In honor of Veterans’ Day, I am posting today’s poem from this book, Poem a Day.  I picked up my copy of this book for 25 cents at a thrift store.  I don’t read each day’s entry, but I do pick it up a few times a month.  I have enjoyed it as it provides me with a little literary thought to ponder now and again.

Gethsemane (1914 – 1918)

The Garden called Gethsemane

In Picardy, it was.

And there the people came to see

The English soldiers pass

We used to pass–we used to pass

Or halt, as it might be,

And ship our masks in case of gas

Beyond Gethsemane.

The Garden Called Gethsemane,

It held a pretty lass,

But all the time she talked to me

I prayed my cup might pass.

The officer sat on the chair,

The men lay on the grass,

And all the time we halted there

I prayed my cup might pass.

It didn’t pass–it didn’t pass–

It didn’t pass for me.

I drank it when we met the gas

beyond Gethsemane.

                             —Rudyard Kipling (30 December 1865 – 18 January 1936)

The armistice ending the First World War was signed on 11 November 1918.  Kipling’s son John was killed in the Battle of Loos on 27 September 1915.

I was just checking out my list of books that I am supposedly reading on the ole sidebar.  And, I see I need to change these out.  To be honest, I have been reading the same books for months without getting very far.  It seems every time I sit down long enough to read anything, I start to fall asleep.  Hmmm . . .  I am hoping to remedy this over the Christmas holiday.

But what happened to those books I have on the sidebar?

1.  Keeping the World Away This is a book by Margaret Forster that I picked up from the library.  I thought I would enjoy it because I had really liked Forster’s novel, Lady’s Maid, a fictional biograpy of the maid of Elizabeth Barrett Browning.  I guess the possible story of painter Gwen John did not have a strong enough appeal to me since I had never heard of her until I picked up this book.  So when the 2-week loan period at the library ended, this book went back to the library shelf.

2. Parenting Today’s Adolescent  I am still trying to read this one, but I guess I’ve been too busy trying to parent my own adolescent to spend much time reading about it.

3. The Solace of Leaving Early This is another book I picked up at the library because I read and enjoyed another work by the same author.  Haven Kimmel wrote A Girl Named Zippy, which is a quirky, funny memoir about the author’s upbringing in rural Indiana.  It is one of my favorite books.  Solace is well-written, and it has elements of Kimmel’s voice, but it is much darker.  So once again, when thw 2 week loan period was over, I returned Solace to the library.  But I like Haven Kimmel enough to give it another try . . . maybe very soon.

In the next couple days I’ll change out my reading list with what I am really reading.  Until then, maybe some of my cast offs will appeal to you, and you can convince me to read them.

I just finished the little novel, Cranford, by Elizabeth Gaskell.  I took a long time to finish it after getting halfway through on our cruise the last week of July, but this is not because it is a poorly written or uninteresting book.  I just meandered through it a few pages a day because life got busy with school starting and work stuff and appliances breaking down.  But this morning, I had a little time to myself, and I finished the last 2 chapters.  I can’t recommend this book enough to all you Jane Austen fans out there.  If you like Jane, you’ll like the worlds that Eliabeth Gaskell creates.

Cranford is a small English town inhabited mostly by women.  There are men associated with the town, but they are not on the scene very much.  Gaskell paints a very comfortable picture of country living in England in the late 1800s with characters that you want to know and emulate in your life.  The 2 main characters are Miss Matty and her regular companion, Miss Mary Smith, who serves as the narrator.   The book is very much character driven, with each chapter revealing something about the town’s women through short vignettes of the events and goings on in Cranford.  Gaskell’s narrative has a pleasant ending that makes the reader appreciate Miss Matty even more and that demonstrates the benefits of living a meaningful quiet life being kind to those around you.

Annie Barlow told me there is a BBC dvd series based on this book a few months back.  I am anxiously awaiting an opportunity to watch them now that I’ve finished the book.

I was able to get back to the library Wednesday and checked out Belong to Me again.  I wasn’t feeling great yesterday, so I used that as an excuse/opportunity to finish it.  I enjoyed the story and the author’s ability to draw me in to the community she created.  This isn’t a recommendation, so if you decide to read it, don’t blame me if the morals, etc., are offensive to you.  However, if you like contemporary television dramas, you will probably like this book.

I might write more about this book later, but I might not.  For now, let’s just say I did ok with picking this book based on the cover.