#the springtide of life

[thefugitivesaint]

Arthur Rackham (1867-1939), ''The Springtide of Life'' by Algernon Charles Swinburne, 1918 Source

[cosmopoliturtle]

New Gospel - Window to Worlds

"Hark! Good folk of our Fair Kingdom! The clock hand recoils, the axe hangs low. Vernorexia is here; the endless Springtide. Beasts grow hungry for the nectar of the living and the flowers of the dead. Kingdom after kingdom is met with gnashing fangs and grinding tusks, left roiled into dust. Here within the twilight of reality, with life teetering on the precipice, the Saint of Awakening comes to us.

Chosen by Angels, riding on the back of Demon, she wields Divine Fire with rancour unmatched. Under the looping Spring Moon, we will be witness to her miracles, both inspiring and dreadful. Whether a blessing, a butcher, or a blight, she will leave her mark on what's left of our world."

----------------------

This piece was made for "Window to Worlds 2024", a free zine focused on original characters and worlds, featuring both written and illustrative works by many talented worldbuilders! Check it out!

[broadwaydivastournament]

Movie Musical Divas Tournament: Round 1

Chita Rivera (1933-2024): Sweet Charity (1969) - Nickie | Once Upon a Brothers Grimm (1977) | Pippin: His Life and Times (1982) as Fastrada

"chita rivera deserves justice. despite her starring turns in multiple stage productions, she was denied the opportunity to reprise her roles on screen. for west side story, she was "too old" (and let's be real, was considered "too ethnic") so the studio went with rita moreno who despite being a year older was more conventionally pretty (meaning she looked less overtly ethnic like chita). and then with bye bye birdie they just made rosie a white woman and you can't tell me it wasn't because they didn't want to depict an interracial relationship. in short. justice for chita, one of the best dancers we'll ever see." - anonymous

Jane Powell (1929-2021):

[HQ] How Could You Believe Me (Royal Wedding-1951) Jeanette MacDonald and Jane Powell sing Grieg's "Våren" ("Springtide"), op. 33, no. 2 - @mygreatadventurehasbegun

This is Round 1 of the Movie Musical Divas tournament. Additional polls in this round may be found by searching #mmround1, or by clicking the link below. Add your propaganda and support by reblogging this post.

ADDITIONAL PROPAGANDA AND MEDIA UNDER CUT: ALL POLLS HERE

Chita Rivera:

Photos and video submitted by: anonymous

Jane Powell:

Photo and video submitted by: @mygreatadventurehasbegun

[shroudkeeper]

I had a dream last night..

Where you wore the junihitoe robes I gifted you, dyed the color of springtide blooms to match the earrings you always favor. On your skin was the scent of flowers, reminding me of the ephemeral season when life is returned anew to the earth.

We bathed under the speckled sunlight lancing through the sway of bamboo branches, embraced for bells at a time while whispering to you all the things that would cause your smile to surface upon your painted lips. In your silence, your warm gaze speaks of the things you can not verbally say.

It was a good dream, a dream I would seek to make a reality.

[chloesentries]

springtide flashbacks

days are getting warmer

and i wind up thinking of you

i roll the windows down in the passenger seat of your little blue car

our shared playlist drifting through the speakers

i'm singing along to a tune we're both familiar with and you smile at me like i'm the brightest light in your life

the air is cool; your hoodie the perfect blanket and the spring breeze flows through my hair and skims the loose lining of your car's ceiling, mimicking ocean waves

-

days are getting warmer again

and i still think of you

i cocoon myself in the little warmth my empty bed provides

a deafening silence surrounds the atmosphere

and the undrawn curtains hinder any sunlight spilling through to the dark abyss of my room

the air is still and tears trickle down my cheeks, sinking into a hoodie i wish wasn't my own

visions of us swim in my mind

and drown in the unavoidable reality of what we are now ... nothing

[roaringdr4gon]

@draconicfool -> Dan Feng & Shoi-Ming (Past Life)

Meetings between the High Elders are more common than what the folk might think. Just as the Arbiter Generals gather under the Marshal of the Alliance, the Five Elders gather to discuss affairs related to the Vidyadhara as a whole. Granted, the conferences aren’t happening always, and some might take centuries to happen. That’s because there is no need for them to reunite— but when it does happen, the conference is filled with powerful figures that want to get to the root of the problem as soon as possible.

These conferences are, in their overall, meetings to discuss problems. Aside from it, the Elders of the Vidyadhara remain polite and respectful towards one another— they did share friendships in the past— and some decide to rewind the bonds long lost to the past.

That’s why Imbibitor Lunae left for the Yuque a few days ago. Mons Grandis’ invite to share the view of the springtides has been accepted, and given the pace faced by the two ships— something joyful and very much new, given the way the Alliance goes around searching for enemies— Dan Feng had been amenable to the trip. Now, he’s sat in front of a guqin, Sakura wine set at his side, and a pretty fellow High Elder coming closer. Imbibitor Lunae rises from his seat with elegant movements, proud but at ease. “Mons Grandis,” he greets with a nod, earring dangling from his long ears, “thank you for the invite. Just as you said, the view is impeccable. The Xianzhou natives certainly know how to do their craft.”

[cagemasterfantasy]

Enamorus the Love-Hate pokemon a fairy and flying type

Enamorus is a female only species

5ft 3inc

105.8lbs

Ability: Cute Charm Hidden Ability: Contrary Hidden Ability: Overcoat

Highest Base Stat: Special Attack:135

Lowest Base Stat: Incarnate Form: Defense:70 Therian Form: Speed:46

Base Stat Total: 580

Incarnate Form: When it flies to this land from across the sea, the bitter winter comes to an end. According to legend, this Pokemon's love gives rise to the budding of fresh life across Hisui.

Therian Form: A different guise from its feminine humanoid form. From the clouds, it descends upon those who treat any form of life with disrespect and metes out wrathful, ruthless punishment.

Enamorus is the only pokemon that can learn the move Springtide Storm (The user attacks by wrapping opposing Pokemon in fierce winds brimming with love and hate. This also has a 30% chance to lower their Attack stats.)

[prayers-to-hyliarceus]

Hear my words and head my call, fear the darkness and seek comfort with the thrall. See my eyes and hear my voice, look into this and surmise that which is a hoist. The sails of leather, the rope and tether, all awashed with stains of old. The cannons of steel, the slimy eels, all a part of this wonderful life. Oh, how I revel in this world, the feel of a springtide's air, the lack of despair above the murky waters below. I wish it would be that I would be here every day, but my people's calling is more important, and the inevitable return to the sea calls me. Such is my curse, and the cruelty of the beauty of this land. Fleeting memories of meeting friends like you, washed away by the waves in a never-ending yet gentle storm, as everything drifts away, slowly but ever on. In these waters, I am alone, but while I am surfaced, I have friends, I have great experiences... I have a life. And that... That is more than worth the wait of the times in between. -Mistress Maiden of the Seven Seas, Mipha, whilst aboard The Leviathan

Beautiful, isn't it? She wrote this many years ago, when me crew was lucky enough to have her aboard. We be nearin' her restin' place soon, and we thinks she may grace us with her presence again. -Captain Plunder of Scourge Bay

Oh

Oh. I.

I see.

She. She's gone then?

Gah, just. Nevermind. She's not the same Mipha, anyway.

[beardedmrbean]

A greater share of young adults say they believe in a higher power or God.

About one-third of 18-to-25-year-olds say they believe—more than doubt—the existence of a higher power, up from about one-quarter in 2021, according to a recent survey of young adults. The findings, based on December polling, are part of an annual report on the state of religion and youth from the Springtide Research Institute, a nonpartisan nonprofit.

Young adults, theologians and church leaders attribute the increase in part to the need for people to believe in something beyond themselves after three years of loss. 

For many young people, the pandemic was the first crisis they faced. It affected everyone to some degree, from the loss of family and friends to uncertainty about jobs and daily life. In many ways, it aged young Americans and they are now turning to the same comfort previous generations have turned to during tragedies for healing and comfort. 

Believing in God “gives you a reason for living and some hope,” says Becca Bell, an 18-year-old college student from Peosta, Iowa.

Ms. Bell, like many in her age group, doesn’t attend Mass regularly as she did as a child because of studies and work. But she explores her faith by following certain people on social media, including one young woman who talks openly about her own life and belief, which Ms. Bell, who was raised Catholic, says she finds more meaningful and relevant. 

The Springtide survey uses the term “higher power,” which can include God but isn’t limited to a Christian concept or specific religion, to capture the spectrum of believers. Many young adults say they don’t necessarily believe in a God depicted in images they remember from childhood or described in biblical passages, but do believe there is a higher benevolent deity. 

Other polls, including Gallup, ask specifically about believing in God and show a decline in young adults who believe in God.

The Rev. Darryl Roberts, pastor of the Nineteenth Street Baptist Church in Washington, D.C., says the pandemic, racial unrest, fears of job loss and other economic worries, stripped away the protective layers that many young people felt surrounded them. No longer feeling invincible, he says, some are turning to God for protection.

“We are seeing an openness to transcendence among young people that we haven’t seen for some time,” says Abigail Visco Rusert, associate dean at Princeton Theological Seminary and an ordained pastor in the Presbyterian Church.

At the same time many young adults say they feel disconnected from organized religion over issues like racial justice, gender equity and immigration rights. And belief in God or a higher power doesn’t necessarily translate into church attendance or religious affiliation. 

A Wall Street Journal-NORC poll published last month found that 31% of younger Americans, ages 18 to 29, said religion was very important to them, which was the lowest percentage of all adult age groups. A Pew Research Center study also released last month found that 20% of 18-to-29-year-olds attend religious services monthly or more, down from 24% in 2019.

Desmond Adel, 27, describes himself as an “agnostic theist,” which is someone who believes in one or more deities but doesn’t know for sure if they exist. He attended church every Sunday as a child, but doesn’t recall “which subset of Christianity” it represented, and quit going as a teen. He says he’s not 100% convinced there is a higher power, but “leans towards” the existence of one that isn’t tied to one denomination.

“I don’t think it’s like any Gods described by major religions,” says Mr. Adel, of Carmel, Ind.

Nicole Guzik, a rabbi at Sinai Temple in Los Angeles, says she’s observed more young adults coming to Friday night services at the synagogue as well as monthly events that might include hikes and yoga in the park.

 “I think this demographic has a need to connect socially and spiritually,” she says. 

Christian Camacho, 24, was raised in a conservative Catholic household and says he has had doubts about God when his parents were going through a divorce and when he was dealing with depression. “How could God allow something like this to happen?” he would ask.  

Over the years, his image and perception of God has changed, from a judgmental punitive God of his childhood to a more accepting one. He thinks this belief is common among his generation, who don’t associate God with a specific organized religion.  

“A lot of people are turned off by the institutions,” says Mr. Camacho, who lives in Minneapolis and is studying to join a religious order. 

Courtney Farthing, 26, who works as a customer-service representative for a call center, attended Baptist and Pentecostal churches growing up and identifies as Christian. Ms. Farthing, who lives in Richmond, Ky., believes in God but says she questioned that belief as a teen.

Now, she says, she chooses to believe. 

“If I ever started to doubt, or believe there wasn’t a God, it would send me into a spiral of ‘What ifs,’ things that I would rather not get into.” 

Alora Nevers, a 29-year-old stay at home mom of four in Sidney, Mont., has always believed in God. She no longer goes to her Catholic church, where, she says, they talked too much about making donations. 

“I would rather praise God the way I do with my family. We pray every night.” 

[feelinsheepish]

🐏🐏🐏🐏!!!

Send me a 🐑 for a sheeptaur fact? :) [accepting]

There are only a handful of sheeptaurs that actually possess magic actively and even if they do, it is very weak and the best way to use it successfully is to preform the same spell together. But their spells are limited mostly to healing and giving life to the crops and plants they need.

Males DO fight each other for the right to 'mate'... Though its more of a test of strength to show a female what they are really capable of and to prove they are able to protect and provide strong offspring. Its not so simple as 'look how strong i am' and 'oh we are a couple now' though, there obviously has to be some chemistry there already. The ramming season is more due to heat and rut.

The sheeptaurs have three major holidays throughout the year and they all celebrate the turning of seasons. Springtide, The Grand Harvest and Wintertide. These celebrations are usually spent singing songs and celebrating nature and the gifts they have, they also give thanks to Akun and wear whats considered to be festive for the season. AKA flower crowns for Spring, berries and leaves for Harvest etc etc

The village is very communal, everyone knows each other to a point where most people are considered as cousins, uncles and aunts even if they aren't blood related. The love for each other is what keeps them strong.

[othernaut]

Character Creation Challenge 2025, Day 5: Infinity The Role-Playing Game

Nothing is so painful to the human mind as a great and sudden change.

It came upon her like a shift in seasons, if such a thing could occur all in an afternoon. Awash in nothing-work, women's articles penned for pay on one of the rare, good afternoons when the thundering pain in her head had weakened and the stiffness and shivers fled from her fingers, she found herself a fey revelation: What if all this world around her was an illusion? At first the thought was an amusement, a tinkerer's toy rattled and rotated in the hands of an idle child, but like the alteration of the seasons, it asserted itself more fully until its splendor entire could not be denied.

The heaviness of the quilted wallpaper and stuffed sedan seemed to gain a papery quality, so thin as to barely bear the pressure of a single finger pressed to its surface. Moths fled the glimmer of the gaslamps and not even a trickle of dust remained to mark their passage. A lightness befell the world, an insubstantiality, as if all that was heavy and real around her became a ghost of itself, springtide cloth woven from intimation and memory.

Memory, that came to her, too. Percy Florence, that still-living warmth within her breast, and all the shades of bygone days that patterned the wall behind his vital figure: these seemed an architect's outline of emotion, a soap-bubble caught momentarily in a spray of starlight. These weighty emotions, that meant so much to Mary as to define her soul entire, lost all heft and heaviness second by second; they were the washed and bleached bones of themselves; a fact stated but unfelt; a museum exhibit to be remarked on by an idiot and then passed by in search of a biscuit and tea. Percy...

Was this how a celestial spirit might remark upon the world? She thought to herself, her pen paused mid-sentence, her suddenly unformed and unreal body splayed upon the sedan. Should a Creator look down upon his Creation, would he see it the same way? The outline of nations, the planning of days, the edifices great and small built, at a remove, out of dry twigs and onion-paper. Even her own self seemed assembled as an amusement. Her hands, one at her lap and one at her board: pocked with age and shriveled by illness and yet, all at once, as plump and youthful as they had ever been. As if no time had passed at all. As if no time could pass, at all.

Percy...

Mary rose suddenly from her seat with an ephemeral ease that had evaded her for decades. To her box-desk, which she had avoided writing at for months due to the stiffness of the chair disagreeing with her age-weakened frame. Her hands shook like wind-rattled trees in early spring, just remembering how to bud, as she picked at the lock on the drawer. Opening the thing was a Sisyphean labor, so heavy it was to drag the little brown partition closer, centimeter by centimeter.

But inside was all the weight of the world, at last. At last. His heart, Percy, uncremated, wrapped in its dearest production. Those little locks of lost childrens' hair, so small, like leaden things rattling around a world drained of matter and meaning. That little book, battered and timeworn, where life's early love scratched back-and-forth across the pages. A smile etched its way across the filmy suggestion of her face. It was all here, after all: all that ever mattered in the world. She reached forward the assumption of a hand to touch it.

The world unfolded like a kaleidoscope image.

Mary was standing, young and strong as she'd ever been, in a bright white room built of no material she had ever known. An alien thing in her head whispered a slow trickle of information, as if from the aether, into the heart of her. She knew, now, the veritable falseness of her memory and, paradoxically, the false verity of how that life and love and experience had felt as if she had experienced it in truth. It was built into her and she was built around it, her body a box to hold this guesswork personality, and from the aether some vast and companionable intelligence was welcoming her into itself, welcoming her to recognize herself, welcoming her home.

The box-desk in front of her (now salvaged, she knew, from an auction warehouse on a distant Earth mere weeks before it flooded) was still open, still there, still real. But there was no more heart inside of it as there was inside of her.

Instead, there was a gun.

*****

Mary Shelley (with a gun)

Agility 10, Awareness 12, Brawn 6, Coordination 10, Intelligence 12, Personality 12, Willpower 10. Custom Lhost: Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley Built For: O-12 (50 Asset debt) Infinity Refresh Rate: 2 Homeworld: Earth Social Class: Middle Home Environment: Happy Home Youth Event: Changed social class/Gained an extended family Education: White Collar Adolescent Event: You fell passionately in love with one of your father's political followers, lost your virginity on your mother's grave, and eloped to travel Europe. Career: Academic Career Events: Gained notoriety as a writer, futurist, and feminist; Was remembered in the wills of relatives.

Skills: Education (Signature, Expertise 3, Focus 2), Persuade (Signature, Expertise 2, Focus 1), Lifestyle (Expertise 1), Observation (Expertise 1), Stealth (Expertise 2), Command (Expertise 1), Medicine (Expertise 1), Science (Signature, Expertise 2), Discipline (Expertise 1), Tech (Expertise 1), Ballistics (Expertise 1), Psychology (Expertise 1) Talents: Fame (1 extra Momentum on a successful social tests, but all Stealth tests are one step harder); Charismatic (Reroll 1d20 on Persuade tests), Disciplined Student (if at least one success is rolled on an Education test, may roll an extra d20) Languages: English, German Character Traits: Ardent Passion Earnings: 3 Cashflow: 6 Assets: 11 Gear: Cube 2.0, Neural Comlog, Stims, Laboratory (3 month lease), Geist (The Heart), Armored Clothing, Assault Pistol, Bioscanner + Medical Supplies, Cosmetics Kit, Fake ID 3

Stress: Firewall: 12 Resolve: 11 Vigour: 6

Bonus Damage: Infowar: +3inf; Psywar: +3inf; Melee: None; Ranged: +3inf.

*****

Oh boy, is Infinity a lot of game.

I was briefly obsessed with the thing. I don't remember where I fell off (probably somewhere between the willingness to buy and paint tiny little Combined Army sniper aliens and a total unwillingness to actually fight other people with them), but Infinity as a world has experienced one of the biggest swings of fascination to disinterest I've experienced in a property. Much like my character for Burning Wheel, my character for the Infinity RPG was built as much to realize a concept as it was to analyze my own response to the property - to examine my initial interest as well as question why it didn't stick.

And oh boy, is Infinity a lot of game. It's a lot of everything - the world is intensely detailed and every interaction with it is fiddly and just unfamiliar enough with the rolling systems that I find it difficult to intuit at a glance just what the hell I should be doing. This is true of the wargame, too, this simultaneous depth and width of design that's so very easy to appreciate at a remove but so very difficult to engage with as a system. The fact that there's so much goodness inherent in it doesn't, at all, detract from just how much is there - curiosity is, as always, subordinate to time.

Infinity is like going to the Lindor factory and coming home with an entire shipping crate full of assorted chocolates, including all the weird ones and the one-offs they do as promotions or seasonal things. It's all good, and it's good in a lot of variety, but that's still an untenable fuckload of chocolate, and you can't eat chocolate for every meal.

Out of all the characters I've built, this one wound up with both the strongest central concept as well as the weakest understanding of how to actually wield her in-game as of yet. In delving into the options, the lifepaths, the backgrounds, the world, I found myself giddy at just what level of conceptually-insane anime-scifi bullshit I could weld together. I had two other, full character concepts before I got ambushed by the gothic spirit of past futurism at 4 AM while making hot dogs, and both were as functionally intriguing and as narratively apt as Mary Shelley With A Gun. The world of Infinity is a compelling one, partly because it's exactly what I like about history superimposed on the future - no big plot moment, like an apocalypse or one technology that changes everything, but a nested series of developments compacted with a whole lot of Humans Acting Like Humans leading to a central conflict that feels as likely as anything we've ever done so far.

But oh fuck, is it a lot. Flipping through the book, looking for talents and equipment, I'd stumble upon entire other sections as if they were complexity landmines - "Oh god, the hacking section," "Oh god, there's an entire psyop mechanic," "Oh god, right, space." Infinity the RPG is, no joke, probably more complex than Shadowrun. I mean, fuck, it's probably more complex than Rifts. And that complexity is as wide as it is deep, with the ability to turbo-customize your biomechanical warfighter destined for combat death or, fifty pages away, run a social media campaign to tell people that aliens are real and they're coming to get you.

This entire exercise, then, is as much of a success as it can be - I found both the reason I initially fell in love with Infinity as well as the reason I stopped engaging with it. And if I want to carry that love forward, it won't be a matter of reading and digesting a book over an evening - I'll have to sit with this thing for months, chewing passages like hard jerky. By the power of futurist romance, I just might.

Next up: Punching people with a building.

[allsoulspriory]

Let the desert and dry region be happy; let the wilderness rejoice and bloom like a lily! — Isa 35:1

Three things make Springtide in the soul. The sense of God’s Presence. We know that He is near, though the woods are bare, the frost holds the earth in its iron grip, and the wind gathers together the dead leaves. Still, we feel Him nearer when every hedgerow is clothed with flowers, every bush burns with fire, every tree claps its leafy hands, and every avenue is filled with sweet choristers—the optimism of an illimitable hope. Spring is the minstrel of Hope. She takes her lyre and sings of the fair Summer, which is on her way; life pours through myriad channels and shows itself stronger than death, for Spring is victorious over Winter, as good shall prove to be over evil—the vitality of Love. Spring is the time of love. The whole creation is attracted by a natural affinity, and love rules in the forest and field.

These three elements met in the returning exiles' hearts, making the world seem young and fair again. The heart views the outer world in lines borrowed from itself. When life is young and gay, all the echoes ring with joy notes, but when the joy of life is fled, what mockery comes back on us from even the tenderest outward scenes!

For us, the lesson is clear. Cherish the sense of the Presence of God; cultivate an illimitable Hope; be conscious of a Love flowing towards and from you. Dwell on the loving-kindness and tender mercy that have preceded and followed you all the days of your life, and for you, too, the wilderness and solitary place will be glad. After all, life is not altogether what circumstances make it. They may be everything that heart can wish, and yet the Frost King may reign within and ease its icy mantle overall, whereas some men and women have everything adverse in their circumstances, but because they have Spring in their hearts, they find flowers and songs everywhere.

The thirsty land shall become springs of water. You know what thirst means���for human affection, appreciation, a word of cheer, success! Yea, that thirsty land! But when your heart is whole of God, you will find it musical with streams, and in the places where dragons lay, there will be a greenery of rushes.

Prayer

Lord Jesus, bring us back from our captivity. Fill our hearts with the sense of Thy presence so that they may be transformed and renewed and filled with the spirit of Heaven. Amen.

#DailyWalk

[tatteredworld]

How’s everyone enjoying your relaxing Springtide celebration? The Tattered World team has been hard at work in the background, taking advantage of this lull to do some spring cleaning on our to-do lists and tackle a variety of pending quality of life tasks, including new quests and items, new achievements and forum backgrounds and continuity updates!

[flashinamore]

Concept Explanation

"Stepping out from the skylight because you might stop worrying and start believing for now!"

It's kind of an abstract love, appealing to springtide in a moment. No one's even know how it gonna take a play at the very first encounter . . as much as we twinkling, it's draw on little beam for no reason.

And finally, after the ups and downs, we get a chance into romanticize the stage of our life again. You might seem wondering what is the future journey will be. Yet, I guarantee it can enamored the night sky amidst the starlight.

Anew tale for us to explore, "A story they'll tell for ages, written in every language." and you always got it, on the palm of your hand ☆

[gwendolynwcde]

Rolling her eyes at Bode’s actions once he promised to do what she suggested, Gwendolyn shook her head and said, “Mmkays, so be it. Welcome to the team.” She then lifted her coffee up as a toast before taking a long sip while listening to the rest of his response. “I know that feeling of restlessness when you’re living the off duty life. Consider this a good balance then from both civilian and your civil duty.” After learning about what Bode knew about the current investigations, she nodded in understanding and began to fill him in on a couple of details. “I'll keep this high level, a couple of months ago during the Springtide Bash, the emergency broadcast system was hijacked and resurfaced talks of Mayor Thompson’s death and the Tattler…” A frown soon settled on her lips as she continued walking and talking, “The daughter of Mayor Todd, Amelia, went missing, but was later found dead which led to his own demise as he took his own life...There was an attempted kidnapping on Ms.Leon which failed and then you’re up to speed with the most recent one between Ms. Madrigal and Mr. Cho during the Mayoral Ball. You can already tell the common denominator amongst each case."

Bode smiled widely, knowing that getting to help the local law enforcement wasn't very easy when you became a fed. Jurisdiction and trust was a big thing, he wouldn't even judge Gwendolyn if she felt protective of her team, but she also knew him well enough to understand he was not there to cause any trouble. They both loved Wilmington, he could be an asset for her investigation. "I promise." He drew a little cross across his heart, grinning back at her. "I won't feel like myself if I'm at home all the time, and my dad would hate it too. He needs me not to fuse at hime every three seconds." He admitted as he shrugged. "Well, I know about the kidnapping on the night I came to town and I've followed the bigger case, you know, the Mayor Thompson case. I have a few things in mind that can help open up the case, if you allow me, of course. But I want the details, of course."

[synchronicobject]

The Message of the March Wind by William Morris Illuminated by Gordon Forsyth (1879-1952) Gifted from the artist to artist Gwladys M. Rodgers of Pilkington's Royal Lancastrian Pottery.

"

Fair now is the springtide, now earth lies beholding With the eyes of a lover, the face of the sun; Long lasteth the daylight, and hope is enfolding The green-growing acres with increase begun.

Now sweet, sweet it is through the land to be straying ’Mid the birds and the blossoms and the beasts of the field; Love mingles with love, and no evil is weighing On thy heart or mine, where all sorrow is healed.

From township to township, o’er down and by tillage Fair, far have we wandered and long was the day; But now cometh eve at the end of the village, Where over the grey wall the church riseth grey.

There is wind in the twilight; in the white road before us The straw from the ox-yard is blowing about; The moon’s rim is rising, a star glitters o’er us, And the vane on the spire-top is swinging in doubt.

Down there dips the highway, toward the bridge crossing over The brook that runs on to the Thames and the sea. Draw closer, my sweet, we are lover and lover; This eve art thou given to gladness and me.

Shall we be glad always? Come closer and hearken: Three fields further on, as they told me down there, When the young moon has set, if the March sky should darken We might see from the hill-top the great city’s glare.

Hark, the wind in the elm-boughs! from London it bloweth, And telleth of gold, and of hope and unrest; Of power that helps not; of wisdom that knoweth, But teacheth not aught of the worst and the best.

Of the rich men it telleth, and strange is the story How they have, and they hanker, and grip far and wide; And they live and they die, and the earth and its glory Has been but a burden they scarce might abide.

Hark! the March wind again of a people is telling; Of the life that they live there, so haggard and grim, That if we and our love amidst them had been dwelling My fondness had faltered, thy beauty grown dim.

This land we have loved in our love and our leisure For them hangs in heaven, high out of their reach; The wide hills o’er the sea-plain for them have no pleasure, The grey homes of their fathers no story to teach.

The singers have sung and the builders have builded, The painters have fashioned their tales of delight; For what and for whom hath the world’s book been gilded, When all is for these but the blackness of night?

How long, and for what is their patience abiding? How oft and how oft shall their story be told, While the hope that none seeketh in darkness is hiding, And in grief and in sorrow the world groweth old?

Come back to the inn, love, and the lights and the fire, And the fiddler’s old tune and the shuffling of feet; For there in a while shall be rest and desire, And there shall the morrow’s uprising be sweet.

Yet, love, as we wend, the wind bloweth behind us, And beareth the last tale it telleth to-night, How here in the spring-tide the message shall find us; For the hope that none seeketh is coming to light.

Like the seed of midwinter, unheeded, unperished, Like the autumn-sown wheat ’neath the snow lying green, Like the love that o’ertook us, unawares and uncherished, Like the babe ’neath thy girdle that groweth unseen;

So the hope of the people now buddeth and groweth, Rest fadeth before it, and blindness and fear; It biddeth us learn all the wisdom it knoweth; It hath found us and held us, and biddeth us hear:

For it beareth the message: “Rise up on the morrow And go on your ways toward the doubt and the strife; Join hope to our hope and blend sorrow with sorrow, And seek for men’s love in the short days of life.”

But lo, the old inn, and the lights, and the fire, And the fiddler’s old tune and the shuffling of feet; Soon for us shall be quiet and rest and desire, And to-morrow’s uprising to deeds shall be sweet."