Saturday’s Mix–3 June 2017

Welcome back to Saturday’s Mix.  I am currently in the middle of having kids on the farm.  It’s a fun and hectic time, so I thought we’d try to embrace the country life today.  We are going to look at the pastoral–a poem that looks at rural life in an idealized and romanticized way.

credit: Eden Hills

Virgil wrote many poems in the pastoral tradition.  Here is an excerpt from The Georgics Poem:

What makes the cornfield smile; beneath what star
Maecenas, it is meet to turn the sod
Or marry elm with vine; how tend the steer;
What pains for cattle-keeping, or what proof
Of patient trial serves for thrifty bees;-
Such are my themes.
O universal lights
Most glorious! ye that lead the gliding year
Along the sky, Liber and Ceres mild,
If by your bounty holpen earth once changed
Chaonian acorn for the plump wheat-ear,
And mingled with the grape, your new-found gift,
The draughts of Achelous; and ye Fauns
To rustics ever kind, come foot it, Fauns
And Dryad-maids together; your gifts I sing.

credit: Eden Hills

Note, the poetry does not have to have specific requirements other than the romantic treatment of rural life.  Feel free to choose your own poetic form.  If you prefer, you can write in poetic prose.  You may use one of the images for inspiration.

Once you’ve written your piece please tag your work Mindlovesmisery’s Menagerie and Saturday Mix then either ping back or put a link to your work in the comments below.  To make things simpler you can add your link to the Mr. Linky app below so everyone will be able to quickly find your work.

Teresa

About Teresa

I am a woman with many hats--teacher, farmer, photographer, writer.

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