Inside my shell, I dream of pearls, Caterpillars, snails with whorls. I dream contented, all enwrapped With reverie and dream, I’m lapped. The inner seas will comfort me, While gods allow my eyes to see
Oh, sweeter than confectionery Is my worn old dictionary. The words whirl round and fall to shape The sentences, which my world drape. This furnishing is rich and strange Yet magically self-arranged.
Oh, sweeter than the love of man Is reading works of poets long gone; And feeling deeply their dark tides, Upon which our boats may glide. The sea infinite we float on Is the same warm sea that ancients swam.
Sweeter still is this spring air And the blossom spreading fair. We’ll drown ourselves in deep green fields To the gods of poetry yield. We’ll rise again and spring up tall To grow more rich until we fall.
Sweet it is to live and die And to write my poetry Touch me with your ardent souls My mind and yours shall all be whole
the volume were composed in Stuart England but published after the onset of the English Civil War. Furthermore, Milton may have begun to compose one or more of his mature works—Paradise Lost, Paradise Regained, and Samson Agonistes—in the 1640s, but they were completed and revised much later and not published until after the Restoration.
This literary genius whose fame and influence are second to none, and on whose life and works more commentary is written than on any author except Shakespeare, was born at 6:30 in the morning on 9 December 1608. His parents were John Milton , Sr., and Sara Jeffrey Milton , and the place of birth was the family home, marked with the sign of the spread eagle, on Bread Street, London. Three days later, at the parish church of All Hallows, also on Bread Street, he was baptized into the Protestant faith of the Church of England. Other children of John and Sara who survived infancy included Anne, their oldest child, and Christopher, seven years younger than John. At least three others died shortly after birth, in infancy or in early childhood. Edward Phillips, Anne’s son by her first husband, was tutored by Milton and later wrote a biography of his renowned uncle, which was published in Milton’s Letters of State (1694). Christopher, in contrast to his older brother on all counts, became a Roman Catholic, a Royalist, and a lawyer.
Milton’s father was born in 1562 in Oxfordshire; his father, Richard, was a Catholic who decried the Reformation. When John Milton, Sr., expressed sympathy for what his father viewed as Protestant heresy, their disagreements resulted in the son’s disinheritance. He left home and traveled to London, where he became a scrivener and a professional composer responsible for more than twenty musical pieces. As a scrivener he performed services comparable to a present-day attorney’s assistant, law stationer, and notary. Among the documents that a scrivener executed were wills, leases, deeds, and marriage agreements. Through such endeavors and by his practice of money lending, the elder Milton accumulated a handsome estate, which enabled him to provide a splendid formal education for his son John and to maintain him during several years of private study. In “Ad Patrem” (To His Father), a Latin poem composed probably in 1637-1638, Milton celebrated his “revered father.” He compares his father’s talent at musical composition, harmonizing sounds to numbers and modulating the voices of singers, to his own dedication to the muses and to his developing artistry as a poet. The father’s “generosities” and “kindnesses” enabled the young man to study Greek, Latin, Hebrew, French, and Italian.”
Little is known of Sara Jeffrey, but in Pro Propulo Anglicano Defensio Secunda (The Second Defense of the People of England, 1654) Milton refers to the “esteem” in which his mother was held and to her reputation for almsgiving in their neighborhood. John Aubrey, in biographical notes made in 1681
My husband is naughty a very naughty man He throws down the newspaper on top of his beer can He buys himself a sandwich in a nasty cardboard box And puts trash in the laundry basket with his woollen socks.
He takes off his pyjamas and chucks them on the floor He uses hankies frequently, so I have to buy lots more. He wants to have thick sauces on top of all his food. And when he has a hypo his speech is very rude.
I gave him such a shock when I learned to curse and swear But we really need to, as “eff off “is everywhere. Why even in the Bible there are some wicked words I’ve not read it all yet, except Psalm’s I have heard
I mean to finish reading it and then when I must die, I’ll come onto a cloud and shout, Oh pi is in the sky. For transcendental numbers give a hint divine. Although you can get it better with a glass of dry, white wine.
My husband drinks draught Guinness and then he falls asleep He hollers and curses when the oven timer beeps. He eats a piece of kipper and cried out,Oh, dear God! Nobody caught this b*gger with a U.K. fishing rod
He wants to move to Whitby and walk upon the sands Sit in the audience and hear the big brass bands. He wants to see the sun rise and to see it set… So please send God some gelatine in case the air’s too wet!
What do I know about God and the purpose of life?
I know that this world exists.
That I am placed in it like my eye in its visual field.
That something about it is problematic, which we call its meaning.
This meaning does not lie in it but outside of it.
That life is the world.
That my will penetrates the world.
That my will is good or evil.
Therefore that good and evil are somehow connected with the meaning of the world. The meaning of life, i.e. the meaning of the world, we can call God.
And connect with this the comparison of God to a father. To pray is to think about the meaning of life.
Journal entry (11 June 1916), p. 72e and 73e
To believe in a God means to understand the question about the meaning of life.
To believe in a God means to see that the facts of the world are not the end of the matter.
To believe in God means to see that life has a meaning.
What do I know about God and the purpose of life?
I know that this world exists.
That I am placed in it like my eye in its visual field.
That something about it is problematic, which we call its meaning.
This meaning does not lie in it but outside of it.
That life is the world.
That my will penetrates the world.
That my will is good or evil.
Therefore that good and evil are somehow connected with the meaning of the world. The meaning of life, i.e. the meaning of the world, we can call God.
And connect with this the comparison of God to a father. To pray is to think about the meaning of life.
Journal entry (11 June 1916), p. 72e and 73e
To believe in a God means to understand the question about the meaning of life.
To believe in a God means to see that the facts of the world are not the end of the matter.
To believe in God means to see that life has a meaning.
I learned a hymn in our old chapel
I realized then God ate that apple
Eve took the guilt and asked no, Whys.
Since then all women need to cty
Yet we went to church and we all sang.
The organ played and the big bells rang.
But we never heard the answer then
till a strange loud voice called out,”Ah! Men!”
I’m not sure if we were made to sing.
Yet, what but joy can we each bring?
The psalms will comfort us at night.
And in the dawn we see the Light.
Then we rise up and our songs float out.
The cats miaow as they run about.
The dogs join in to bark and growl.
And from the sky we hear God howl!
Mary had been reading a new book called,” The Path” by Michael Puett and Christine Gross-Loh.To her surprise, she saw it reviewed on her phone where she read the guardian news
.She had decided to get out of bed on the other side
When she awoke the next day, she remembered her vow.Unfortunately, she forgot she was inside a fleece sleeping bag with a zip on one side only.Should she get some scissors and cut her way out on the other side?Or was that a foolish idea since nobody but she would know she had failed her to keep her first new promise.
She heard a noise and them her friend Annie came in wearing a long satin nightgown and a green velvet trench coat.
How do you like this, she asked Mary?
Mary was very red yet silent
What is wrong, with you Mary?
I need to pee but I can’t get out of bed on the wrong side.
You have no choice, said Annie.You must not wet the bed or die from a burst bladder. Get out on the right side
But I feel a failure on my first day.
Maybe that is your lesson.Accept you can’t do it and get on with your day.
Mary ran to the bathroom.What a relief passing water can be to poor ladies who suffer afflictions in these regions.
Annie went down to the bijou yet complex kitchen and began to make some toast and boil some eggs.She gazed at the peach walls and melon cupboard doors unable to decide if she liked them.Maybe kingfisher blue might have been better.Too late now.Mary could not afford a new kitchen even if this one was really old.At least it was not orange as was common in the 70’s.
Mary came in with her golden hair standing up on end like candlesticks from the Synagogue.
I just got a shock, she said
I can see your hair is standing on end.Was it the electric socket?
No, there was a man looking into the window and I was naked in the bath.
Perhaps it was King David, Annie joked.Why don’t you have frosted glass?
Stan said it would frost itself in the winter.He was the least practical man in the world.
Maybe we could glue artificial frost onto it?
Who was the man, asked Annie her cheeks pinker than her perky pink lipstick by Licumb ; those lips which were so thick and sensual with a lovely curve.
Mary tore her eyes away from these lips.I didn’t have my glasses on, she said.Maybe it was a man from a hot air balloon?
Maybe someone fancies you at last,saidAnnie.
Do you think I’d go out with a man who does things like that?
No, you could stay in with him, Annie joked, as tears of mirth made her green eyeshadow and red mascara stream down her cheeks like rain after a nuclear explosion.No wonder men ran after her in the street.
You could succumb to his charms,Annie whispered.
I think I’d like a man more sensitive than that, Mary screeched.
Well, Mary, you are so lacking in knowledge the art of flirting you only notice men when they do something really wild or unusual
Like what, asked Emile who had just munched up a bowl of dried cat food and was full of energy.
Well, Stan kept pretending he loved reading Newton’s original writings which he bought from some unusual website thinking it would impress Mary. However as he failed O leve; maths 5 times he could not understand it.He sobbed and cried in the public library and Mary was moved by his grief.Later on, though, he became angry at her intellectual talent and took me as his mistress to get back at her.She never even noticed!
I don’t see how having a mistress is a revenge on poor woman who was given her genes by God, said Emile.
Don’t be daft, she buys her jeans from TK Maxx, Annie answered.
And so do all of us.
Western Cork’s relaxed in winter sun
Unexpected pleasure, though desired
Uncork that wine and let’s enjoy some puns.
No-one thinks the Irish need their fun
We may need to have our brains rewired
Western Cork’s pole-axed by winter sun
Now everyone has reason to be glum
Sunny days yet evenings dark as mires
Uncork the wine and let’s thwack our own bums
We like drinking when we’re feeling glum
Spare not the whiskey, hail oh Lanarkshire!
Western folk write cheques in winter sun
When I get undressed, my lover’s stunned.
My generous body shocks his dark green eyes
Uncork the wine and squeeze me, juicy plum
I have no kernel , nut, nor night attire
I studied numbers infinite in desire.
Western Cork can prove dull in mid-June
Uncork the wine and let it make us dumb.
Don’t you know anybody else? do you actually want to spend Christmas in a stable?
I thought it seemed more Christmas like to be with the humble and the poor. I will buy the food of course but she will cook it. I don’t know if she’s got an oven but we can always have something like hamburgers on garlic bread with a side salad for one or two only one pound fifty in John Lewis . To be honest I prefer Weetabix to Turkey and I prefer the humble to the rich.
Make a Weetabix stuffing then. Just some sausage meat parsley and some mashed up Weetabix stick it in the turkey and Bob’s your uncle. Don’t you have to cook the turkey then?
Not if you’re an eagle.
Do people eat eagles in other countries?
Well I’ve never heard of it yet but I suppose if there’s nothing else then they will try but the eagle may eat them or at least kill them and then we have the vultures coming.
I thought we were talking about Christmas
Well it’s a bit like psychoanalysis you start talking about whatever is in your mind and you don’t know where you’re going to end up.
What would a psychoanalysts think of me talking about eagles?
It’s impossible to say unless they’ve got to know you very very well and they realize that eagle represents your starving child self driven mad by rage.
I think that’s unfair on eagles actually.
Well they don’t know, do they?
But it might get back to them. Then what would happen if you live in your London suburb?
I don’t think there are eagles in the Chilterns
But what about Whipsnade Zoo though?
I know they’ve got tigers but I doubt very much that they have eagles in there
It makes you realise though doesn’t it how wrong it is to have a zoo
Donald Trump likes eagle soup so they tell me m
What rubbish you’re thinking about mock turtle soup
Do you love eagles?
I don’t know any but I know Terry Eagleton.
He believes it was a mistake to publish iris murdoch’s poetry that was found in the attic of her house in Oxford
Once you’re dead you have no control but why didn’t she destroy it? I suppose she didn’t know it was going to get dementia and when she had that then she wouldn’t have been able to do anything sensible like destroying her poetry
Now there’s a thought at least she didn’t publish hers on the internet
I don’t think she had a computer it would have been anathema to her. She would want to feel the pen moving on the paper and that would connect to some part of her brain
Will Terry Eagleton change his mind or will Rose Mather win the booker prize!?
I have never heard of her before
Neither have I
You must have heard of her or why would you have said her name?
Frontiers in Neurology reported that the expression of science through poetry could enrich and better kids’ understanding of science education, in schools. According to the research, it encouraged use of their imagination to deconstruct and reconstruct their learned knowledge. Critiquing and analysing thus could facilitate learning.
Emily Dodd, aficionado and writer of scientific poetry and screenwriter for CBeebies science programs tells me: “There’s something to be said for communicating science creatively and seeing how much knowledge is retained or if people are interested enough to look for more information afterwards.” What she wants to know is why we lose that desire to understand and how we can bring back that desire and the joy that comes with discovery.
This very tendency to reduce things to their minute components is science’s premise and so it is sometimes criticised for losing sight of the wholeness and larger human meaning. John Keats, who trained as a surgeon and apothecary before committing himself to poetry, famously said:
“There was an awful rainbow once in heaven:
We know her woof, her texture; she is given
In the dull catalogue of common things.”
This roughly translates as science ruins the beauty of things by dissecting it into its components. It’s worth noting, though, that Keats was a part of the Romantic era wherein poets were confronted by the Industrial Revolution and the idea that science and technology would pave the way for the future was for them, terrifying.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe is perhaps the biggest exception to the norm. A German, and born in 1749, he was a writer and a scientist but he always regarded his contribution to the science of colour far greater than any literature he wrote. His work includes poetry written in a variety of metres and styles, prose and verse dramas; memoirs, an autobiography, literary criticism, papers on botany, anatomy, and colour and four novels.
One of his biggest passions was the study of clouds and in an act of pronounced love and respect between a poet and scientist, he wrote a poem about each of the different classifications of clouds (nimbus, cirrus, cumulus and stratus) and an ode to the scientist who devised them, Luke Howard, as a declaration of his admiration for Howard’s scientific skills.
“To find yourself in the infinite,
You must distinguish and then combine;
Therefore my winged song thanks
The man who distinguished cloud from cloud.”
Stan was leaning over, cleaning the new bath.When the doorbell rang,he rushed downstairs and opened the double front door. “Will you take this parcel in for the lady next door?” The postman asked wearily. “Oh,fine Stan stuttered.He was trying to avoid Annie but here she was,coming down the road of superior semi detached houses suitable for ex-headmasters ,small businessmen,econometricians,surgeons,pie salesmen and theologians. She was wearing perfume, and green sandals from TK Maxx,light khaki tencel cropped combat trousers with a purple silky over-blouse, not to mention her matching raspberry and cream underwear .Round her neck hung a miniature grandfather clock on a solid gold chain,and she had three imitation gold and silver watches on each of her three wrists making a total of 333 watches according to Carnap’s theory of logic and Russell’s terrible handwriting. Stanley didn’t know that she had a mobile phone stuffed into her bra—one advantage for the larger sized woman.In fact she had 4 down there in her raspberry coloured glamour bra,as she had a phobia about their batteries running down all at once The more she had the lower the probability of her being without a phone whilst out and about the town and countryside.So she reasoned in her womanly way. Just then one phone rang.She rummaged around to the consternation and turmoil-uation of Stanley and the postman.She plucked out a pale blue phone. “Hi,it’s Annie” she murmured. “Hi Annie it’s Dave the paramedic with carpentry skills. You’ve not rung 999 lately so we were wondering if all was well!” “Oh,I’m terribly sorry.I’ll try to phone later on.Thanks,Petal.That was Dave,our ex-transvestite converted paramedic”,she informed the men.The postman galloped off on his donkey, his bags full of undelivered males.It’s a tough but interesting life in Knittingham. Would you like a male delivery?Contact Parcel Force without delay. Annie went into Stan’s house and demanded a cup of coffee. “Won’t it make you put weight on” Stan quipped ironically. “Do you think I’m too plump?” she responded anxiously.. “Too plump for what?” he quipped amiably. “To attract men,of course!” “No,my angel,you are just perfect”he quacked definitively.”Nor are you an angel,strictly speaking,as I have good reason to know.Thank you,my beloved for services rendered so generously and freely.” “Oh,my goodness I must get home to render the fat from the beef and to make some gooseberry jam.” Stanley looked uneasy. “I wonder why babies are left under gooseberry bushes? The thorns are so big it’s quite dangerous getting them out,or so Mary told me when Lyra was born. She was covered in scratches and wouldn’t come near me for months.” “Why don’t you come upstairs to look at our new purple bathroom suite.Since the Royal Wedding it’s the in colour.The gold taps were expensive but they do go well.” “My God,let me out.” she bawled,”It reminds me of the Vatican and that’s no place for a lady”, “Not even a gay lady?” Stan muttered parsimoniously, as he licked her eyelashes gently. “Stop that.I’ve got my Yves St Laurent mascara on.” “I prefer the taste of the Chanel,”he disclosed privately in an internal secret memo.[available in 50 years] “Why not lick my neck instead?” she enquired curiously as she tripped over Emile the cat, who had slipped into the bathroom as usual to see what they were up to,you know what I mean, you catch my drift? She fell floppily into the bath and banged her head on the taps. “Oh,gosh,better ring 999” Stan said to Emile. “Have you got your catphone warehouse mobile on you?” “Yes ,it’s in my y-fronts”, the cat amiably miaowed. “Hi Dave,this is Emile.Can you come quick.Annie is unconscious and what is worse,she has scratched the new bath.” In fact it was Emile who had scratched the bath that morning but since Stan had not noticed he hoped to, callously, pass the blame onto poor Annie.How cruel can a cat be? Ask any mouse! Still in the end God made all of us and what a terrifying and beautiful world it is.
The postman was very late coming that morning. Stan was asleep in his armchair whilst Annie was analysing some data on the political alignments of the over fifties group in Knittingham.Mary was upstairs daydreaming. Hi. Mary…Annie called.There’s a letter for you from the hospital. Mary came down, her face a little pale with anxiety.She opened it slowly.Inside it had the following announcement Your appointment on 5th October at 8 am with Dr Paramour has been cancelled.. We can offer you he following appointment: 5th October 2014 at 7.59am in the usual clinic This will be with Dr Paramour unless he goes on holiday again.He will remove your tumour and your humour 📷 Stan read the letter. Why have they sent this? he asked bemusedly as he blinked with his kind blue eyes. Mary phoned the hospital.She spoke to a charming young man. What does it mean? she enquired.Why give such a silly letter out. It means nothing,the man said,It’s the computer. Computers follow programmes.We’ve had this type of stupid letter many times in the last 6 months….it’s using paper and postage apart from the worry.Why can’t someone alter the programme? I don’t know,the pleasant man replied.I think nobody understands it. Don’t they realise that keeping patients calm and trusting is part of the healing process? No,they don’t he answered despondently. We have to answer the phone all day long.So we can hear how upset some people are. Stan called out,it’s in the government too.They wasted millions on a new system which was scrapped before it was ever used… Where are all the intelligent people? That’s what I have been wondering,thought Emile as he hid behind Annie’s new green handbag hoping a field mouse might come by I am sure if I planned the the computer programmes I could fix this,said Mary.But I will never be given a job now.I don’t think I’d want it now with my eyesight. Well,Mary,you are still very beautiful,said Stan.I think I want to go to bed with you. Stan, how can you say it in front of Annie? Well,she can come as well if she likes,he replied tactfully. And what about Emile? Oh, alright then.We’ll all go to bed even he … we need a life changing experience.And I do not mean another daft letter from that blooming hospital,The Royal Wee. We could paper the walls with them. I would not enjoy seeing the walls like that,said Annie. I am just making a point… that they waste so much money…. and time answering the phone to correct their errors………. it’s like Alice in Sunderland. I never knew she was a Geordy, mioawed Emile… I just like to think of her that way,answered Stan. Anyway,upstairs and off with your clothes… we must make love before we die even if it kills us or we have to go to A and E with angina,migraine,a broken rib or other unmentionable discomforts. And being obedient they all want upstairs,got undressed and fell asleep side by side in Stan’s large soft bed… except for Emile. I thought they were going to have a love in,he thought.Perhaps when they waken up,who knows? Maybe the NHS are trying to make people mad so they will pay for private treatment…. Mary was dreaming she was back at Lamebridge teaching real analysis to a group of frightened first year students…what a pity they are so nervous,she thought.They’d do better working in a garden centre or a zoo. And so would all of us
The world that we live in is a very different one from the tiny world of the su doku puzzle.
But there are certain things they have in common.
It seems that everything within the puzzle is connected to everything else so if you’re trying to fill in all the number ones and you can’t do it it doesn’t matter which other number you choose to follow instead because they’re all very closely linked indeed you could say they are chained together.
So wherever you start from or wherever you go on the way you will get to the same place in the end.
Human life may be looked at this way although it may be metaphorical rather than literal
Everything is connected and if you are having a difficult time dealing with a problem in your life which seems insoluble then you could follow this idea and try to deal with a different problem in your life instead. This will take your mind off the problem that you are stuck with and give your brain a rest. You may find afterwards that you can see the way to go forward with the first problem.
Also I imagine that if you do something bad unless you can resolve that in any way that’s possible that may very well affect you in other parts of your life.
I’m not sure if that’s what people call karma but I do think there is a connection.
What you give Life to will help you and what you destroy may ultimately destroy you.
It’s worth thinking about because otherwise these puzzles are rather sterile. I like to look at them from a different perspective a wider perspective or to use them as a way of dealing with more difficult problems
After all there are no straight lines in nature but in geometry there are straight lines and triangles squares and parallelograms that’s because it’s too difficult to deal with curves as they are straight away
So we look at something simpler than curves known as straight lines which don’t actually exist in reality. They’re a great help in geometry and also in architecture and mechanics and all parts of physics
It’s not surprising that we have to invent ways of simplifying the world before we can understand it or deal with it because it’s very very complicated.
So we pretend it’s simpler than it really is.
I have not yet talked about how this could relate to politics
Wrapped in your smile,I saw the golden light By a chance, that time God’s love revealed Our spirits touched, our sorrows sent to flight
In that space, our worries did not bite The trees were shelter, losses were each healed Wrapped in your holy smile,I saw the light
Do you learn there is a second sight From heart and soul , the ancient bells shall peal Where spirits touch ,where sorrows quickly fly
And who but you would see my inner plight Would know the false from what is right and real Wrapped in your smile,I felt warm golden light
No army with its metal and its might Can win the final war , love conquers steel As spirits touch ,as sorrows say goodbye
We learn it’s hard to feel what others feel And not draw back from grief, from loss revealed Wrapped in your holy smile ,O golden light Our spirits touch, our eyes weep their delight
How my heart sings 