Here are the quotations for this week (June 3rd to 9th):

 

1. For me this land, that sea, these airs, those folk and fields suffice.
What purple Southern pomp can match our changeful Northern skies,
Black with December snows unshed, or pearled with August haze –
The clanging arch of steel-grey March, or June’s long-lighted days ?

 

2. At two o’clock in the morning, if you open your window and listen,
You will hear the feet of the Wind that is going to call the sun.
And the trees in the shadow rustle and the trees in the moonlight rustle,
And though it is deep, dark night, you feel that the night is done.

 

3. `Twas not while England’s sword unsheathed
Put half a world to flight,
Nor while her new-built cities breathed
Secure behind her might;
Nor while she poured from Pole to Line
Treasure and ships and men –
These worshippers at freedom’s shrine
They did not quit her then!

 

The sources of last week's extracts (May 27 to June 2) are as follows:

 

1.  ('...I made haste, the river aiding me, but ere I had touched the shoal, the pulse of the stream beat, as it were, within me and around...')  This is from "In Flood Time" in Soldiers Three and Other Stories".

 

2.  ("...A tarred road, she shoots every drop o' water into a valley same's a slate roof...)  This is from "Friendly Brook" in A Diversity of Creatures.

 

3.  (...There was not so much a roar as the purposeful drive of a tide across a jagged reef...)  This is from "My Son's Wife" in A Diversity of Creatures.

 

Good Jubilee wishes to all

 

John R