Disney Princessing it up!

I am a Disney Princess. We've established this multiple times on several blogs, including this one. A few weeks ago, I was given the honor of helping a little male Carolina Wren build a nest in an orchid pot on my potting shelf on our porch. I was very excited. I stood by the bench and cut yarn for him to use. I would drop it on the top and he would grab it and work his very skilled talents into the pot. He also found some materials that he liked that were too heavy. He dragged them onto the porch to me so that I could lift them to the bench for him. It was awesome.

When he wooed his lady I helped him guard her. She laid five perfect eggs. Now they are five cheeping babies and I am about as proud as an extended bird relative can be. Here are our pictures.

The nest that I helped build.

Five beaks! 

This is Momma Wren. She won't get as close to me as Papa, but she lets me close to her babies and I take that as the compliment it is.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson

The Poet's Mind

I

VEX not thou the poet's mind

With thy shallow wit:

Vex not thou the poet's mind;

For thou canst not fathom it.

Clear and bright it should be ever,

Flowing like a crystal river;

Bright as light, and clear as wind.

II

Dark-brow'd sophist, come not anear;

All the place is holy ground;

Hollow smile and frozen sneer

Come not here.

Holy water will I pour

Into every spicy flower

Of the laurel-shrubs that hedge it around.

The flowers would faint at your cruel cheer.

In your eye there is death,

There is frost in your breath

Which would blight the plants.

Where you stand you cannot hear

From the groves within

The wild-bird's din.

In the heart of the garden the merry bird chants.

It would fall to the ground if you came in.

In the middle leaps a fountain

Like sheet lightning,

Ever brightening

With a low melodious thunder;

All day and all night it is ever drawn

From the brain of the purple mountain

Which stands in the distance yonder.

It springs on a level of bowery lawn,

And the mountain draws it from heaven above,

And it sings a song of undying love;

And yet, tho' its voice be so clear and full,

You never would hear it, your ears are so dull;

So keep where you are; you are foul with sin;

It would shrink to the earth if you came in.