Poem for Thursday, Loki, Brookside Frogs

Lines to Samuel Rogers in Wales on the Eve of Bastille Day, 1791
By Anna Letitia Barbauld

Muse! thy thrilling numbers dart
Thro his ear, and thro his heart:
Chide the youth who holds his stay,
Far from Freedom's band away.

Hanging woods and fairy streams,
Inspirers of poetic dreams,
Must not now the soul enthrall,
While dungeons burst, and despots fall.

Shall peals of village bells prevail
Floating on the Summer gale,
While the Tocsin sounds afar,
Breathing arms, and glorious War?

Think, when woods of brownest shades
Open bright to sunny glades;
Such the gloom, and such the light,
Of Freedom's noon, and Slavery's night.

Harps of Mona! sound once more,
With strong vibrations shake the shore,
Ne'er did your solemn chords relate,
Eventful scenes so big with fate.

Now stretched at hoary Snowden's base,
Hide in shades thy long disgrace,
And blush that Freedom's child should be,
Far from Freedom's jubilee.

-------- 

 I had a nice Wednesday -- some chores in the morning, then I chatted with my high school friends, for less time than we sometimes do now that Google Meet is now limiting groups to an hour, but it was still lovely to catch up with them. It was very hot in the early afternoon, then looked like we were going to get thunderstorms but we only ever had a bit of rain, and we went for a walk during that so it wasn't too awful out. Paul made boeuf bourguignon for Bastille Day and we caught up on The Flash, though I honestly couldn't pass a quiz on what has happened all this season. 

The big TV event of the day of course was Loki, whose season finale I have now watched twice, to much delight though it was not the episode I expected -- after WandaVision and The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, I assumed the TV series would be primarily character-based, so I thought the man behind the curtain would be another Loki. I didn't expect a proper launching of a Phase Four villain! I was pleasantly surprised how talky the episode was and reasonably satisfied -- of course the moral Sylvie would take is that you can't trust your own variants. No Throg, but Brookside Gardens frogs: