No words from me, only a passing memory

"Torna ai felici di"

(Return to the Happy Days)
Roberto's aria from "Le Villi"
an opera by Giacomo Puccini

Roberto:

Here is her house.
O God, what a horrible night!
Weird voices pursue me.The Willis: away with them!
They are imaginings!
No, the fatal vendetta of the Wilis
Does not pursue me!
Viper of Hell!
Thou alone, remorse, dost plague me!
Viper of the poison of Hell!
My anguished thought
Returns to those happy days
When May was gay with flowers
And love blossomed for me!
Then everything was blackened
By lugubrious mysteries,
And now in my heart there is
Naught but sadness and terror!
Perhaps she still lives! I shall knock!
What a shudder ran through me!
I could not lift
My hand to her door!

Willis:

Come, damned soul, make haste!

Roberto:

I seem to hear
A funeral dirge!
O great God! This is the end
Of my journey, of my destiny.
Let forgiveness bring me
A single moment of happiness,
Then I shall die!
I cannot pray!
Ah, cursed be the day
When I left this village!
And cursed be your beauty,
O vile courtesan!

[Editor's Note: I do not much care for tragedy, which the opera, "Le Villi," most certainly is; I always want endings to be happy. But, I greatly appreciate the artistry of Giacomo Puccini and the talent of Placido Domingo -- and, the legend of "the Willis" (the Fairies) fascinates me -- so, here they all are together. By the way, neither do I care much for comedy. No tragedy, no comedy? What else is there? Romance, of course.]

No words from me, only a passing vision

 

"Save All Your Love"
by Jack Russell & Stephan John Williams

I wake in the night
to find you on my mind
Deep in a dream, you'll always be
until the end of time

I look in your eyes
They touch my soul
My love is hard to hide
I'm never alone when we're apart

I feel you by my side
And here in my heart,
where no one else will ever be
I know who you are,
so lock the door and throw away the key

Save all your love
Save your love for me
When I'm alone at night, you're all I see
I wake from a dream and see you by my side

How could I belong to someone else
when holding you feels so right?
And here in my heart
where no one else will ever be
We've made it so far,
so lock the door and throw away the key

Save all your love
Save all your love for me
When I'm alone at night, you're all I see

Save all your love
Save your love for me
Don't turn your back on me
You're all I need

(guitar solo)

I know who you are we've come so far
so baby stay with me ... yeah

Save all your love
Save your love for me
When I'm alone at night, you're all I see

Save all your love
Save your love for me
Don't turn your back on me
You're all I need

Save your love
Save your love
Save all your love
Save, save all your love

Save your love
Baby save all your love
Save all your love

No words from me, only a passing rainbow

"Catch the Rainbow"
by Ronnie James Dio & Ritchie Blackmore

She'll run to me
Like whispered dreams
Your eyes can't see
Soft and warm
She'll touch my face
A bed of straw
Against the lace

We believed we'd catch the rainbow
Ride the wind to the sun
Sail away on ships of wonder
But life's not a wheel
With chains made of steel
So bless me come the dawn
Come the dawn

View while walking down the aisle

When one walks through the doors and enters a gun shop which he has not visited for a couple of decades (living here and there and elsewhere and everywhere during the interim), one is not exactly sure what he will find there. This, ladies and gentlemen, is what I found on such an occasion last week. Those who know me here on this blog are aware that I am in love with firearms the way some men are in love with automobiles or fishing gear, and that I not only enjoy owning them and firing them, but I like to work on them and to modify them and to repair them. I went to this particular gun shop looking for parts for an antique shotgun I recently purchased. You can only imagine what a feast for my eyes this sight offered to me. Yes, this is one aisle I walked down with a great deal of pleasure and no trepidation.

View through a looking glass

Do Wind and Wave ever meet, ever merge, or do they always rush on past each other with no direction of their own, driven only by the forces of Nature to control and to guide them? It appears Claude Debussy had a musical answer to the question. Hmmmm. Moving right along, what do we have here? Another mystery photograph, it would seem, taken only a few days ago of an unknown woman on an unknown beach by an unknown sea. Is she waving? Or, is she beckoning? To borrow a few lines from the lyrics of the song, "Beyond the Sea:"

Somewhere beyond the sea,
Somewhere, waiting for me,
My lover stands on golden sands ....

It's far beyond a star,
It's near beyond the moon,
I know beyond a doubt
My heart will lead me there soon.

We'll meet beyond the shore,
We'll kiss just as before.
Happy we'll be beyond the sea ....