Posted by: Cary Briel, Skaneateles Design

“The Flower” – Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Once in a golden hour
I cast to earth a seed.
Up there came a flower,
The people said, a weed.

To and fro they went
Thro’ my garden-bower,
And muttering discontent
Cursed me and my flower.

Then it grew so tall
It wore a crown of light,
But thieves from o’er the wall
Stole the seed by night.

Sow’d it far and wide
By every town and tower,
Till all the people cried
`Splendid is the flower.’

Read my little fable:
He that runs may read.
Most can raise the flowers now,
For all have got the seed.

And some are pretty enough,
And some are poor indeed;
And now again the people
Call it but a weed.

Posted by: Cary Briel, Skaneateles Design

“Into the West” – Fran Walsh, Howard Shore, Annie Lennox

Click here to listen to Annie Lennox sing Into the West. This music is from the motion picture, The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King. The lyrics are displayed in the video, and can also be found below the video.

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Posted by: Cary Briel, Skaneateles Design

“Break, Break, Break” – Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Break, break, break,
On thy cold gray stones, O Sea!
And I would that my tongue could utter
The thoughts that arise in me.

O, well for the fisherman’s boy,
That he shouts with his sister at play!
O, well for the sailor lad,
That he sings in his boat on the bay!

And the stately ships go on
To their haven under the hill;
But O for the touch of a vanished hand,
And the sound of a voice that is still!

Break, break, break,
At the foot of thy crags, O Sea!
But the tender grace of a day that is dead
Will never come back to me.

Posted by: Cary Briel, Skaneateles Design

“Neutral Tones” – Thomas Hardy

We stood by a pond that winter day,
And the sun was white, as though chidden of God,
And a few leaves lay on the starving sod,
—-They had fallen from an ash, and were gray.

Your eyes on me were as eyes that rove
Over tedious riddles solved years ago;
And some words played between us to and fro-—
On which lost the more by our love.

The smile on your mouth was the deadest thing
Alive enough to have strength to die;
And a grin of bitterness swept thereby
Like an ominous bird a-wing…

Since then, keen lessons that love deceives,
And wrings with wrong, have shaped to me
Your face, and the God-curst sun, and a tree,
And a pond edged with grayish leaves.

By: Cary Briel, Skaneateles Design

“Run” – Snow Patrol

Two versions of “Run” by Snow Patrol. The first is the studio version, the other live. I really like the studio version, but once you hear the live version, it’s hard to not like it also because it’s more real. Great band!

Click here to watch both.

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