The Wall

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“What a dear old wall that is that runs along by the river there! I never pass it without feeling better for the sight of it. Such a mellow, bright, sweet old wall; what a charming picture it would make, with the lichen creeping here, and the moss growing there, a shy young vine peeping over the top at this spot, to see what is going on upon the busy river, and the sober old ivy clustering a little farther down! There are fifty shades and tints and hues in every ten yards of that old wall. . . . It looks so peaceful and so quiet, and it is such a dear old place to ramble round in the early morning before many people are about.” Jerome K. Jerome, “Three Men In A Boat (To Say Nothing of the Dog)” Ch. 6 (1889)

Sunrise

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“Now Morn her rosy steps in th’Eastern Clime

Advancing, sow’d the Earth with Orient Pearl,

When Adam wak’t, so custom’d, for his sleep

Was Airy light, from pure digestion bred,

And temperate vapours bland, which th’only sound

Of leaves and fuming rills, Aurora’s fan,

Lightly dispers’d, and the shrill Matin Song

Of Birds on every bough . . .”

(From John Milton’s “Paradise Lost,” Book V. 1671 ed.)

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