People say “I want peace.“
If you remove I (ego) and want (desire), you are left with peace. (Sathya Sai Baba, b1926)

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Whence comes solace? Not from seeing,
What is doing, suffering, being;
Not from noting Life’s conditions,
Not from heeding Time’s monitions;
But in cleaving to the Dream
And in gazing at the Gleam
Whereby grey things golden seem. (Thomas Hardy 1840-1928)

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The Skylark, by James Hogg, the Ettrick Shepherd (1770-1835)

Bird of the wilderness
Blithesome and cumberless,
Sweet be thy matin o’er moorland and lea!
Emblem of happiness,
Blest is thy dwelling place -
Oh, to abide in the desert with thee!

Wild is thy lay and loud,
Far in the downy cloud;
Love gives it energy, love gave it birth,
Where on thy dewy wing,
Where art thou journeying?
Thy lay is in heaven, thy love is on earth.

O’er fell and fountain sheen,
O’er moor and mountain green,
O’er the red streamer that heralds the day,
Over the cloudlet dim,
Over the rainbow’s rim,
Musical cherub, soar, singing away.

Then when the gloaming comes,
Low in the heather blooms
Sweet will thy welcome and bed of love be!
Emblem of happiness,
Blest is thy dwelling place -
Oh, to abide in the desert with thee!

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In this video the music is “On Wings of Song” by Felix Mendelssohn, not Franz Liszt. The name of the pianist is not given.



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Thanks to http://www.photoeverywhere.co.uk for the use of the above photograph

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The naked earth is warm with Spring,
And with green grass and bursting trees
Leans to the sun's kiss glorying,
And quivers in the sunny breeze. (Julian Grenfell 1888-1915)

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Mine be a cot beside the hill;
A bee-hive’s hum shall soothe my ear;
A willowy brook that turns a mill,
With many a fall shall linger near.

The swallow oft beneath my thatch
Shall twitter from her clay-built nest;
Oft shall the pilgrim lift the latch,
And share my meal, a welcome guest.

Around my ivied porch shall spring
Each fragrant flower that drinks the dew;
And Lucy at her wheel shall sing
In russet gown and apron blue.

The village church among the trees,
Where first our marriage vows were given,
With merry peals shall swell the breeze
And point with taper spire to Heaven. (Samuel Rogers 1763-1855)

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 The painting is the work of John McWhirter 1839-1911

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I come from haunts of coot and hern,
I make a sudden sally
And sparkle out among the fern,
To bicker down a valley.

By thirty hills I hurry down,
Or slip between the ridges,
By twenty thorpes, a little town,
And half a hundred bridges.

Till last by Philip's farm I flow
To join the brimming river,
For men may come and men may go,
But I go on for ever.

I chatter over stony ways,
In little sharps and trebles,
I bubble into eddying bays,
I babble on the pebbles.

With many a curve my banks I fret
By many a field and fallow,
And many a fairy foreland set
With willow-weed and mallow.

I chatter, chatter, as I flow
To join the brimming river,
For men may come and men may go,
But I go on for ever.

I wind about, and in and out,
With here a blossom sailing,
And here and there a lusty trout,
And here and there a grayling,

And here and there a foamy flake
Upon me, as I travel
With many a silvery waterbreak
Above the golden gravel,

And draw them all along, and flow
To join the brimming river
For men may come and men may go,
But I go on for ever.

I steal by lawns and grassy plots,
I slide by hazel covers;
I move the sweet forget-me-nots
That grow for happy lovers.

I slip, I slide, I gloom, I glance,
Among my skimming swallows;
I make the netted sunbeam dance
Against my sandy shallows.

I murmur under moon and stars
In brambly wildernesses;
I linger by my shingly bars;
I loiter round my cresses;

And out again I curve and flow
To join the brimming river,
For men may come and men may go,
But I go on for ever. (Alfred Lord Tennyson  1809-1892)

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Traumerei (Dreaming) by Robert Schumann. The pianist is Yundi Li.



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