Island and the Sea

The words for this week are Sea and Island of course Robert Louis Stevenson of Treasure Island fame would have been our logical choice as our wordsmith but we highlighted him last week so we have Edgar Allan Poe and Mr Hiawatha, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, as our Wordsmiths.Hope you all enjoy this post.

 Never Ending 
Buddy Kaye, Phil Springer
Lyrics

Love the see and ocean combination here.

Always one of my Elvis favourites

Walk down to the beach at sunset
Look as far as you can see
You will find that endless ocean
And that's how my love will always be

If you like your coffee with sand for dregs,
A decided hint of salt in your tea,
And a fishy taste in the very eggs
By all means choose the Sea. 
 Lewis carroll

And well I knew the talk they had, the talk that was of me,
Of the shadow on the household and the son that went to sea;
And O the wicked fool I seemed, in every kind of way,
To be here and hauling frozen ropes on blessed Christmas Day

 Robert Louis Stevenson

Pincushion Island

 

 Wordsmiths

 Henry Wadsworth Longfellow/Edgar Allan Poe

Catawba Wine

There grows no vine

By the haunted Rhine,

By Danube or Guadalquivir,

Nor on island or cape,

That bears such a grape

As grows by the Beautiful River

And this Song of the Vine,
This greeting of mine,
The winds and the birds shall deliver
To the Queen of the West,
In her garlands dressed,
On the banks of the Beautiful River

Longfellow

Wouldst thou' so the helmsman answered.Learn the secret of the

sea? Only those who brave its dangers. Comprehend its mystery! 

 

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 

 

     Probably the best loved of American poets the world over is Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Many of his lines are as familiar to us as rhymes from Mother Goose or the words of nursery songs learned in early childhood. Like these rhymes and melodies, they remain in the memory and accompany us through life. Born in 1807, he had become a national literary figure by the 1850s and a world-famous personality by the time of his death in 1882. Some of his favourite works were Slavery (1844), Evangeline (1847), The Song of Hiawatha (1855), The Courtship of Miles Standish (1858), Tales of a Wayside Inn (1863), his translation of Dante's Divine Comedy (1867), and Keramos (1878).

Song of Hiawatha

By the shore of Gitchie Gumee,
By the shining Big-Sea-Water,
At the doorway of his wigwam,
In the pleasant Summer morning,
Hiawatha stood and waited.
All the air was full of freshness,
All the earth was bright and joyous

Brooms Head NSW The Sea

Edgar Allan Poe

was born in Boston on January 19, 1809. His mother Elizabeth Poe died in 1811, when Edgar was 2 years old. She had separated from her husband and had taken her three kids with her.After her death, Henry the eldest went to live with his grandparents while Edgar was adopted by Mr. and Mrs. John Allan and Rosalie was taken in by another family. John Allan was a successful merchant, so Edgar grew up in good surroundings and went to good schools.

Edgar Allan Poe

 

I and My Annabel Lee

I was a child and she was a child,
In this kingdom by the sea;
But we loved with a love that was more than love -
I and my Annabel Lee;
With a love that the winged seraphs of heaven
Coveted her and me.
And this was the reason that, long ago,
In this kingdom by the sea,
A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling
My beautiful Annabel Lee;
So that her highborn kinsman came
And bore her away from me,
To shut her up in a sepulcher
In this kingdom by the sea.
The angels, not half so happy in heaven,
Went envying her and me
Yes! that was the reason
(as all men know, In this kingdom by the sea)
That the wind came out of the cloud by night,
Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee. 

Have a read of a story based around Sullivans Island where Poe lived for a few years.

 The Gold Bug 

A passage from one of Poe's famous stories

 Pit and the Pendulum 

  I had swooned; but still will not say that all of consciousness was lost. What of it there remained I will not attempt to define, or even to describe; yet all was not lost. In the deepest slumber -- no! In delirium -- no! In a swoon -- no! In death -- no! even in the grave all is not lost. Else there is no immortality for man. Arousing from the most profound of slumbers, we break the gossamer web of some dream. Yet in a second afterward, (so frail may that web have been) we remember not that we have dreamed. In the return to life from the swoon there are two stages; first, that of the sense of mental or spiritual; secondly, that of the sense of physical, existence. It seems probable that if, upon reaching the second stage, we could recall the impressions of the first, we should find these impressions eloquent in memories of the gulf beyond. And that gulf is -- what? How at least shall we distinguish its shadows from those of the tomb? But if the impressions of what I have termed the first stage, are not, at will, recalled, yet, after long interval, do they not come unbidden, while we marvel whence they come? He who has never swooned, is not he who finds strange palaces and wildly familiar faces in coals that glow; is not he who beholds floating in mid-air the sad visions that the many may not view; is not he who ponders over the perfume of some novel flower -- is not he whose brain grows bewildered with the meaning of some musical cadence which has never before arrested his attention.

 Symbolism

 The Sea in Annabel Lee

It was many and many a year ago, in a kingdom by the sea”. The sea here was used to represent the speaker’s memory. The entire phrase suggests that Annabel Lee’s death occurred a very long time ago, but the sea speaks of reminiscence and an undying memory of love. This particular pattern was repeated in the succeeding stanzas, where each time the “kingdom by the sea” was mentioned, there was also a mention of things which belonged to a distant past.

Island

The island symbolism as "heaven on earth" is a powerful one

One of the most widespread symbols of a non-celestial heaven is the Island. Symbolically, it is always a magical "elsewhere", a world set apart. The island may be a spiritual goal or a center reserved for elected immortals (such as the Happy Isles of classic mythology and the mystic Islands of the Blessed in China), or an enchanted place like Prospero's Island in Shakespeare's The Tempest, where wrongs are righted.

 Poe symbolisms and links

A Poem of Passion

The Raven

The Black Cat

Murder in the Rue Morgue

City in the Sea

Sea of Love

Come with me, my love

To the sea, the sea of love

I want to tell you how much I love you

Tom Waits version of Sea of Love used on the Al Pacino movie Sea of Love

 Quotes on Islands and Sea

Any one can hold the helm when the sea is calm.

Publilius Syrus

No man or woman is an island,

To exist just yourself is meaningkless,You can achieve the most satisfaction when you feel related to some greater purpose in life,

something greater than yourself.

Denis Waitley

We shall defend our island,

whatever the cost may be,

we shall fight on the beaches,

we shall fight on the landing grounds,

we shall fight in the fields and in the streets,

we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender.

Winston Churchill

Love one another, but make not a bond of love:

Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls”

Kahlil Gibran

Voyage upon life's sea, To yourself be true,

And, whatever your lot may be, Paddle your own canoe

Sarah Bolton

Sun and Moon

The words SUN /MOON

The Wordsmiths Kahlil Gibran/

Robert Louis Stevenson

Sun

Three things cannot be long hidden: the sun, the moon, and the truth.  

Buddha

We need to find God, and he cannot be found in noise and restlessness. God is the friend of silence. See how nature - trees, flowers, grass- grows in silence; see the stars, the moon and the sun, how they move in silence... We need silence to be able to touch souls. 

Mother Theresa

Yeah we all shine on, like the moon, and the stars, and the sun. 

John Lennon

Truth is like the sun. You can shut it out for a time, but it ain't goin' away. 

Elvis Presley 

The Sun where stars are born.

 Moon

Crescent Moon North Pole

Full Moon Agnes Waters

 

If you shoot for the stars and hit the moon, it's OK. But you've got to shoot for something. A lot of people don't even shoot.

Confucius

You've got the sun, you've got the moon, and you've got the Rolling Stones.

Keith Richards

When I admire the wonders of a sunset or the beauty of the moon, my soul expands in the worship of the creator.

Mohandas Gandhi

Beauty is a form of genius - is higher, indeed, than genius, as it needs no explanation. It is of the great facts in the world like sunlight, or springtime, or the reflection in dark water of that silver shell we call the moon.

Oscar Wilde

Don't judge any man until you have walked two moons in his moccasins.

Indian Proverb 

Symbolism

The Sun 

The sun is an emblem of glory and brilliance. It is also a symbol of authority. It represents happiness, life and spirituality. The rising sun is a symbol of hope.

The Moon

 The image of the moon is a symbol of the goddess Diana and indicates, in its bearer, the serene power to endure mundane duties. It is also a symbol of the Virgin Mary

Crescent Moon 

A symbol of the aging goddess (crone) to contemporary witches and victory over death to many Muslims.

Sun and Moon joined as one.

A universal pagan expression of the merging of opposites. Like the yin and yang, the marriage of  the male sun and the female moon represents unity in diversity, compromise instead of conflict, and conformity to a new consciousness where all is one.

 Wordsmiths of the Week

Kahlil Gibran

I existed from all eternity and, behold, I am here; and I shall exist till the end of time, for my being has no end.For what is it to die, but to stand in the sun and melt into the wind?"

But let there be spaces in your togetherness and let the winds of the heavens dance between you. Love one another but make not a bond of love: let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls

Advance, and never halt, for advancing is perfection. Advance and do not fear the thorns in the path, for they draw only corrupt blood.

Life without love is like a tree without blossoms or fruit

The just is close to the people's heart, but the merciful is close to the heart of God.

 The teacher who is indeed wise does not bid you to enter the house of his wisdom but rather leads you to the threshold of your mind.

Wisdom ceases to be wisdom when it becomes too proud to weep, too grave to laugh, and too selfful to seek other than itself.

"You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.

Robert Louis Stevenson

The broad sun,
The bright day

White sails
On the blue bay

When the sun comes after rain
And the bird is in the blue,
The girls go down the lane
Two by two.

"Don't judge each day by the harvest you reap but by the seeds that you plant

The saints are the sinners who keep on trying."

To know what you prefer instead of humbly saying Amen to what the world tells you you ought to prefer, is to have kept your soul alive.

"To be what we are capable of becoming, and to achieve what we are capable of achieving, is the only end of life.

Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde

O God!' I screamed, and 'O God!' again and again; for there before my eyes--pale and shaken, and half fainting, and groping before him with his hands, like a man restored from death--there stood Henry Jekyll!

  With every day, and from both sides of my intelligence, the moral and the intellectual, I thus drew steadily nearer to the truth, by whose partial discovery I have been doomed to such a dreadful shipwreck: that man is not truly one, but truly two."

Here then, as I lay down the pen and proceed to seal up my confession, I bring the life of that unhappy Henry Jekyll to an end.

  This was the shocking thing; that the slime of the pit seemed to utter cries and voices; that the amorphous dust gesticulated and sinned; that what was dead, and had no shape, should usurp the offices of life. And this again, that that insurgent horror was knit to him closer than a wife, closer than an eye; lay caged in his flesh, where he heard it mutter and felt it struggle to be born; and at every hour of weakness, and in the confidence of slumber, prevailed against him, and deposed him out of life."

    If he be Mr. Hyde, I shall be Mr. Seek."

Words and Sword

Words

Words spoken

may soon pass away

and forgotten be,

But when spoken

in love and kindness,

are like beautiful flowers,

and even though

they fade and die

from conscious memory,

their fragrance lives on

embedded in the

deeper mind –

forever.

 Dick Innes 

Pen and Sword

The Pen is mightier than the Sword

For though the Sword is stronger

It lives on only as long as the welder

The written word last longer

The Sword is weaker than the Pen

When the swordsman dies, it's gone

But if you strike a writer down

The words he penned live on

The Sword can only fight body

It rusts and crumbles with time

And wouldn't it be more satisfying

To conquer your enemies mind?

The world would be a better place

If Pen fought all the words of man

To conquer not bodies by Sword

But minds by the written hand

The Pen is mightier than the Sword

For thus it's life is longer

Swords are steel, hate and blood

Strange that words are stronger

Werewulf14

SWORD

Hamlet

Shakespeare

And lay your hands again upon my sword:
Never to speak of this that you have heard,
Swear by my sword.

Symbolic Swords

The sword is a alchemic symbol of purification. Here we experience the metaphorical sword cleanly piercing the spiritual soul of man. This symbolic action sacrifices physical bondage to release a path to ethereal (enlightened) freedom. 

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In Buddhism the sword symbolism deals with discrimination of thought. In this light, swords cut away ignorance. 

Excalibur 

King Arthur’s supernatural power has been attributed to the enchanted Sword in the Stone named Clarent. According to the story, Clarent is previously the sword of King Uther Pendragon, the father of King Arthur. He plunged it into a block of rock by magic and before he gasped his last breath, he swore an oath that only the true and rightful king can pluck it.

 The young Arthur, who was only in his teens at that time, succeeded in pulling it out, earning him the kingdom and the throne. The same Sword in the Stone was used as personal weapon of King Arthur and from that time on, it was known as the Excalibur.

Bee Gees 

Words

You think that i don't even mean
a single word i say 
It's only words and words are all I have
to take your heart away

Friend Enemy Peace

We will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.

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“Love is the only force capable of transforming an enemy into friend.”

If humanity is to progress, Gandhi is inescapable. he lived, thought, and acted, inspired by the vision of humanity evolving toward a world of peace and harmony. We may ignore him at our own risk.


                                           Martin Luther King

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A doubtful friend is worse than a certain enemy. Let a man be one thing or the other, and we then know how to meet him.

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If you want to make peace, you don’t talk to your friends. You talk to your enemies

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Love has power that dispels Death; charm that conquers the enemy

                                                        Kahlil Gibran 

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I object to violence because when it appears to do good, the good is only temporary; the evil it does is permanent

                                               Mohandas K. Gandhi 

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The best way to destroy an enemy is to make him a friend." 

                                                      Abraham Lincoln  

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"The way of peace is the way of love. Love is the greatest power on earth. It conquers all things."
                                                       Peace Pilgrim 

 

                                  

Poetry on a Friend

H. W. Longfellow

 I shot an arrow into the air,
It fell to earth, I knew not where;
For, so swiftly it flew, the sight
Could not follow it in its flight.
I breathed a song into the air,
It fell to earth, I knew not where;
For who has sight so keen and strong,
That it can follow the flight of song?
Long, long afterward, in an oak
I found the arrow, still unbroke;
And the song, from beginning to end,
I found again in the heart of a friend.
 

William Shakespeare 

When to the session of sweet silent thought
I summon up remembrance of things past,
I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought,
And with old woes new wail my dear time's waste:
Then can I drown an eye, unused to flow,
For precious friends hid in death¹s dateless night,
And weep afresh love's long since cancelled woe,
And moan the expense of many a vanish¹d sight:
Then can I grieve at grievances foregone,
And heavily from woe to woe tell o'er
The sad account of fore-bemoaned moan,
Which I new pay as if not paid before.
But if the while I think on thee, dear friend,
All losses are restored and sorrows end.

Green Day Know Your Enemy

Nobel Peace Prize 2009

Barack Obama

President of the United States. Born Barack Hussein Obama on August 4, 1961, in Honolulu. He was awarded the peace prize October 2009.On accepting the peace prize in Oslo Norway Obama said 

   I am at the beginning, and not the end, of my labors on the world stage. Compared to some of the giants of history who've received this prize -- Schweitzer and King; Marshall and Mandela -- my accomplishments are slight.

The belief that peace is desirable is rarely enough to achieve it. Peace requires responsibility.  Peace entails sacrifice."

If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other. Mother Theresa

Peace 

Henry Vaughan

My Soul, there is a country

 Afar beyond the stars,

 Where stands a winged sentry

 All skillful in the wars;

 There, above noise and danger

 Sweet Peace sits, crown'd with smiles,

 And One born in a manger

 Commands the beauteous files.

 He is thy gracious friend

 And (O my Soul awake!)

 Did in pure love descend,

 To die here for thy sake.

 If thou canst get but thither,

 There grows the flow'r of peace,

 The rose that cannot wither,

 Thy fortress, and thy ease.

 Leave then thy foolish ranges,

 For none can thee secure,

 But One, who never changes,

 Thy God, thy life, thy cure