An ancient bridge, and a more ancient tower,
A farmhouse that is sheltered by its wall,
An acre of stony ground,
Where the symbolic rose can break in flower,
Old ragged elms, old thorns innumerable,
The sound of the rain or sound
Of every wind that blows;
The stilted water-hen
Crossing Stream again
Scared by the splashing of a dozen cows;
A winding stair, a chamber arched with stone,
A grey stone fireplace with an open hearth,
A candle and written page.
Il Penseroso’s Platonist toiled on
In some like chamber, shadowing forth
How the daemonic rage
Imagined everything.
Benighted travellers
From markets and from fairs
Have seen his midnight candle glimmering.
Two men have founded here. A man-at-arms
Gathered a score of horse and spent his days
In this tumultuous spot,
Where through long wars and sudden night alarms
His dwinding score and he seemed castaways
Forgetting and forgot;
And I, that after me
My bodily heirs may find,
To exalt a lonely mind,
Befitting emblems of adversity.
While wishing a happy St Patrick’s Day to all my Irish friends and readers, I’d like to share with you a great photoreport from Sarah from The Daily Nibbles blog. She and her mother visited Dublin in 2010 and had a tour of the Guinness factory. Along with a few interesting facts you will see a lot of photos, two of them are below to tease your ale buds.
Speaking of beers, I have so far been disappointed with Stella Artois I drank here in Moscow. Although it was bottled, not canned, the taste was distinctly different. If I understand anything about beer production, my inkling is that the Russian distributor must be adding water to the beverage. In this sense, we have done to Stella what the English had done to the tea, according to George Mikes: by adding milk to tea, they turned the flavoursome exotic drink into a tasteless beverage. Making Stella more “watery”, I’d say, is a much bigger insult.
Still, there is at least one ‘proper’ Irish pub in Moscow, which I will visit very soon. I’m not sure about Guinness as such, but I am dying for a good pint of beer.
As they say, you can take a girl out of England…
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