Enjoy A Song before Sunrise by Frederick Delius (1862-1934):
About this piece:
"A Song Before Sunrise" was composed in 1918 and is dedicated to Philip Heseltine [Peter Warlock]. It conveys, more psychologically than pictorially, the atmosphere of those hours before the sun finally hauls itself over the horizon, whilst the ending hints at the joys of the day to come.
What a calm, gentle-yet-stimulating way to start a new day!
ReplyDeleteThank you, AOW, for focusing on the music of Frederick Delius during this hectc, fractious, oftentimes depressing summer in American politics.
I've felt all my conscious life that the wonders found in classical music function as an antidote to the dreariness of banality, vulgarity and of human misery in general –– for those blest by God with ears to hear.
Franco,
DeleteI simply must have breaks from politics! Delius provides good respites.
YES! Good music and good poetry are akin to earnest prayer. I start each day with a a cup of Maxwell House combined with liberal doses of each –– before getting into the maelstrom of vitriol,mockery, idiocy and malevolence that tend to dominate the culture of Blogistan.
DeleteWhen very young I hated to get up and face the day. NOW, I cherish these quiet early morning hours, and regard them as the most valuable part of each day –– time to cpunt blessings, express gratiude for life's many blessings past and present, and to ask the Lord for strength and courage to face whatever ever may come in the future.
I’ll tell you how the Sun rose ––
ReplyDeleteA Ribbon at a time ––
The steeples swam in Amethyst
The news, like Squirrels, ran ––
The Hills untied their Bonnets ––
The Bobolinks –– begun ––
Then I said softly to myself ––
“That must have been the Sun”!
But how he set –– I know not ––
There seemed a purple stile
That little Yellow boys and girls
Were climbing all the while ––
Till when they reached the other side ––
A Dominie in Gray ––
Put gently up the evening Bars ––
And led the flock away ––
... Emily Dickinson (1830-1886)
At times, especially when she wrote of Nature, Miss Emily created in words something very similar to Frederick Delius's music.
Franco,
DeleteOne of my favorite Dickinson poems!
A bucolic moment here in Northern Virginia, an edge city: a buck with a huge rack and a doe were grazing in our back yard this morning. The morning fog in my little woods served as the backdrop.
ReplyDeleteWhat a lovely image! Astonishing that anything like that could occur in the Washington Metro –– especially within easy reach of the Beltway.
DeleteEven sixty to seventy years ago we never saw anything wilder than rabbits, squirrels and chipmunks in our back yards –– and the usual variety of birds, of course. And that was when northern New Jersey still had countless acress of fields and patches of woodland. Today it's covered with endless housing developments connected by roads paved with concrete or MacAdam.
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Delete__ A Stately Couple on the Lawn __
DeleteLooking out into the morning mist
I spied a stately couple on the lawn
His head was crowned impressively with antlers
As if to show he took pride in his brawn.
She stood there meek and gentle by his side
Both enjoying a rare moment of contentment
I prayed no noise or act would break the spell
Though knowing life gives tension no abatement.
They didn’t see me staring through the window
I stood still watching them in quiet rapture.
Then, as the mist began to lift, the light
Spoiled the scene I had so hoped to capture.
The sunshine and a robin’s cheery song
Told the pair ’twas time to move along.
… FreeThinke (9/8/18)
SORRY!
Delete"Sin in hate, repent at leisure."
A typo and a need for mild revision clled me back.
Another lovely selection AOW.. thanks for the respite...much needed this week for sure...
ReplyDeleteThe nearly total ack of interests in these splendid posts celebrating the finer things in life speaks very poorly for the mentality of most participants in the b,onshore. They seem to live only carp cavil, criticize, castigate and condemn –– almost never to CELEBRATE or lend SUPPORT to anything deemed worthy.
ReplyDeleteWhat a pity!
I never spoiled my album collection with what some hack in Rolling Stone magazine thought about it. Confirmation bias is for the weak.
DeleteFits the beautiful day we are having. I love dark, stormy days.
ReplyDeleteFits the mood of our day.
DeleteSunshine and a cold front finally rolled in.
_______ AFFIRMATION _______
ReplyDeleteHas life defeated you? I rather hope
Defeatist rhetoric will die aborning,
Though seen by many merely as a warning,
Each bitter word will serve to weave a rope
By which we’ll hang ourselves when the despair
We manufacture with denunciation
Of all the grievous faults that plague the nation
Convinces us our world’s beyond repair.
What good could we expect to come from that?
Affirmation is the only answer
To the questions posed by social cancer.
Get up and dance –– don’t bellow through your hat.
Although The Axe inevitably must fall,
Carping will produce no good at all.
~ FreeThinke
Photographic montage splendid. Music reasonably relaxing however a bit uninteresting.
ReplyDelete