The greatest thing you'll ever learn
Is to love and be loved in return.
(from the song “Nature Boy” by Eden Ahbez)

“Romeo and Juliet” by the English painter Frank Dicksee 1853-1928

-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come:
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved. (William Shakespeare -Sonnet 116)

-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-

Love is a many splendoured thing
It's the April rose
That only grows in the early spring
Love is nature's way of giving
A reason to be living
The golden crown that makes a man a king

Once on a high and windy hill
In the morning mist
Two lovers kissed
And the world stood still
Then your fingers touched
My silent heart and taught it how to sing
Yes, true love's
A many splendoured thing (Paul Francis Webster)

-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-

This video of the violinist Maxim Vengerov playing Liebesfreud (Love’s Joy) by Fritz Kreisler was made available by “Rojaviva” of Venezuela. The accompanist is Lilya Zilberstein.



-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-

 

Sunday 14th February was the Chinese New Year and that reminded me that some time ago I made a note of three Chinese poems which I particularly liked. They were written by Li Po (701-762) and here they are - his Mountain poems -

1)
All the birds have flown up and gone.
A lonely cloud floats leisurely by.
We never tire of looking at each other -
Just the mountain and I.

2)
You ask me why I dwell in the green mountain.
I smile and make no reply for my heart is free of care.
As the peach-blossom flows down stream
and is gone into the unknown,
I have a world apart that is not among men.

3)
As down Mount Emerald at eve I came,
The mountain moon went all the way with me.
Backward I looked to see the heights aflame
With a pale light that glimmered eerily.
A little lad undid the rustic latch
As hand in hand your cottage we did gain,
Where green limp tendrils at our cloaks did catch,
And dim bamboos o’erhung a shadowy lane.
Gaily I cried, “here may we rest our fill.”
Then choicest wines we quaffed, and cheerily
“The Wind among the Pines” we sang, until
A few faint stars hung in the Galaxy.
Merrily were you, my friend and drunk was I,
Blissfully letting the world go by.

-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-

Finally this slide show has some lovely Chinese pictures. I believe the music is South American in origin, but for me the tune goes very well with the images.




-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-

 

I went to the Garden of Love,
And saw what I never had seen;
A Chapel was built in the midst,
Where I used to play on the green.
And the gates of this Chapel were shut,
And “Thou shalt not” writ over the door;
So I turned to the Garden of Love
That so many sweet flowers bore.
And I saw it was filled with graves,
And tombstones where flowers should be;
And priests in black gowns were walking their rounds,
And binding with briars my joys and desires  (William Blake 1757-1827)

-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-

I find one vast garden spread out all over the universe.
All plants, all human beings, all higher mind bodies are about in this garden in various ways, each has its own uniqueness and beauty.
Their presence and variety give me great delight.
Every one of you adds with his special feature to the glory of the garden. (Sri Anandamayi Ma 1896-1827)

-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-

The music here performed by Secret Garden is “Nocturne”. This was the winning entry for Norway in the 1995 Eurovision Song Contest.


-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-