My Virtual Reading Room

(An old favorite; cross-posting to greatpoetry )

The Puritan's Ballad

My love came up from Barnegat,
The sea was in his eyes;
He trod as softly as a cat
And told me terrible lies.

His hair was yellow as new-cut pine
In shavings curled and feathered;
I thought how silver it would shine
By cruel winters weathered.
( But he was in his twentieth year, / This time I'm speaking of... )

Butterflies at a wedding

Whales rocking a boat

It’s never too late to keep bees, build a sailboat or become an artist

(all from The Washington Post)

A message in a bottle that traveled 3,200 miles helped heal a Maryland boy’s grief

The message in a bottle that Irish couple Ciaran Marron and Rita Simmonds found in early January while vacationing in Donegal, Ireland. It was tossed in the waters of Ocean City in 2019 by a Maryland boy with the help of his friend, who died last year. (Rita Simmonds)

For years, bar patrons bought beers for Betty White hoping she’d come claim them. The funds are now going to animal charity.

Look who came to eat up the birdseed birds have spilled, a few days ago:


https://youtu.be/5-r1NpLHFbo

And earlier this autumn:


(the fish pond in North Beach)

https://youtu.be/b43gFFvctg0


(Waves in North Beach)

https://youtu.be/5EqiIp7i4GM

Steel Drum - Great Beach Music Video 1+ Hr. Album! 1080p

https://youtu.be/kMj8a6NnOlA

THE MERMAID

by Alfred Lord Tennyson.

Illustration by Warwick Goble.

I would be a mermaid fair;
I would sing to myself the whole of the day;
With a comb of pearl I would comb my hair;
And still as I comb'd I would sing and say,
'Who is it loves me? who loves not me?'

I would comb my hair till my ringlets would fall
Low adown, low adown,
From under my starry sea-bud crown
Low adown and around,

And I should look like a fountain of gold
Springing alone
With a shrill inner sound
Over the throne
In the midst of the hall;

Till that great sea-snake under the sea
From his coiled sleeps in the central deeps
Would slowly trail himself sevenfold
Round the hall where I sate, and look in at the gate

With his large calm eyes for the love of me.
And all the mermen under the sea
Would feel their immortality
Die in their hearts for the love of me.

(originally posted by Winifred Adams in the Poets Illustrated FB group)

(it's very cute and quite short)

More info here

Sandpiper

The roaring alongside he takes for granted,
and that every so often the world is bound to shake.
He runs, he runs to the south, finical, awkward,
in a state of controlled panic, a student of Blake.

The beach hisses like fat. On his left, a sheet
of interrupting water comes and goes
and glazes over his dark and brittle feet.
He runs, he runs straight through it, watching his toes.

- Watching, rather, the spaces of sand between them
where (no detail too small) the Atlantic drains
rapidly backwards and downwards. As he runs,
he stares at the dragging grains.

The world is a mist. And then the world is
minute and vast and clear. The tide
is higher or lower. He couldn't tell you which.
His beak is focussed; he is preoccupied,

looking for something, something, something.
Poor bird, he is obsessed!
The millions of grains are black, white, tan, and gray
mixed with quartz grains, rose and amethyst.

Elizabeth Bishop

In the first half of the early 1870s, Winslow Homer made a series of dinner-horn images. This painting, "The Dinner Horn (Blowing the Horn at Seaside)" is the first in that series.

The woman is described as "a farmer’s daughter and maid of all work, just from the kitchen . . . blowing the dinner horn" for the farm workers in the distant field. Breezy and fresh, "The Dinner Horn" captures a moment in time. Imagine you are standing in the space created by this work of art. Describe the look and feel of the sun.

Winslow Homer, "The Dinner Horn (Blowing the Horn at Seaside)," 1870, oil on canvas, National Gallery of Art, Washington, Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon

(from National Gallery of Art FB pg)

Alfred Stevens (1823 - 1906)
Un soir à la mer
oil on panel ; 64.7 by 45 cm
Private collection

(from Elina Bell's FB pg)

( Read more... )

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