| || honor, ethic, gentle, calmly, at length.
Image from the Internet.
The opening poem contains all the words (or variations of them) from today's Jumble.
Comments are welcomed!
Do not explicitly reveal any of the actual answer words until after closing time, but embedding them surreptitiously in comment sentences is encouraged.
11 comments:
Lucas Beaumanoir was an honorable man suffused in the ethic
Of the noble order of the Knight's Templar
And of the founding principles of ascetic discipline he was an exemplar
And as a warrior, nothing short of terrific.
Gentle of course he was not. Nor calm.
His tirades about laxity and loose morals went
On at length and were hardly the balm
That gentle Christian ears heard at a convent
WC
"Life, at Length"
Let thy work ethic teach thee to honor with thy body
all that thy heart must give,
then to lay thee down, Gentles, take solace in a toddy,
and calmly cease to live.
~ OMK
"Sentimentality"
My beau is a man of honor,
generous as a donor,
a man with an admirable ethic
who is kind, but never pathetic.
He's incredibly sweet and gentle,
so my love is not accidental.
I therefore embrace him calmly
and my devotion is not a homily.
His caring goes to such great length
that I consider him a saint.
I just pray that he'll stay true,
and continue to love me too.
Misty & Wilbur ~
Your Beaus seem to have much in common. I enjoy them both.
Beau-Manoir is a sterling sort of chap (from a very nice home!) who maybe goes a bit overboard when it comes to chastening others. Misty's Beau seems to have no failings at all.
At any rate, both come out on the positive side. I don't know yet what Wilbur's guy will be up to when he moves forward in his plot line, but I imagine he will not change his basic nature.
Misty's fellow already comes across as maybe the most cohesive of her several poetic characters. He appears to be an empath, a loving, even saint-like type. It would be good to see him tested with some major life-challenge. Just for dramatic purposes, of course!
~ OMK
As I reflect on it, my own contribution today is a bit of a curiosity.
Unlike your Beaus, mine has no character at all. Just the authorial voice.
I hope it doesn't come across as too cynical. I was aiming again for brevity & managed to squeeze all the clue words into a single sentence.
For some reason I had the old folk song, "Annie Laurie" running as an ear worm* while thinking this one up. I fell asleep and dreamed the song. I worked out the lyrics using the clue words.
I jammed a few extra syllables into lines 1 and 4.
The last part of the song to be edited out were the title words, "Annie" & "Laurie."
I think the remaining sentence has a folk/biblical vibe--maybe worthy of being carved in a lintel.
~ OMK
____________
*Oh yeah, now I remember: I watched an old MGM one-reeler on TCM, a corny story about Scottish clan wars that purported to tell the tale of the song's composition.
Well, how nice that we were all able to write about really decent and good guys this morning. It has everything to do with the Jumble words, doesn't it? When you have honor and ethic and gentle and calm and strength to work with, you can't write about a rotten or crappy person--you have to focus on a good guy.
But after I read your remarks, Ol' Man Keith, I realized that it was actually my wonderful, sweet late husband Rowland who had all those amazing qualities, honorable, ethical, a gentleman, calm, and yet modest and unassuming--he just blew me away with his kind and decent personality. And the fact that he was over 6ft tall and thin and great looking and a Harvard Ph.D. didn't hurt either. The upshot was 21 years of wonderful marriage and a chance to take care of him after he had a stroke 7 years before he passed away. When I look at our photo albums, I just can't believe what a lucky life I was given in my 50s and 60. Maybe that's why all my poems are about good guys--they've just taken over my heart. And, of course, working with great guys on blogs continues my good spirits,
Misty, I suspected you were thinking of Rowland. However...
Beaumanoir is somewhat of the villain in Ivanhoe. He will put Rebecca on trial so that he doesn't have to cashier Sir Brian. He'll say she bewitched him. Of course a lot of it is the stereotypical ignorance of the day.
Imagine a time when folks believed blindly*. Yes he has integrity and honor but does not have an open mind.
Sir Brian appeared in the beginning of the story as an upright unhappy knight. His meeting Rebecca is changing him into a real person.
The Crusades were naked imperialism couched in religious zealotry. Sir Brian "gets" that; the Beaumanoirs see no gray, only black and white.
WC
* Like yesterday's demonstration
OMK, I'll have to look up Annie Laurie. Pathos is a Scots quality, for sure
Wilbur, I'll be following your Sir Brian story with great interest.
Yes, Misty, I also thought of your Rowland, as I read of your "Beau."
After hearing impressive things of him on campus and then reading the memories you've shared of your life together, I could not help but see him behind your latest ode.
I am truly sorry I did not know him personally.
~ OMK
Ol' Man Keith'>, Rowland would have loved your intellectual embellishments of everything, and you would have loved his smart and clever comments. But I'm your go-between and will do my best to serve all your wonderful talents as well as I can.
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