From the Archive - The Story of the Exploding Cauldron

It was many years ago and I had as I do now a cauldron, although then it was just a small copper affair. It got a lot of use with slips of paper burnt within it, incense and even a candle from time to time. One evening I was engaged in some small scale spell work and I set a slip of faux parchment alight. I dropped the slip of paper into the cauldron and closed my eyes to concentrate.

I slowly became aware that the room was lighter than it perhaps should be and I opened my eyes to see flames nearly a foot high, coming from a cauldron that was barely six inches high. The flames were worryingly close to the curtain at the back of the altar. I raced to the bathroom, grabbed wet a towel, ran back and threw it over the cauldron. There was a very loud crack and the cauldron shattered. On examination I found pieces of copper, two to three inches long embedded in the towel and in the table top.

I soon discovered why this had happened. I had neglected to clean out the cauldron and there was a layer of wax at the bottom. This layer had been set alight when the slip of parchment had been dropped into the cauldron and the parchment had very effectively acted as a wick. There is a lesson here for all beginners.

© Chattering Magpie 2011

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John Dowland - White as Lillies

White as lilies was her face

When she smiled and she beguiled

And I will never find

A love like this again

Lady, as you know

My heart is full of sorrow

For I can't see a face

Wake up with you tomorrow

Your fair looks inflame my desire

Quench it again with love

If love makes my sweet

Come to the silent grovy shade

White as lilies was her face

When she smiled and she beguiled

And I will never find

A love like this again

White as lilies was her face

When she smiled and she beguiled

And I will never find

A love like this again.

Andreas Scholl  performing 'White as lilies' from Les Contre-Ténors

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l2GXMwVuFUs

Thomas Campion - The Man of Life Upright

The man of life vpright,
    Whose guiltlesse hart is free
From all dishonest deedes,
    Or thought of vanitie,

The man whose silent dayes,
    In harmeles ioys are spent,
Whom hopes cannot delude,
    Nor sorrow discontent;

That man needs neither towers
    Nor armour for defence,
Nor secret vautes to flie
    From thunders violence.

Hee onely can behold
    With vnafrighted eyes
The horrours of the deepe
    And terrours of the Skies.

Thus, scorning all the cares
    That fate, or fortune brings,
He makes the heau'n his booke,
    His wisedome heeu'nly things,

Good thoughts his onely friendes,
    His wealth a well-spent age,
The earth his sober Inne
    And quiet Pilgrimage.

Thomas Campion - A Booke of Ayres (1601)

http://www.luminarium.org/renlit/campbib.htm

Thomas Campion - Though You Are Young And I Am Old

Though you are yoong and I am olde,

Though your vaines hot, and my bloud colde,

Though youth is moist, and age is drie,

Yet embers liue, when flames doe die.

The tender graft is easely broke,

But who shall shake the sturdie Oke?

You are more fresh and faire then I,

Yet stubs doe liue when flowers doe die.

Thou that thy youth doest vainely boast,

Know buds are soonest nipt with frost,

Thinke that thy fortune still doth crie,

Thou foole, to-morrow thou must die.

Thomas Campion - A Booke of Ayres (1601)

http://www.luminarium.org/renlit/thoughyouare.htm

Walt Whitman - Are you the new person drawn toward me?

Are you the new person drawn toward me?

To begin with, take warning, I am surely far different from what you suppose;

Do you suppose you will find in me your ideal?

Do you think it so easy to have me become your lover?

Do you think the friendship of me would be unalloy’d satisfaction?

Do you think I am trusty and faithful?

Do you see no further than this façade, this smooth and tolerant manner of me?

Do you suppose yourself advancing on real ground toward a real heroic man?

Have you no thought, O dreamer, that it may be all maya, illusion?

The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost (1916)

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,

And having perhaps the better claim,

Because it was grassy and wanted wear;

Though as for that the passing there

Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden black.

Oh, I kept the first for another day!

Yet knowing how way leads on to way,

I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

A explanation of the poem and its history on the 'Today I found Out' YouTube Channel.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sH3Y_-Hxh_Q&list=TLPQMDQwMTIwMjAhSgzz_zD_7w&index=2