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.”

"The Garden" by Rush

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Recently while standing at a graveside, this song came to mind and I can't help but share it here.


"Long ago I read a story from another timeline about a character named Candide [written in 1759]. He also survived a harrowing series of misadventures and tragedies, then settled on a farm near Constantinople. Listening to a philosophical rant, Candide replied, 'That is all very well, but now we must tend our garden.' I have now arrived at that point in my own story. There is a metaphorical garden in the acts and attitudes of a person's life, and the treasures of that garden are love and respect. I have come to realize that the gathering of love and respect - from others and for myself - has been the real quest of my life. 'Now we must tend our garden.'" 

Neil Peart, from the album "Clockwork Angels" (2012).

Note: the lines in the song "the arrow flies" speaks of death's arrow that comes to every person. But just as the old saying goes, "just because death smiles on every man does not mean that a man cannot smile back." 

Make the most of the time you have because life is only a moment. 

"The future disappears into memory
With only a moment between
Forever dwells in that moment
Hope is what remains to be seen"

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