Thursday extracts: It's still snowing!

April Snow

by Caroline Spencer

The green was creeping o'er the brown,
The skies dropt bluebirds yesterday;
Again today the snow is down,
And spring a thousand miles away.


Full text here.

Yeah - I know it's still March. But it won't be on Monday.

Robert Browning on Spring

Home Thoughts from Abroad

Oh to be in England
Now that April's there,
And whoever wakes in England
Sees, some morning, unaware,
That the lowest boughs and the brushwood sheaf
Round the elm-tree bole are in tiny leaf,
While the chaffinch sings on the orchard bough
In England - now!

And after April, when May follows,
And the whitethroat builds, and all the swallows!
Hark! where my blossomed pear-tree in the hedge
Leans to the field and scatters on the clover
Blossoms and dewdrops - at the bent spray's edge -
That's the wise thrush; he sings each song twice over,
Lest you should think he never could recapture
The first fine careless rapture!

And though the fields look rough with hoary dew,
All will be gay when noontide wakes anew
The buttercups, the little children's dower
- Far brighter than this gaudy melon-flower.

Robert Browning (1812 - 1889)

A-Z, April and stuff like that

You've probably noticed a recent rash of logos that say something along the lines of A-Z April on them. They're to do with a meme that's doing the rounds where people are trying to do 26 posts in a month, covering each letter of the alphabet.  Now I thought that was a good idea, but it sort of gets in the way of the regular things I do, so I have a dilemma.  This is the way I've solved it.

I've set up a 26 letters page (see the tab at the top) and I plan to find a new, interesting or otherwise-chosen word for each one. I've done a couple already and I expect the list to grow steadily during the month, but I'm making no promises to finish it in 30 days. (Not least because I shall be on holiday for a hefty portion of them.)

I'll probably do a post at the end of the month to remind you how I'm doing. And I might do one when I finally have 26 words. But don't hold your breath. It's a WIP.  (See TLA)