Margaret’s Song

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  There was a king in Thule,  True even to the grave;  To whom his dying mistress  A golden beaker gave.  At every feast he drained it,  Naught was to him so dear,  And often as he drained it,  Gush’d from his eyes the tear.  When death came, unrepining  His cities o’er he told;  All to his heir resigning,  Except his cup of gold.  With many a knightly vassal  At a royal feast sat he,  In yon proud hall ancestral,  In his castle o’er the sea.  Up stood the jovial monarch,  And quaff’d his last life’s glow,  Then hurled the hallow’d goblet  Into the flood below.  He saw it splashing, drinking,  And plunging in the sea;  His eyes meanwhile were sinking,  And never again drank he. “Margaret’s Song” by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) in “Faust. Part I.”

Randoms

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Digging Graves is Hard Work!  “Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. … If we ever forget that we’re one nation under God, then we will be a nation gone under.”

HMS Bounty sinks during Sandy. The Captain has yet to be found. Rescued sailor (and USC student) Claudine Christian dies. Brave young soul.

Gena Norris is much tougher than Chuck (he said so, so it must be true!) and she is fighting!

Music, borrowed from the birds.

Boeing offers an "optionally piloted vehicle."

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