Robert Bateman - Shrike Pair and Hawthorne, Franz Joseph Haydn - Symphony No. 45 in F-sharp minor "Farewell", Phillis Wheatley - An Hymn to the Evening

Robert Bateman has so many wonderful bird paintings - you may want to look up Google Images - Robert Bateman - Birds I liked the foliage and berries as well as the birds in this painting.

Shrike Pair and Hawthorne - © Robert Bateman

Here is a link to the Picassa Web Album of Robert Bateman Paintings  that we are using this season.  The Robert Bateman Foundation has graciously granted us permission to copy them for educational use.

Today's piece by Franz Joseph Haydn is Symphony No. 45 in F-sharp minor "Farewell"  It is an intense but beautiful piece of music.  And a link here to about two hours of The "Best" of Haydn  It actually starts with this week's piece of music.


Phillis Wheatley - An Hymn to the Evening

SOON as the sun forsook the eastern main
The pealing thunder shook the heav'nly plain;
Majestic grandeur! From the zephyr's* wing,
Exhales the incense of the blooming spring.
Soft purl the streams, the birds renew their notes,
And through the air their mingled music floats.
Through all the heav'ns what beauteous dies are spread!
But the west glories in the deepest red:
So may our breasts with ev'ry virtue glow,
The living temples of our God below!
Fill'd with the praise of him who gives the light,
And draws the sable curtains of the night,
Let placid slumbers sooth each weary mind,
At morn to wake more heav'nly, more refin'd;
So shall the labours of the day begin
More pure, more guarded from the snares of sin.
Night's leaden sceptre seals my drowsy eyes,

Then cease, my song, till fair Aurora* rise.

*Zephyr - A light wind or west wind

*Aurora - Roman goddess of the dawn