Albert Anker - The Devotion of His Grandfather, Hector Berlioz - The Damnation of Faust-Hungarian March, Robert Browning - Epilogue

"The Devotion of His Grandfather" our Albert Anker painting this week, is a touching scene. The sharing of a good book is a wonderful gift.  I wonder if there are older people in our lives who would find a blessing in having our children read to them.

Hector Berlioz - The Damnation of Faust - Hungarian March.

Here is a link to Wikipedia's article on this oratorio.


I'm not sure I understand Robert Browning's poetry - it is complex and illusive, yet I feel that it is beautiful....
 
                               Epilogue 

 At the midnight in the silence of the sleep-time,
When you set your fancies free,
Will they pass to where--by death, fools think, imprisoned--
Low he lies who once so loved you, whom you loved so,
--Pity me?

Oh to love so, be so loved, yet so mistaken!
What had I on earth to do
With the slothful, with the mawkish, the unmanly?
Like the aimless, helpless, hopeless, did I drivel
--Being--who?

One who never turned his back but marched breast forward,
Never doubted clouds would break,
Never dreamed, though right were worsted, wrong would triumph,
Held we fall to rise, are baffled to fight better,
Sleep to wake.

No, at noonday in the bustle of man's work-time
Greet the unseen with a cheer!
Bid him forward, breast and back as either should be,
"Strive and thrive!" cry "Speed,--fight on, fare ever
There as here!"