling overflows;

The happy days unclouded to their close;

The sudden joys that out of darkness start

As flames from ashes; swift desires that dart

Like swallows singing down each wind that blows!

White as the gleam of a receding sail,

White as a cloud that floats and fades in air,

White as the whitest lily on a stream,

These tender memories are;--a fairy tale

Of some enchanted land we know not where,

But lovely as a landscape in a dream.

It's beginning to feel a {bit} like Christmas.  I have a pudding to make, gifts to finalise and a road trip to plan and pack for, as well as playdates and birthday parties and family parties to attend.  I like the story of Penelope who forestalled her many suitors during Odysseus' long absence with a classic ruse.  She told them that she could not choose between them until she had finished work on a tapestry which she wove by day and unravelled by night.  That is precisely how I feel; in limbo, with the best laid plans unravelled by distractions and where each day seems to have as many jobs to do as the previous one. It helps to pause and remember that holidays are about making memories and savouring more intense moments of togetherness than we enjoy during the rest of the year.  If only there were more hours in the day to get the essentials done as well, and have a bit of a lie in.  Ah well, must away to soak fruit and sort laundry.

Image: Bronze sculpture, Penelope, by Emile Bourdelle, 1912. National Gallery of Australia.

{this moment}

{this moment} - A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember. SouleMama


Image by me: You know where. EVERY Friday.  Should be a sponsored post. D'ya hear AIS?

Breaking-up day!

Bird in the Classroom

The students drowsed and drowned

in the teacher's ponderous monotone -

limp bodies loping in the wordy heat,

melted and run together, desk and flesh as one.

swooning and swimming in a sea of drone.

Each one asleep, swayed and vaguely drifted

with lidded eyes and lolling weighted heads,

were caught on heavy waves and dimly lifted,

sunk slowly, ears ringing in the syrup of his sound,

or borne from the room on a heaving wilderness of beds.

And then on a sudden, a bird's cool voice

punched out song. Crisp and spare

on the startled air,

beak-beamed or idly tossed,

each note gleamed

like a bead of frost.

A bird's cool voice from a neighbour's tree

ith five clear calls - mere grains of sound

rare and neat

repeated twice

but they sprang from the heat

like drops of ice.

Ears cocked, before the comment ran

fading and chuckling where a wattle stirred,

the students wondered how they could have heard

such dreary monotone from a man, and

such wisdom from a bird.

Breaking-up day!!  School's out.  The art work has come down from the classroom walls and has made its tattered way home.  The ugly, hired digital keyboard has been returned to the Young Music Society.  (Please Santa can I have an ebony Kawai upright piano for next year?) There is rampant speculation about who the teachers will be next year and firm preferences are already being expressed.  There are parties galore in every class (thank heavens for pantry popcorn - the working mother's saviour.  It's as close to home-made as I can get this morning) and it's a free dress day.   All this merriment also signals the end of Little Wanna's kindergarten year ... sigh.  We are squarely in the primary years now. 

Congratulations kiddos.  We are very proud of your accomplishments.  Bring on the holidays! 

MY TYPEWRITER

~ Edward Dyson

I have a trim typewriter now,

They tell me none is better;

It makes a pleasing, rhythmic row,

And neat is every letter.

I tick out stories by machine,

Dig pars, and gags, and verses keen,

And lathe them off in manner slick.

It is so easy, and it's quick.

And yet it falls short, I'm afraid,

Of giving satisfaction,

This making literature by aid

Of scientific traction;

For often, I can't fail to see,

The dashed thing runs away with me.

It bolts, and do whate'er I may

I cannot hold the runaway.

It is not fitted with a brake,

And endless are my verses,

Nor any yarn I start to make

Appropriately terse is.

'Tis plain that this machine-made screed

Is fit but for machines to read;

So "Wanted" (as an iron censor)

"A good, sound, secondhand condenser!"

Those were the days.  A slow, measured pace. Time to think.   Time to respond.

No rest up for me at the moment.  I am a slave to new technology and the quick turnaround.   On that note, I'm out the door and off to log-on in the office. Four days 'til the holidays and counting.   

Poem first published in The Bulletin, 6 September 1917
Illustration: From www.mariecampbell.com, with immense thanks!  A wonderful illustrator from the UK.

{this moment]

{this moment} - A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember. SouleMama

Image: Dance/fashion show of a very special, lavish Arabian Nights costume received in the mail.  A Christmas present from a sweet friend in Riyadh - thank you A.

Lead On

VB

How does it happen?

Your reading the news

Or lighting a fuse

Or straining till you thought you would burst

You sure got a thirst

A hard earned thirst needs an ice cold beer

And the best cold beer is Vic

Victoria Bitter

You can get it jumpin' You can get it pumpin'

You can get it chasing a cow.

Matter o' fact, I got it now

A hard earned thirst needs an ice cold beer

And the best cold beer is Vic

Victoria Bitter

The week's end!  Hurrah.  Charly is down with the 'flu now too and had yesterday off school.  Must strip sheets and disinfect the house tomorrow to minimise its further spread {that's something to look forward to!}.  One week to go before school breaks-up and we take some leave to embark on one of our famous roadtrips.  Meantime, I still have to go turbo-charged through today.  While I am most definitely not a beer-drinker, except perhaps with a curry, I can empathise with the sentiments of the well-known Australian advertising jingle for Victoria Bitter.  This past month I feel as if I have been wrangling cattle or crossing hostile, uncharted territory on horseback and the thought of an ice cold something in a glass and feet up, sounds very appealing.  Right. Off to get my lasso and spurs.

Image: Cassilly Adams, 1843-1921, Winter Trail.

Wage Slave

The Song Of The Wage-Slave

 ~ Robert William Service

...extract

When the long, long day is over, and the Big Boss gives me my pay,

I hope that it won't be hell-fire, as some of the parsons say.

And I hope that it won't be heaven, with some of the parsons I've met --

All I want is just quiet, just to rest and forget.

Look at my face, toil-furrowed; look at my calloused hands;

Master, I've done Thy bidding, wrought in Thy many lands --

Wrought for the little masters, big-bellied they be, and rich;

I've done their desire for a daily hire, and I die like a dog in a ditch.

I have used the strength Thou hast given, Thou knowest I did not shirk;

Threescore years of labor -- Thine be the long day's work.

And now, Big Master, I'm broken and bent and twisted and scarred,

But I've held my job, and Thou knowest, and Thou will not judge me hard.

Thou knowest my sins are many, and often I've played the fool --

Whiskey and cards and women, they made me the devil's tool.

I was just like a child with money; I flung it away with a curse,

Feasting a fawning parasite, or glutting a harlot's purse;

Then back to the woods repentant, back to the mill or the mine,

I, the worker of workers, everything in my line.

Everything hard but headwork (I'd no more brains than a kid),

A brute with brute strength to labor, doing as I was bid;

Living in camps with men-folk, a lonely and loveless life;

Never knew kiss of sweetheart, never caress of wife.

A brute with brute strength to labor, and they were so far above --

Yet I'd gladly have gone to the gallows for one little look of Love.

I, with the strength of two men, savage and shy and wild --

Yet how I'd ha' treasured a woman, and the sweet, warm kiss of a child!

Well, 'tis Thy world, and Thou knowest. I blaspheme and my ways be rude;

But I've lived my life as I found it, and I've done my best to be good;

I, the primitive toiler, half naked and grimed to the eyes,

Sweating it deep in their ditches, swining it stark in their styes;

Hurling down forests before me, spanning tumultuous streams;

Down in the ditch building o'er me palaces fairer than dreams;

Boring the rock to the ore-bed, driving the road through the fen,

Resolute, dumb, uncomplaining, a man in a world of men.

Master, I've filled my contract, wrought in Thy many lands;

Not by my sins wilt Thou judge me, but by the work of my hands.

Master, I've done Thy bidding, and the light is low in the west,

And the long, long shift is over . . . Master, I've earned it -- Rest.

Image: Darlinghurst nights and morning glories : being 47 strange sights observed from eleventh storeys, in a land of cream puffs and crime, by a flat-roof professor: and here set forth in sketch and rhyme by Virgil Reilly and Kenneth Slessor, 1933.

Virgil Reilly’s terrific illustrations accompanied a series of poems by Australian poet Kenneth Slessor in Smith's Weekly. They opened a window onto inner-city Sydney during the early 1930s. Cocaine was the drug of choice then.  Coffee is mine as I head off for another tough day in the mines.  Only two days to go and some semblance of normality will return.  I only saw the children at breakfast-time yesterday, and that was to say good-bye.  It's tough.

If

IF

~ Rudyard Kipling

If you can keep your head when all about you

Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;

If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,

But make allowance for their doubting too:

If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,

Or, being lied about, don’t deal in lies,

Or being hated don’t give way to hating,

And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise;

If you can dream – and not make dreams your master;

If you can think – and not make thoughts your aim,

If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster

And treat those two impostors just the same:.

If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken

Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,

Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,

And stoop and build’em up with worn-out tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings

And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,

And lose, and start again at your beginnings,

And never breathe a word about your loss:

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew

To serve your turn long after they are gone,

And so hold on when there is nothing in you

Except the Will which says to them: “Hold on!”

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,

Or walk with Kings – nor lose the common touch,

If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,

If all men count with you, but none too much:

If you can fill the unforgiving minute

With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,

Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,

And – which is more – you’ll be a Man, my son!

The companion poem to the If for Girls I posted a few days ago.  This one is for Ro-Ro, my early bird, who jumps out first thing in the morning to surprise me and then gets his own breakfast while I make the packed lunches for school or happily lolls about on the couch under one of Grandma's crotcheted rugs reading library books.  This morning he finished his Christmas cards in a very business-like fashion and I can hear him chatting away to Daddy now while the girls slumber on. 

Reflection

Superfluous Advice

~ Dorothy Parker

Should they whisper false of you.

Never trouble to deny;

Should the words they say be true,

Weep and storm and swear they lie.

Mad day at work, but decided that I would NOT bring papers home tonight.  No time anyway, as the lovely F. invited me over for a girls' night in at her house.  Charly went ice skating with Guides as a final celebratory outing.  The Strong Silent One has been stuck at home with the 'flu and it appears to be catching.  We are nearing the end of the school year and every-one is exhausted.  I can't wait for 2011 to start afresh. 

Image: Possum Magic

Tribal habits

On An Unsociable Family
~ Elizabeth Hands

O what a strange parcel of creatures are we,

Scarce ever to quarrel, or even agree;

We all are alone, though at home altogether,

Except to the fire constrained by the weather;

Then one says, ‘’Tis cold’, which we all of us know,

And with unanimity answer, ‘’Tis so’:

With shrugs and with shivers all look at the fire,

And shuffle ourselves and our chairs a bit nigher;

Then quickly, preceded by silence profound,

A yawn epidemical catches around:

Like social companions we never fall out,

Nor ever care what one another’s about;

To comfort each other is never our plan,

For to please ourselves, truly, is more than we can.

Though little is known about the life of Romantic poet Elizabeth Hands, it is believed that she worked as a domestic servant near Coventry, England, and married a blacksmith in 1785. Together they had at least one child, a daughter. Publishing her poems under the pseudonym Daphne, Hands drew the attention of Thomas James, the headmaster at Rugby School. The school’s press published her collection of poetry, The Death of Amnon: A Poem with an Appendix: Containing Pastorals, and Other Poetical Pieces (1789). The volume reached more than a thousand subscribers, including Anna Seward and Edmund Burke. Her poetry, often quietly satiric, also favors plain speech and themes of domesticity and literary tradition.

Doesn't she sound delightful?  A blogger if ever there had been one in the 18th century.  That poem pretty much sums us up as well.  We often mooch about doing our own thing, then sub-groups form, focus intently on an activity for a while, and disperse.  It's also interesting having a middle boy between two girls.  It leads to charming gender-less games, like building stage sets of lego for miniature role play, and a genuine respect for differences. It is just accepted that Ro-Ro will find sticks at the park and wave them about like swords while the girls collect flowers or rocks.  He will get muddy knees scavenging for cicada shells which they will arrange decoratively on a bed of grass bordered with eucalypt leaves.  My little hunter and gatherers. An urban tribe with its own distinctive rituals and rhythms and a little unsociable too.

Quote: National Endowment for the Arts and the Poetry Foundation.

In an old house in Forrest

In an old house in Paris that was covered with vines lived twelve little girls in two straight lines. In two straight lines they broke their bread and brushed their teeth and went to bed.

They smiled at the good and frowned at the bad and sometimes they were very sad. They left the house at half past nine in two straight lines in rain or shine — the smallest one was Madeline.

In another old house that stood next door, lived Pepito, the son of the Spanish Ambassador. An Ambassador doesn't have to pay rent, But he has to move to wherever he's sent.

One day the Spanish Ambassador, moved into the house next door. "Look, my darlings, what bliss, what joy! His Excellency has a boy."

 

"And that's all there is -- there isn't any more."

Source: Ludwig Bemelmans (1898 – 1962), German American author, an internationally known gourmet and also a writer and illustrator of children's books. He is most noted today for the series of Madeline books.  Bemelmans published six Madeline stories in his lifetime, and a seventh was discovered and published posthumously.  They are:

1. Madeline, 1939: Madeline gets her appendix out.

2. Madeline's Rescue, 1953: Madeline gets rescued by a dog (later on named Genevieve). Winner of the Caldecott Medal for 1954.

3. Madeline and the Bad Hat, 1956: The "bad hat" Pepito, is the Spanish ambassador's son.

4. Madeline and the Gypsies, 1959: Madeline and Pepito have an adventure at a gypsy circus.

5. Madeline in London, 1961: Pepito moves to London, and Madeline and the girls go to visit him.

6. Madeline's Christmas, 1985: Everyone in the house has a cold, except Madeline. (First published in McCall's in 1956).

7. Madeline in America and Other Holiday Tales, 1999: Madeline inherits a fortune from her rich American great-grandfather. The book also reveals Madeline's surname, which is Fogg, as in Madeline Fogg.

Photos by me.  The suburb of Forrest in the the embassy belt of Canberra, Australia's national capital.

{this moment}

{this moment} - A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember. SouleMama

Image:  Rite of passage: graduation from Junior Guides to Guides.  Three Christmas 'parcels' being prepared to deliver to their new Guide leader.

Grace under pressure

An “If” for Girls

~ Elizabeth Lincoln Otis

(With apologies to Mr. Rudyard Kipling)

If you can dress to make yourself attractive,

Yet not make puffs and curls your chief delight;

If you can swim and row, be strong and active,

But of the gentler graces lose not sight;

If you can dance without a craze for dancing,

Play without giving play too strong a hold,

Enjoy the love of friends without romancing,

Care for the weak, the friendless and the old;

If you can master French and Greek and Latin,

And not acquire, as well, a priggish mien,

If you can feel the touch of silk and satin

Without despising calico and jean;

If you can ply a saw and use a hammer,

Can do a man’s work when the need occurs,

Can sing when asked, without excuse or stammer,

Can rise above unfriendly snubs and slurs;

If you can make good bread as well as fudges,

Can sew with skill and have an eye for dust,

If you can be a friend and hold no grudges,

A girl whom all will love because they must;

If sometime you should meet and love another

And make a home with faith and peace enshrined,

And you its soul—a loyal wife and mother—

You’ll work out pretty nearly to my mind

The plan that’s been developed through the ages,

And win the best that life can have in store,

You’ll be, my girl, the model for the sages—

A woman whom the world will bow before.

Source: Father: An Anthology of Verse (EP Dutton & Company, 1931)

Swimming day!  The weekend is upon us.  Hurrah, hurrah. It's been one of those weeks.  I found myself quoting Rudyard Kipling  in my head -- "If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs ..." and the design bloggers mantra "Keep Calm and Carry On".   Nothing like being thrown completely out of your comfort zone to test your resilience and leadership ability.  There have also been many reminders this week of the value of staying quiet and dignified under pressure .  Valuable lessons for me and my girls.  I think I shall take another therapeutic stroll tomorrow.