[s]Goal: 100,000 New Goal: 200,000[/s] New Goal: 250.000

[mmeeshal]

You won’t lag behind, because you’ll have the speed. You’ll pass the whole gang and you’ll soon take the lead. Wherever you fly, you’ll be best of the best. Wherever you go, you will top all the rest.

[mmeeshal]

Except when you don’t.

Because, sometimes, you won’t.

[mmeeshal]

I’m sorry to say so but, sadly, it’s true that Bang-ups and Hang-ups can happen to you.

[mmeeshal]

You can get all hung up in a prickle-ly perch. And your gang will fly on. You’ll be left in a Lurch.

[mmeeshal]

You’ll come down from the Lurch with an unpleasant bump. And the chances are, then, that you’ll be in a Slump.

[mmeeshal]

And when you’re in a Slump, you’re not in for much fun. Un-slumping yourself is not easily done.

[mmeeshal]

You will come to a place where the streets are not marked. Some windows are lighted. But mostly they’re darked. A place you could sprain both your elbow and chin! Do you dare to stay out? Do you dare to go in? How much can you lose? How much can you win?

[mmeeshal]

And if you go in, should you turn left or right…or right-and-three-quarters? Or, maybe, not quite? Or go around back and sneak in from behind? Simple it’s not, I’m afraid you will find, for a mind-maker-upper to make up his mind.

[mmeeshal]

You can get so confused that you’ll start in to race down long wiggled roads at a break-necking pace and grind on for miles across weirdish wild space, headed, I fear, toward a most useless place.

[mmeeshal]

The Waiting Place…for people just waiting.

[mmeeshal]

Waiting for a train to go or a bus to come, or a plane to go or the mail to come, or the rain to go or the phone to ring, or the snow to snow or waiting around for a Yes or No or waiting for their hair to grow. Everyone is just waiting.

[mmeeshal]

Waiting for the fish to bite or waiting for wind to fly a kite or waiting around for Friday night or waiting, perhaps, for their Uncle Jake or a pot to boil, or a Better Break or a string of pearls, or a pair of pants or a wig with curls, or Another Chance. Everyone is just waiting.

[mmeeshal]

No! That’s not for you!

Somehow you’ll escape all that waiting and staying. You’ll find the bright places where Boom Bands are playing. With banner flip-flapping, once more you’ll ride high! Ready for anything under the sky. Ready because you’re that kind of a guy!

[mmeeshal]

Oh, the places you’ll go! There is fun to be done! There are points to be scored. There are games to be won. And the magical things you can do with that ball will make you the winning-est winner of all. Fame! You’ll be famous as famous can be, with the whole wide world watching you win on TV.

[mmeeshal]

Except when they don’t. Because, sometimes, they won’t.

[mmeeshal]

I’m afraid that some times you’ll play lonely games too. Games you can’t win ‘cause you’ll play against you.

[mmeeshal]

All Alone!

Whether you like it or not, Alone will be something you’ll be quite a lot.

[mmeeshal]

And when you’re alone, there’s a very good chance you’ll meet things that scare you right out of your pants. There are some, down the road between hither and yon, that can scare you so much you won’t want to go on.

[mmeeshal]

But on you will go though the weather be foul. On you will go though your enemies prowl. On you will go though the Hakken-Kraks howl. Onward up many a frightening creek, though your arms may get sore and your sneakers may leak. On and on you will hike. And I know you’ll hike far and face up to your problems whatever they are.

[mmeeshal]

You’ll get mixed up, of course, as you already know. You’ll get mixed up with many strange birds as you go. So be sure when you step. Step with care and great tact and remember that Life’s a Great Balancing Act. Just never forget to be dexterous and deft. And never mix up your right foot with your left.

[mmeeshal]

And will you succeed?

Yes! You will, indeed!

(98 and ¾ percent guaranteed.)

[Mrs. Cindy Gill]

ARGUMENT.—The writer, having lost his way in a gloomy forest, and being hindered by certain wild beasts from ascending a mountain, is met by Virgil, who promises to show him the punishments of Hell, and afterward of Purgatory; and that he shall then be conducted by Beatrice into Paradise. He follows the Roman poet.

 

 

 

IN the midway of this our mortal life,

 

 

I found me in a gloomy wood, astray

 

 

Gone from the path direct: and e’en to tell,

 

 

It were no easy task, how savage wild

 

 

That forest, how robust and rough its growth,

 

 

Which to remember only, my dismay

 

 

Renews, in bitterness not far from death.

 

 

Yet, to discourse of what there good befel,

 

 

All else will I relate discover’d there.

 

 

 

How first I enter’d it I scarce can say,

 

 

Such sleepy dulness in that instant weigh’d

 

 

My senses down, when the true path I left;

 

 

But when a mountain’s foot I reach’d, where closed

 

 

The valley that had pierced my heart with dread,

 

I look’d aloft, and saw his shoulders broad

 

 

Already vested with that planet’s beam,

 

 

Who leads all wanderers safe through every way.

 

 

Then was a little respite to the fear,

 

 

That in my heart’s recesses deep had lain

 

 

All of that night, so pitifully past:

 

And as a man, with difficult short breath,

 

 

Forespent with toiling, ’scaped from sea to shore,

 

 

Turns to the perilous wide waste, and stands

 

 

 

At gaze; e’en so my spirit, that yet fail’d,

 

 

Struggling with terror, turn’d to view the straits

 

 

That none hath passed and lived. My weary frame

 

 

 

After short pause recomforted, again

 

 

 

I journey’d on over that lonely steep,

 

 

 

The hinder foot still firmer. Scarce the ascent

 

 

 

Began, when, lo! a panther, nimble, light,

 

 

And cover’d with a speckled skin, appear’d;

 

 

Nor, when it saw me, vanish’d; rather strove

 

 

To check my onward going; that oft-times,

 

 

 

With purpose to retrace my steps, I turn’d.

 

 

The hour was morning’s prime, and on his way

 

 

Aloft the sun ascended with those stars,

 

 

 

That with him rose when Love Divine first moved

 

 

Those its fair works: so that with joyous hope

 

 

All things conspired to fill me, the gay skin

 

 

Of that swift animal, the matin dawn,

 

 

And the sweet season. Soon that joy was chased.

 

 

 

And by new dread succeeded, when in view

 

 

 

A lion came, ’gainst me as it appear’d,

 

 

 

With his head held aloft and hunger-mad,

 

 

 

That e’en the air was fear-struck. A she-wolf

 

 

 

Was at his heels, who in her leanness seem’d

 

 

 

Full of all wants, and many a land hath made

 

 

 

 

Disconsolate ere now. She with such fear

 

 

 

 

O’erwhelm’d me, at the sight of her appall’d,

 

 

 

That of the height all hope I lost. As one,

 

 

 

Who, with his gain elated, sees the time

 

 

 

When all unawares is gone, he inwardly

 

 

 

Mourns with heart-griping anguish; such was I,

 

 

 

Haunted by that fell beast, never at peace,

 

 

 

Who coming o’er against me, by degrees

 

 

Impell’d me where the sun in silence rests.

 

 

While to the lower space with backward step

 

 

I fell, my ken discern’d the form of one

 

 

 

Whose voice seem’d faint through long disuse of speech.

 

 

When him in that great desert I espied,

 

 

 

“Have mercy on me,” cried I out aloud,

 

 

“Spirit! or living man! whate’er thou be.”

 

 

 

He answered: “Now not man, man once I was,

 

 

 

And born of Lombard parents, Mantuans both

 

 

 

By country, when the power of Julius yet

 

 

Was scarcely firm. At Rome my life was past,

 

 

Beneath the mild Augustus, in the time

 

 

 

Of fabled deities and false. A bard

 

 

Was I, and made Anchises’ upright son

 

 

 

The subject of my song, who came from Troy,

 

 

 

When the flames prey’d on Ilium’s haughty towers.

 

 

 

But thou, say wherefore to such perils past

 

 

 

Return’st thou? wherefore not this pleasant mount

 

 

 

Ascendest, cause and source of all delight?”

 

 

“And art thou then that Virgil, that well-spring,

 

 

 

From which such copious floods of eloquence

 

 

 

Have issued?” I with front abash’d replied.

 

 

 

“Glory and light of all the tuneful train!

 

 

 

May it avail me, that I long with zeal

 

 

Have sought thy volume, and with love immense

 

 

 

Have conn’d it o’er. My master thou, and guide!

 

 

Thou he from whom alone I have derived

 

 

 

That style, which for its beauty into fame

 

 

 

Exalts me. See the beast, from whom I fled.

 

 

O save me from her, thou illustrious sage!

 

 

 

For every vein and pulse throughout my frame

 

 

She hath made tremble.” He, soon as he saw

 

 

That I was weeping, answer’d, “Thou must needs

 

 

Another way pursue, if thou wouldst ’scape

 

 

From out that savage wilderness. This beast,

 

 

At whom thou criest, her way will suffer none

 

 

 

To pass, and no less hinderance makes than death:

 

 

 

So bad and so accursed in her kind,

 

 

That never sated is her ravenous will,

 

 

Still after food more craving than before.

 

 

 

To many an animal in wedlock vile

 

 

 

She fastens, and shall yet to many more,

 

 

 

Until that greyhound come, who shall destroy

 

 

 

Her with sharp pain. He will not life support

 

 

 

By earth nor its base metals, but by love,

 

 

Wisdom, and virtue; and his land shall be

 

 

 

The land ’twixt either Feltro. In his might

 

 

 

Shall safety to Italia’s plains arise,

 

 

 

For whose fair realm, Camilla, virgin pure,

 

 

 

Nisus, Euryalus, and Turnus fell.

 

 

He, with incessant chase, through every town

 

 

 

Shall worry, until he to hell at length

 

 

Restore her, thence by envy first let loose.

 

 

I, for thy profit pondering, now devise

 

 

That thou mayst follow me; and I, thy guide,

 

 

 

Will lead thee hence through an eternal space,

 

 

 

Where thou shalt hear despairing shrieks, and see

 

 

 

Spirits of old tormented, who invoke

 

 

 

A second death; and those next view, who dwell

 

 

 

Content in fire, for that they hope to come,

 

 

 

Whene’er the time may be, among the blest,

 

 

Into whose regions if thou then desire

 

 

To ascend, a spirit worthier than I

 

 

Must lead thee, in whose charge, when I depart,

 

 

Thou shalt be left; for that Almighty King,

 

 

Who reigns above, a rebel to His law

 

 

Adjudges me; and therefore hath decreed

 

 

 

That, to His city, none through me should come.

 

 

 

He in all parts hath sway; there rules, there holds

 

 

 

His citadel and throne. O happy those,

 

 

 

Whom there He chuses!” I to him in few:

 

 

“Bard! by that God, whom thou didst not adore,

 

 

I do beseech thee (that this ill and worse

 

 

 

I may escape) to lead me where thou said’st,

 

 

 

That I Saint Peter’s gate 11 may view, and those

 

 

Who, as thou tell’st, are in such dismal plight.”

 

 

 

Onward he moved, I close his steps pursued.

Edited October 26, 2011 by cindy

[mmeeshal]

Kid, you’ll move mountains!

So…be your name Buxbaum or Bixby or Bray or Mordecai Ale Van Allen O’Shea, you’re off to Great Places!

Today is your day!

Your mountain is waiting.

So…get on your way!

[mmeeshal]

That was like a nice little pep talk for me...

[Mrs. Cindy Gill]

It was many and many a year ago,

In a kingdom by the sea,

That a maiden there lived whom you may know

By the name of ANNABEL LEE;

And this maiden she lived with no other thought

Than to love and be loved by me.

 

I was a child and she was a child,

In this kingdom by the sea;

But we loved with a love that was more than love-

I and my Annabel Lee;

With a love that the winged seraphs of heaven

Coveted her and me.

 

And this was the reason that, long ago,

In this kingdom by the sea,

A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling

My beautiful Annabel Lee;

So that her highborn kinsman came

And bore her away from me,

To shut her up in a sepulchre

In this kingdom by the sea.

 

The angels, not half so happy in heaven,

Went envying her and me-

Yes!- that was the reason (as all men know,

In this kingdom by the sea)

That the wind came out of the cloud by night,

Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee.

 

But our love it was stronger by far than the love

Of those who were older than we-

Of many far wiser than we-

And neither the angels in heaven above,

Nor the demons down under the sea,

Can ever dissever my soul from the soul

Of the beautiful Annabel Lee.

 

For the moon never beams without bringing me dreams

Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;

And the stars never rise but I feel the bright eyes

Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;

And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side

Of my darling- my darling- my life and my bride,

In the sepulchre there by the sea,

In her tomb by the sounding sea.