Sir Edwin Landseer- Isaac Van Amburgh and His Animals, Frahz Schubert - Impromptu in G Flat Majore, William Wordsworth -

Sir Edwin Henry Landseer loved painting animals and this painting is full of a variety of them!  Isaac Van Amburgh was an animal trainer.  You can read wikipedia's entry about van Amburgh here.

Isaac Van Amburgh and His Animals painted by Sir Edwin Henry Landseer

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A lovely piece of music by Franz Schubert today, Impromptu in G flat Major    It is played by Vladimir Horowitz, one of the greatest pianists of the twentieth century.  You can read about him here.

here is a link to the "Best of Schubert" on Youtube.


Another lovely poem by William Wordsworth.  It makes me want to drop everything and spend a day outside.

          IT is the first mild day of March:
          Each minute sweeter than before
          The redbreast sings from the tall larch
          That stands beside our door.

          There is a blessing in the air,
          Which seems a sense of joy to yield
          To the bare trees, and mountains bare,
          And grass in the green field.

          My sister! ('tis a wish of mine)
          Now that our morning meal is done,                          10
          Make haste, your morning task resign;
          Come forth and feel the sun.

          Edward will come with you;--and, pray,
          Put on with speed your woodland dress;
          And bring no book: for this one day
          We'll give to idleness.

          No joyless forms shall regulate
          Our living calendar:
          We from to-day, my Friend, will date
          The opening of the year.                                    20

          Love, now a universal birth,
          From heart to heart is stealing,
          From earth to man, from man to earth:
          --It is the hour of feeling.

          One moment now may give us more
          Than years of toiling reason:
          Our minds shall drink at every pore
          The spirit of the season.

          Some silent laws our hearts will make,
          Which they shall long obey:                                 30
          We for the year to come may take
          Our temper from to-day.

          And from the blessed power that rolls
          About, below, above,
          We'll frame the measure of our souls:
          They shall be tuned to love.

          Then come, my Sister! come, I pray,
          With speed put on your woodland dress;
          And bring no book: for this one day
          We'll give to idleness.