What to give my blogger friends for Christmas?

Almost exactly thirty-eight years ago -- I was 34 at the time -- a poem formed in my mind and I wrote it down. If memory serves, I was thinking that day about how much I had enjoyed Robert Louis Stevenson’s A Child’s Garden of Verses when I was a boy -- “The Land of Counterpane” and “Oh, How I Love To Go Up In A Swing” and so on. I couldn’t think of a title for my poem, so I stuck it in a folder and promptly forgot all about it. A couple of months ago I found it, and I thought it might make a nice Christmas present this year from me to all of my cyberfriends out there in the blogosphere.


Just give me a fire, and a frosty night,
.....A book, and a big stuffed chair;
And let me read to my heart’s delight
.....In the glow of the firelight there.

For whatever it be, whether ships at sea,
.....Or Arabian jewels rare;
A planet in space, or an auto race,
.....Or a girl with golden hair;

Or African jungles, or frozen North,
.....Or snarls from a lion’s lair;
One by one, gems sparkle forth
.....Like candles on the stair.

Be it circus clown, or a Wild West town,
.....Or a dancing Russian bear;
Like a flag unfurled, ’tis a wider world
.....To be found in the pages there.

Inventors and heroes; explorers and kings;
.....And saints who knelt in prayer;
And hundreds of other exciting things
....That are fiendish and fine and fair.

So if you would let your soul take flight,
.....Oh, there’s nothing that can compare
With a cozy fire on a frosty night,
.....A book, and a big stuffed chair!

...............................................--Robert H. Brague
..................................................19 December 1975

How to go from the sublime to the ridiculous in one post

The last post -- a cello-piano duet of “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel” -- was sublime.

This one is ridiculous.

In keeping with the season, sort of, here is “Cluck of the Bells” (1:21) by a choir that is pure poultry in motion.

I also want to send a shout out to two real chickens named Arietta and Mary in Tauranga, New Zealand, as well as my heartfelt apologies to Ukrainians everywhere.

Five minutes, thirty-four seconds of gorgeous

There’s a group called The Piano Guys that normally consists of four guys who play the piano. Sometimes, though, the make-up of the group apparently changes.

For your listening pleasure and edification, here is one of the guys on piano and one of the guys on cello -- I don’t know where the other two guys are -- playing “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel” (5:34).

This one you may definitely want to listen to more than once. It’s that good.

Let’s have a Ding! Dong!

Today is St. Nicholas’s Day and tomorrow is Pearl Harbor Day and the day after that is probably something else. It never ends. There is always something to commemorate.

To tell the truth, though, I’m beginning to grow weary of posting.

This li’l ol’ blog of mine is nearing 1,300 posts and I can feel myself slowing down.

I can feel myself beginning not to care any more.

I can feel myself getting ready to toss in the towel.

Maybe I am just coming down with a case of the mid-December blahs.

Fortunately, I know the cure.

As Eric Idle once said to John Cleese, “Let’s have a Ding! Dong!”

Here’s “"Ding! Dong! Merrily on High!” by the choristers of Kings College, Cambridge (2:39).

Listen to it as many times as it takes to brighten your mood and put a smile on your face.

One year I had to listen to it 142 times.

From the archives: Quelle est cette odeur agréable? (December 20, 2010)

Here is the Mormon Tabernacle Choir in Salt Lake City performing “Whence Is That Goodly Fragrance Flowing?” (4:47)

That archaic, somewhat stilted-sounding English title is a translation of the words of the traditional 17th-century French carol “Quelle est cette odeur agréable?” (rhymeswithplague handy pronunciation guide: Kell eh set oh-dur ah-gray-ah-bluh?) that John Gay incorporated into his Beggar’s Opera in 1728.

Some might think that banks of violins and cellos are the very definition of schmaltz -- can anyone say Mantovani? -- but I think this is one of the most gorgeous pieces of music I have ever heard. Mrs. RWP, though, says it is not her cup of tea.

Here are the English lyrics as translated by A. B. Ramsay:

1. Whence is that goodly fragrance flowing,
Stealing our senses all away?
Never the like did come a-blowing,
Shepherds, in flow’ry fields of May!
Whence is that goodly fragrance flowing,
Stealing our senses all away?

2. What is that light so brilliant, breaking
Here in the night across our eyes?
Never so bright, the day-star waking,
Started to climb the morning skies!
What is that light so brilliant, breaking,
Here in the night across our eyes?

3. Bethlehem! there in manger lying,
Find your Redeemer haste away,
Run ye with eager footsteps vying!
Worship the Saviour born today.
Bethlehem! there in manger lying,
Find your Redeemer haste away.

If you simply must have the original French lyrics, click here. You may note that several English translations are available; the one I have shared with you is the one sung by the choir in the video clip.

As usual, I am one of the last to get the word. One list I saw shows that this song is available on more than 50 classical recordings. But even though it has been around for several centuries, I had never heard it until last Thursday evening when Dawna T. sang it accompanied at the piano by her sister, Lisa K., during their Family Christmas Concert at a church in Marietta. (I was part of the concert too. I accompanied Dawna on “The Perfect Rose,” her son Michael on a cello solo of “What Child Is This?” and Lisa on “O Holy Night.” Lisa wore an emerald velvet gown; Dawna wore a purple one. I was resplendent in a black tuxedo.)

The lyrics, of course, refer to the infant Christ, the baby Jesus, Immanuel, God with us. What struck me as ironic (nay, downright humorous!) is that the odeur agréable that so mystified the songwriter was a barnyard stable filled with cows, sheep, donkeys, and (let’s face it) manure. So the actual odeur must have been anything but agréable at the time. Comparing Christ’s presence to the fragrance of a rose has been quite common through the centuries, though, and has resulted in such songs as “The Perfect Rose,” “Lo, How a Rose E’er Blooming,” and, of course, from now on in my own mind, “Whence Is That Goodly Fragrance Flowing?”

I think I will go back and listen to it again.

No Rosicrucians were harmed in the creation of this blogpost.

’Tis the season at our house

Christmas at the keyboard :

The Hanging of the Greens at the church :

Hanukkah menorah atop our piano :

Taking up the gauntlet

Our cyberfriend Lord Pudding of Pudding Towers, Sheffield, York, England droned on waxed eloquent about bridges recently, starting with Jeff and ending with Edale, Derbyshire. In a comment, expatriate Brian in Catalan promised to “take up the gauntlet” soon and post a picture of a bridge also.

I have decided to enter the fray join in the fun.

Here is the main thoroughfare over the Etowah River between my home in East Cherokee and downtown Canton:

As you can see, we take our lives in our hands every single time we go shopping. It’s dangerous, yes, but living on the edge is what Mrs. RWP and I do best.

Actually, I’m not telling the truth. That bridge is really in Sarawak on the island of Borneo. But I had you going there for a minute.

We interrupt this post to wish every single reader of the rhymeswithplague blog -- whether you leave comments or just lurk -- a Happy Thanksgiving Day, even if you live in a country where today is not officially set aside as a day for giving thanks.

And if you do not have an abundance of turkey today, may you have instead an abundance of joy, and hope, and peace, and love.