Stupid Stuff

I will be spending the next four days at the Fiber Arts Retreat that I run. I started it when I worked at the Duluth YMCA and when I left there, I took the retreat with me. It was run by the camping office for one retreat and the service and p.r were so bad that I decided I couldn't leave it up to anyone else because they might not care as much as I do.

I must admit that about a week or so after each retreat I swear I won't do it anymore simply because it wears me out. I love being there and I love the people that come but there is usually one point at every retreat when someone asks me a question (because I am allegedly in charge and should know the answer) and all I want to do is shout "LEAVE ME ALONE, I WANT TO KNIT TOO!!!" And then I get over my damn self and we all go on and have a great time. I just come home after the retreat on a Sunday and feel like I have been hit by a truck, or perhaps a herd of sheep.

Our September retreat has been on my birthday weekend for at least three years now. I think we will have to have it on a different weekend next year because there are some truely kick ass things going on in Duluth on this weekend. I want to go to the Lester River Rendevous or the Hawk count at Hawk's Ridge, sigh, maybe next year.

So, here is one of my favorite poems to enjoy in my absence. Whenever I am in a position to impress someone with the fact that I can reel off long poems by memory at the drop of the hat, I resort to this one... Pretty friendship 'tis to rhyme your friends to death before their time...

And here I thought that literature minor would NEVER pay off!

'Terence, this is stupid stuff'

"Terence, this is stupid stuff:
You eat your victuals fast enough;
There can't be much amiss, 'tis clear,
To see the rate you drink your beer.
But oh, good Lord, the verse you make,
It gives a chap the belly-ache.
The cow, the old cow, she is dead;
It sleeps well, the horned head:
We poor lads, 'tis our turn now
To hear such tunes as killed the cow.
Pretty friendship 'tis to rhyme
Your friends to death before their time
Moping melancholy mad:
Come, pipe a tune to dance to, lad."

Why, if 'tis dancing you would be
There's brisker pipes than poetry.
Say, for what were hop-yards meant,
Or why was Burton built on Trent?
Oh, many a peer of England brews
Livelier liquor than the Muse,
And malt does more than Milton can
To justify God's ways to man.
Ale, man, ale's the stuff to drink
For fellows whom it hurts to think:
Look into the pewter pot
To see the world as the world's not.
And faith, 'tis pleasant till 'tis past:
The mischief is that 'twill not last.
Oh I have been to Ludlow fair
And left my necktie god knows where,
And carried half-way home, or near,
Pints and quarts of Ludlow beer:
Then the world seemed none so bad,
And I myself a sterling lad;
And down in lovely muck I've lain,
Happy till I woke again.
Then I saw the morning sky:
Heigho, the tale was all a lie;
The world, it was the old world yet,
I was I, my things were wet,
And nothing now remained to do
But begin the game anew.

Therefore, since the world has still
Much good, but much less good than ill,
And while the sun and moon endure
Luck's a chance, but trouble's sure,
I'd face it as a wise man would,
And train for ill and not for good.
'Tis true, the stuff I bring for sale
Is not so brisk a brew as ale:
Out of a stem that scored the hand
I wrung it in a weary land.
But take it: if the smack is sour,
The better for the embittered hour;
It should do good to heart and head
When your soul is in my soul's stead;
And I will friend you, if I may,
In the dark and cloudy day.

There was a king reigned in the East:
There, when kings will sit to feast,
They get their fill before they think
With poisoned meat and poisoned drink.
He gathered all that springs to birth
From the many-venomed earth;
First a little, thence to more,
He sampled all her killing store;
And easy, smiling, seasoned sound,
Sate the king when healths went round.
They put arsenic in his meat
And stared aghast to watch him eat;
They poured strychnine in his cup
And shook to see him drink it up:
They shook, they stared as white's their shirt:
Them it was their poison hurt
- I tell the tale that I heard told.
Mithridates, he died old.

-- A. E. Housman