Far away in the Future...

Far away in the future
Far away in the past
Something to come in the silence
Something to come at the last.

In the Regions of Darkness
West of the western moon
To the utter east of the rising sun
Past all earthly doom

Ages away from the farthest star
Behind the galaxies
Over the edge of the Universe
Under the Seventh Sea

Where the Silver River runs
Through years of forgotten Time
Where the sun-ships sail to the Shining Shore
Above the Death Mines

In the darkest depths of the Temple of Ash
Where the fallen suns are kept
Whose walls are washed with the crystal tears
That the Maid of the Star fields wept.

A glimpse of an infinite vision
A glimpse and nothing more
But the passing shadow gives away
What no one ever had before.

Far away in the future
Far away in the past
Something to come in the silence
Something to come at the last.

Idylls of the King

I have been reading Tennyson's Idylls of the King lately, and I really enjoy them. For those of you who haven't heard about this book, it is really the Mort de Arthur put into poetry. Tennyson took Mallory's book and edited it and changed it into a poem. I just finished an edited version of Mort de Arthur in Bulfinch's Age of Chivalry, and I liked it too, but I think Tennyson's is better! (Howard Pyle's slightly modernized version is also really good.) Anyway, here is one of my favorite verses. Enid sings this shortly before she meets Geraint. (By the way, Enid and Geraint is one of my favorite stories.)

'Turn, Fortune, turn thy wheel and lower the proud,
Turn thy wild wheel, through sunshine, rain and cloud
Thy wheel and thee we neither love nor hate.

Turn, Fortune, turn thy wheel with smile or frown,
With that wild wheel, we go not up or down,
Our hoard is little, but our hearts are great.

Smile, and we smile, the lords of many lands,
Frown, and we smile, the lords of our own hands
For man is man and master of his fate.

Turn, Fortune, turn thy wheel above the staring crowd,
Thy wheel and thou are shadows in the cloud,
Thy wheel and thee we neither love nor hate.'

Wise Words From Ronald Reagan

"No arsenal, or no weapon in the arsenals of the world, is so formidable as the will and moral courage of free men and women."