Happy 22nd Birthday to Quotemail! :)

Hello everyone –

Today is the 22^nd birthday of the RHC Fortnightly Quotemail emailing list! :) The list now known as the RHC Quotemail began during my graduate school days in the German Department at the U of I. Its original name was REEL – Rob’s Eclectic Edutainment List. It was primarily aimed at friends and colleagues in the German Department, but it began to expand slowly but surely as my worksites changed over the years. When I moved to the Graduate College Information Office in 1997, this list became the “Quote of the Week,” and when I moved to the ACES James Scholar Honors Program in 2000, it was simply called “Quotemail.” Today, this list can boast over 180 members who receive snippets of poetry and prose, mixed in with some inspiration and humor, every other Friday.

In honor of this auspicious occasion, here are two of my favorite poems about the marvels of childhood and the wonders of growing up, by two of my all-time favorite poets!

“Wonder” by Thomas Traherne (1637-1674)

How like an angel came I down!

How bright are all things here!

When first among his works I did appear

O how their glory me did crown!

The world resembled his eternity,

In which my soul did walk;

And everything that I did see

Did with me talk.

The skies in their magnificence,

The lively, lovely air;

Oh how divine, how soft, how sweet, how fair!

The stars did entertain my sense,

And all the works of God, so bright and pure,

So rich and great did seem,

As if they ever must endure

In my esteem.

A native health and innocence

Within my bones did grow,

And while my God did all his glories show,

I felt a vigor in my sense

That was all spirit. I within did flow

With seas of life, like wine;

I nothing in the world did know

But 'twas divine.

Harsh ragged objects were concealed,

Oppressions tears and cries,

Sins, griefs, complaints, dissensions, weeping eyes

Were hid, and only things revealed

Which heavenly spirits, and the angels prize.

The state of innocence

And bliss, not trades and poverties,

Did fill my sense.

The streets were paved with golden stones,

The boys and girls were mine,

Oh how did all their lovely faces shine!

The sons of men were holy ones,

In joy and beauty they appeared to me,

And everything which here I found,

While like an angel I did see,

Adorned the ground.

Rich diamond and pearl and gold

In every place was seen;

Rare splendors, yellow, blue, red, white and green,

Mine eyes did everywhere behold.

Great wonders clothed with glory did appear,

Amazement was my bliss,

That and my wealth was everywhere:

No joy to this!

Cursed and devised proprieties,

With envy, avarice

And fraud, those fiends that spoil even Paradise,

Flew from the splendor of mine eyes,

And so did hedges, ditches, limits, bounds,

I dreamed not aught of those,

But wandered over all men's grounds,

And found repose.

Proprieties themselves were mine,

And hedges ornaments;

Walls, boxes, coffers, and their rich contents

Did not divide my joys, but all combine.

Clothes, ribbons, jewels, laces, I esteemed

My joys by others worn:

For me they all to wear them seemed

When I was born.

“You & Me and the Cottage of Lost Play” (1916)

By J. R. R. Tolkien (1892-1973)

You and me--we know that land

And often have been there

In the long old days, old nursery days,

A dark child and a fair.

Was it down the paths of firelight dreams

In winter cold and white,

Or in the blue-spun twilit hours

Of little early tucked-up beds

In drowsy summer night,

That You and I got lost in Sleep

And met each other there--

Your dark hair on your white nightgown,

And mine was tangled fair?

We wandered shyly hand in hand,

Or rollicked in the fairy sand

And gathered pearls and shells in pails,

While all about the nightingales

Were singing in the trees.

We dug for silver with our spades

By little inland sparkling seas,

Then ran ashore through sleepy seas,

And down a warm and winding lane

And never never found again

Between high whispering trees.

The air was neither night or day,

But faintly dark with softest light,

When first there glimmered into sight

The Cottage of Lost Play.

'Twas builded very very old

White, and thatched with straws of gold,

And pierced with peeping lattices

That looked toward the sea;

And our own children's garden-plots

Were there--our own forget-me-nots,

Red daisies, cress and mustard,

And blue nemophile.

O! All the borders trimmed with box

Were full of favorite flowers--of phlox,

Of larkspur, pinks, and hollyhocks

Beneath a red may-tree:

And all the paths were full of shapes,

Of tumbling happy white-clad shapes,

And with them You and Me.

And some had silver watering-cans

And watered all their gowns,

Or sprayed each other; some laid plans

To build them houses, fairy towns,

Or dwellings in the trees;

And some were clambering on the roof;

Some crooning lonely and aloof;

And some were dancing fairy-rings

And weaving pearly daisy-strings,

Or chasing golden bees;

But here and there a little pair

With rosy cheeks and tangled hair

Debated quaint old childish things--

And we were one of these.

But why it was there came a time

When we could take the road no more,

Though long we looked, and high would climb,

Or gaze from many a seaward shore

To find the path between sea and sky

To those old gardens of delight;

And how it goes now in that land,

If there the house and gardens stand,

Still filled with children clad in white--

We know not, You and I.

And why it was Tomorrow came

And with his grey hand led us back;

And why we never found the same

Old cottage, or the magic track

That leads between a silver sea

And those old shores and gardens fair

Where all things are, that ever were--

We know not, You and Me.

Happy 22^nd Birthday to Quotemail and to my younger cousin, Zenaida, today! :)

Rob