If you received an email (or two) purporting to come from me about an electronics firm, I apologise. Sometime between midday and 1.15pm today my Gmail account was hacked and hundreds of spam messages were sent out. Although I can access my email account still, the hack took my account up to its daily limit with the result I cannot send emails from Gmail (although I can still receive).
To say I'm mad as hell would be an understatement!
This week I bring you another poet named William, William Wordsworth, and part of his poem The Nightingale, a Conversational Poem:
The Nightingale, a Conversational Poem
No cloud, no relique of the sunken day
Distinguishes the West, no long thin slip
Of sullen Light, no obscure trembling hues.
Come, we will rest on this old mossy Bridge!
You see the glimmer of the stream beneath,
But hear no murmuring: it flows silently
O'er its soft bed of verdure. All is still,
A balmy night! and tho' the stars be dim,
Yet let us think upon the vernal showers
That gladden the green earth, and we shall find
A pleasure in the dimness of the stars.
And hark! the Nightingale begins its song,
"Most musical, most melancholy" [1] Bird!
A melancholy Bird? O idle thought!
In nature there is nothing melancholy.
--But some night-wandering Man, whose heart was pierc'd
With the remembrance of a grievous wrong,
Or slow distemper or neglected love,
(And so, poor Wretch! fill'd all things with himself
And made all gentle sounds tell back the tale
Of his own sorrows) he and such as he
First nam'd these notes a melancholy strain;
And many a poet echoes the conceit,
Poet, who hath been building up the rhyme
When he had better far have stretch'd his limbs
Beside a brook in mossy forest-dell
By sun or moonlight, to the influxes
Of shapes and sounds and shifting elements
Surrendering his whole spirit, of his song
And of his fame forgetful!
You can find the full poem here, and this week's Poetry Friday round-up is hosted by Kelly over at Big A, little a.
I don't know about anywhere else, but after a burst of unseasonable warmth last weekend (that saw me wearing t-shirt and shorts), it's been perishing cold here the last two mornings, so I thought I'd bring you an appropriate sonnet by Shakespeare:
126. Spring and Winter ii
When icicles hang by the wall,
And Dick the shepherd blows his nail,
And Tom bears logs into the hall,
And milk comes frozen home in pail,
When blood is nipp'd, and ways be foul,
Then nightly sings the staring owl,
To-whit!
To-who!—a merry note,
While greasy Joan doth keel the pot.
When all aloud the wind doe blow,
And coughing drowns the parson's saw,
And birds sit brooding in the snow,
And Marian's nose looks red and raw,
When roasted crabs hiss in the bowl,
Then nightly sings the staring owl,
To-whit!
To-who!—a merry note,
While greasy Joan doth keel the pot.
This week's Poetry Friday round-up will be over at Becky's Book Reviews.
Apologies to anyone who cares for being MiA the last couple of Fridays for Poetry Friday. I was seriously stressing out about having to move next week.
Except now I don't.
Long story short - my (now ex-)boss at my proofing job kept messing up my wages in the summer and I got seriously behind on my rent because I literally didn't have the funds to pay it (it took 2 months to get the mistakes straightened out!). So about 2 months ago I got a letter from the letting agents to say the landlord wasn't going to renew my lease. I spent weeks trawling room-for-rent ads and trudging to look at places, and then yesterday I got a personal visit from one of the guys at the letting agency to ask if I'd found somewhere new to live. Well I hadn't because finding the money for a deposit (average £350) and a month's rent in advance (another £350) was proving impossible. Anyway he said he'd talk to the landlord and see if he'd agree to me staying here after all. I surmised that the agents hadn't been able to find anyone else prepared to live in this tiny, awkwardly shaped attic room, 'cos the landlord agreed to me staying on after all.
Cue me wilting like a 3 day old lettuce!
I really didn't want the hassle of moving, and while this room's not much, it has been my home for the past 6.5 years!
So that's that - and I'll be back with PF on Friday as usual.
