[Mini-Bio]: AESCHYLUS (525-456 B.C.E.)

Greek playwright. Born at Eleusis, Aeschylus began his career as
a dramatist during the 490s B.C.E. He was one of the most popular
tragedians of his period, winning thirteen victories in the Athenian
competitions. As was customary for the day, Aeschylus played the
lead in many of his own plays. He is credited with expanding the
dramatic capacitites of tragedy by introducing multiple characters
and reducing the role of the chorus.

Although Aeschylus is believed to have written about ninety plays,
only seven bearing his name survive, comprising the oldest corp-
us of Greek drama still extant. Six plays have been authenticated:
The Persians (472 B.C.E.), Seven Against Thebes (467), and The
Suppliant Women (466-459); and Agamemnon, The Libation-
Bearers, and Eumenides, a trilogy of works that together form the
Oresteia (458). (Prometheus Bound, once ascribed to Aeschylus,
is now thought to belong to a later era.) Scholars maintain that
most, if not all, of his plays fit into larger play cycles, most of
which have been lost.

Human history as a progression of guilt and vengeance, honor,
pride, and criminality is the great theme of Aeschylus' work. He
dramatizes the precarious situation of mankind, battered by the
often petty demands and punishments of the gods, driven to crime
and despondency by the passions of the immortals. Some critics,
however, contend that Aeschylus believed that the cycle of moral
corruption and decay could be broken, and that the future of Athen-
ian democracy might offer an escape from tragedy.

--Dictionary of Global Culture, Kwame Appiah & Henry L.
   Gates, Jr., Editors

INSCRIPTION - Franklin

I never knew either my Father or Mother to have any Sickness but that of which
they dy'd, he at 89 & she at 85 years of age. They lie buried together at Boston,
where I some years since placed a Marble stone over their Grave with this Inscription:

                                                          Josiah Franklin
                                                       And Abiah his Wife
                                                         Lie here interred.
                                       They lived lovingly together in Wedlock
                                                           Fifty-five Years.
                                  Without an Estate or any gainful Employment,
                                             By constant labour and Industry,
                                                        With God's blessing,
                                                 They maintained a large Family
                                                            Comfortably;
                                           And brought up thirteen Children,
                                                  And seven Grand Children
                                                              Reputably.
                                                 From this Instance, Reader,
                                      Be encouraged to Diligence in thy Calling
                                                 And distrust not Providence.
                                               He was a pious & prudent Man,
                                           She a discreet and virtuous Woman.
                                                        Their youngest Son,
                                            In filial Regard to their Memory,
                                                        Places this Stone.
                                         J.F. born 1655 -- Died 1744 --AEtat 89
                                          A.F. born 1667 -- died 1752 ------85

                                                         --The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin

A Portrait of the Artist...

In the 1916 classic autobiographical novel A Portrait
of the Artist as a Young Man, author James Joyce
tells of an artist who has his portrait painted in his youth.
Over the course of his life as the young man's character
changes, so does the portrait, until it becomes a hideous
depiction of his soul as reflected in his face. Though the
story is surreal, the phenomenon can be quite true in
every person's life.

You do become the artist who paints your own portrait
from the inside out--your character. You paint it habit by
habit, day by day, line by line, shadow upon shadow.
Each conversation you have adds its own color to the can-
vas. Each dilemma carves a new dimension. Every decision
creates new depth. Failures and successes give perspec-
tive. Over time, each trait blends into the final character
profile.

The canvas is yours. Your character is ready for your crea-
tion. It will be your most priceless possession. You have
final say about what goes into it. After you've completed it,
no one can destroy it or alter it. Once you sign your name
to it and leave your earthly studio, you will always be re-
membered by this final, distinctive work of art.

--Dianna Booher
   Your Signature Life
  

The Falling of the Leaves

Autumn is over the long leaves that love us,
And over the mice in the barley sheaves;
Yellow the leaves of the rowan above us,
And yellow the wet wild-strawberry leaves.

The hour of the waning of love has beset us,
And weary and worn are our sad souls now;
Let us part, ere the season of passion forget us,
With a kiss and a tear on thy drooping brow.

--William Butler Yeats

Plant A Tree

He who plants a tree
   Plants a hope.
   Rootlets up through fibres blindly grope;
Leaves unfold into horizons free.
   So man's life must climb
   From the clods of time
   Unto heavens sublime.
Canst thou prophesy, thou little tree,
What the glory of thy boughs shall be?

He who plants a tree
   Plants a joy;
   Plants a comfort that will never cloy;
Every day a fresh reality,
   Beautiful and strong,
   To whose shelter throng
   Creatures blithe with song.
If thou couldst but know, thou happy tree,
Of the bliss that shall inhabit thee!

He who plants a tree,--
   He plants peace.
   Under its green curtains jargons cease.
Leaf and zephyr murmur soothingly;
   Shadows soft with sleep
   Down tired eyelids creep,
   Balm of slumber deep,
Never has thou dreamed, thou blessed tree,
Of the benediction thou shalt be.

He who plants a tree,--
   He plants youth;
   Vigor won for centuries in sooth;
Life of time, that hints eternity!
   Boughs their strength uprear:
   New shoots, every year,
   On old growths appear;
Thou shalt teach the ages, sturdy tree,
Youth of soul is immortality.

He who plants a tree,--
   He plants love,
   Tents of coolness spreading out above
Wayfarers he may not live to see.
   Gifts that grow are best;
   Hands that bless are blest;
   Plant! life does the rest!
Heaven and earth help him who plants a tree,
And his work its own reward shall be.

--Lucy Larcom (1826-1893)
 

America for Me

'Tis fine to see the Old World, and travel up and down
Among the famous palaces and cities of renown,
To admire the crumbly castles and the statues of the kings,--
But now I think I've had enough of antiquated things.

   So it's home again, and home again, America for me!
   My heart is turning home again, and there I long to be,
   In the land of youth and freedom beyond the ocean bars,
   Where the air is full of sunlight and the flag is full of stars.

Oh, London is a man's town, there's power in the air;
And Paris is a woman's town, with flowers in her hair;
And it's sweet to dream in Venice, and it's great to study Rome;
But when it comes to living there is no place like home.

I like the German fir-woods, in green battalions drilled;
I like the gardens of Versailles with flashing fountains filled;
But, oh, to take your hand, my dear, and ramble for a day
In the friendly western woodland where Nature has her way!

I know that Europe's wonderful, yet something seems to lack:
The Past is too much with her, and the people looking back.
But the glory of the Present is to make the Future free,--
We love our land for what she is and what she is to be.

   Oh, it's home again, and home again, America for me!
   I want a ship that's westward bound to plough the rolling sea,
   To the blessed Land of Room Enough beyond the ocean bars,
   Where the air is full of sunlight and the flag is full of stars.

--Henry Van Dyke (1852-1933)

The Spires of Oxford

(As seen from the train)

I saw the spires of Oxford
   As I was passing by,
The grey spires of Oxford
   Against a pearl-grey sky;
My heart was with the Oxford men
   Who went abroad to die.

The years go fast in Oxford
   The golden years and gay;
The hoary colleges look down
   On careless boys at play,
But when the bugles sounded--War!
   They put their games away.

They left the peaceful river,
   The cricket field, the quad,
The shaven lawns of Oxford,
   To seek a bloody sod.
They gave their merry youth away
   For country and for God.

God rest you, happy gentlemen,
   Who laid your good lives down,
Who took the khaki and the gun
   Instead of cap and gown.
God bring you to a fairer place
   Than even Oxford town.

--Winifred M. Letts