‘But little Mouse, you are not alone,
In proving foresight may be vain:
The best laid schemes of mice and men
Go often awry,
And leave us nothing but grief and pain,
For promised joy!’
Burns had it with this stanza. This week was my week to finish my website, to plan for the year ahead, and to catch up on ‘life’.
Instead, I got a nasty bug that put me out of commission for the last 72 hours. I tell patients all the time, when you’re sick, just let yourself be sick and honour the healing process. Be good to your body, support your natural defences while fighting a bug. This goes a long way to building up your overall health and immune system.
What did I do? Rage, rage against the dying of the light…Thomas quote totally out of context but sums up my state…
I thought about all the work I had to do, I stressed about the work days I lost, in a feverish delirium, I tried to come up with a plan of how I was going to get everything done.
Absolutely ridiculous!!
Having come back into the light, so to speak, I see how overwhelming and crappy it is to be sick. I have been incredibly healthy over the years and I have to give some credit to homeopathy for this. Maybe once or twice a year I take a remedy to help with whatever the situation calls for. And that has been my health care system for the last 10 years or so. Maybe the odd massage when my back is crinked up from too much computer work. And that’s it.
You can be healthy and get sick. It’s how quickly you bounce back after an episode that shows your real health.
I’m feeling good today. 🙂
Full text of both poems mentioned below…
To a Mouse by Robert Burns
Small, crafty, cowering, timorous little beast,
O, what a panic is in your little breast!
You need not start away so hasty
With argumentative chatter!
I would be loath to run and chase you,
With murdering plough-staff.
I’m truly sorry man’s dominion
Has broken Nature’s social union,
And justifies that ill opinion
Which makes you startle
At me, your poor, earth born companion
And fellow mortal!
I doubt not, sometimes, but you may steal;
What then? Poor little beast, you must live!
An odd ear in twenty-four sheaves
Is a small request;
I will get a blessing with what is left,
And never miss it.
Your small house, too, in ruin!
Its feeble walls the winds are scattering!
And nothing now, to build a new one,
Of coarse grass green!
And bleak December’s winds coming,
Both bitter and keen!
You saw the fields laid bare and wasted,
And weary winter coming fast,
And cozy here, beneath the blast,
You thought to dwell,
Till crash! the cruel plough passed
Out through your cell.
That small bit heap of leaves and stubble,
Has cost you many a weary nibble!
Now you are turned out, for all your trouble,
Without house or holding,
To endure the winter’s sleety dribble,
And hoar-frost cold.
But little Mouse, you are not alone,
In proving foresight may be vain:
The best laid schemes of mice and men
Go often awry,
And leave us nothing but grief and pain,
For promised joy!
Still you are blessed, compared with me!
The present only touches you:
But oh! I backward cast my eye,
On prospects dreary!
And forward, though I cannot see,
I guess and fear!
Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night by Dylan Thomas
Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
And you, my father, there on that sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.