Had we but world enough, and time...

All these poems are running through my mind today, mostly ones that can be found in my Norton Anthology of 16th Century Verse ... how erudite I feel. In fact these are poems I studied year after year in various literature classes, though my knowledge of them remains at the opening lines and, occasionally, the poet (him)self.

Neil just said, "No pun intended," but I'm fairly certain he intended the pun in question.

We are drinking champagne -- cava, actually, in celebration of seemingly getting away with not having actually done anything wrong. It's a long story.

These two ocean photos, above and below, make me think of the poem I read at Laura's funeral. It's by Henry Van Dyke and is called "Gone From My Sight":

I am standing upon the seashore.
A ship at my side spreads her white
sails to the morning breeze and starts
for the blue ocean.

She is an object of beauty and strength.
I stand and watch her until at length
she hangs like a speck of white cloud just where the sea
and sky come to mingle with each other.

Then, someone at my side says,
"There, she is gone!"

"Gone where?"
Gone from my sight. That is all. She is
just as large in mast and hull and spar
as she was when she left my side and
she is just as able to bear her living
freight to her destined port.
Her diminished size is in me, not in her.

And just at the moment when someone
at my side says, "There, she is gone!"
There are other eyes watching her coming,
and other voices ready to take up the glad shout,
"Here she comes!"