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Online nowJohnshaven: Alison is a 60 year old married woman from Perthshire, Scotland, UK.; Likes 5,240 pages, 34 videos, 279 photos • 343 fans • Received 213 reviews; Member since Mar 20, 2007

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sylviacss profile - StumbleUpon: 9:54am 1 review stumblers •http://sylviacs.stumbleupon.com/revie...; Thanks to Sylvia for these!

StumbleUpon - Tamarlasss web site reviews and blog: 9:36am 25 reviews stumblers •http://tamarlass.stumbleupon.com/; Maid with Lemonade by Joseph Bail (French,1862-1921

Selected from the lovely pages of Tamarlass, with thanks

6:58am: SAINTS HAVE ADORED THE LOFTY SOUL OF YOU

Saints have adored the lofty soul of you.
Poets have whitened at your high renown.
We stand among the many millions who
Do hourly wait to pass your pathway down.
You, so familiar, once were strange: we tried
To live as of your presence unaware.
But now in every road on every side
We see your straight and steadfast signpost there.

I think it like that signpost in my land
Hoary and tall, which pointed me to go
Upward, into the hills, on the right hand,
Where the mists swim and the winds shriek and blow,
A homeless land and friendless, but a land
I did not know and that I wished to know.

by Charles Hamilton Sorley

6:53am: SCOTS OF THE RIVERINA

The boy cleared out to the city from his home at harvest time --
They were Scots of the Riverina, and to run from home was a crime.
The old man burned his letters, the first and last he burned,
And he scratched his name from the Bible when the old wife's back was turned.

A year went past and another. There were calls from the firing-line;
They heard the boy had enlisted, but the old man made no sign.
His name must never be mentioned on the farm by Gundagai --
They were Scots of the Riverina with ever the kirk hard by.

The boy came home on his "final", and the township's bonfire burned.
His mother's arms were about him; but the old man's back was turned.
The daughters begged for pardon till the old man raised his hand --
A Scot of the Riverina who was hard to understand.

The boy was killed in Flanders, where the best and bravest die.
There were tears at the Grahame homestead and grief in Gundagai;
But the old man ploughed at daybreak and the old man ploughed till the mirk -
There were furrows of pain in the orchard while his housefolk went to the kirk.

The hurricane lamp in the rafters dimly and dimly burned;
And the old man died at the table when the old wife's back was turned.
Face down on his bare arms folded he sank with his wild grey hair
Outspread o'er the open Bible and a name re-written there.

by Henry Lawson