Wednesday, February 6, 2008

Woolf Burns.

Catching up on some Writer’s Almanac podcasts, ran across one from Jan. 25 with the birthdays of two great writers, perhaps not likely to be found at the same birthday bash.

From the great Robbie Burns, Bonie Doon:






















Ye flowery banks o’ bonie Doon,
How can ye blume sae fair?
How can ye chant, ye little birds,
And I sae fu’ o’ care?

Thou’ll break my heart, thou bonie bird,
That sings upon the bough;

Thou minds me o’ the happy days,
When my fause luve was true.

Thou’ll break my heart, thou bonie bird,
That sings beside thy mate:
For sae I sat, and sae I sang,
And wist na o’ my fate.

Aft have I roved by bonie Doon
To see the wood-bine twine,
And ilka bird sang o’ its luve,
And sae did I o’ mine.

Wi’ lightsome heart I pu’d a rose
Frae aff its thorny tree;
And my fause luver staw my rose,
But left the thorn wi’ me.



and writing advice from Virginia Woolf from A Room of One’s Own:





















So long as you write what you wish to write, that is all that matters; and whether it matters for ages or only for hours, nobody can say. But to sacrifice a hair of the head of your vision, a shade of its colour, in deference to some Headmaster with a silver pot in his hand or to some professor with a measuring-rod up his sleeve, is the most abject treachery, and the sacrifice of wealth and chastity, which used to be said to be the greatest of human disasters, a mere flea-bite in comparison.