"The Banjo Player"

There is music in me, the music of a peasant people
I wander through the levee, picking my banjo and singing my songs of the cabin and the field
At the Last Chance Saloon I am as welcome as the violets in March;
there is always food and drink for me there, and the dimes of those who love honest music
Behind the railroad tracks the little children clap their hands and love me as they love Kris Kringle
But I fear that I am a failure
Last night a woman called me a troubadour
What is a troubadour?

@PensivePost by #FentonJohnson

Out of the rolling ocean, the crowd, came a drop gently to me,
Whispering, I love you, before long I die,
I have travel’d a long way, merely to look on you, to touch you,
For I could not die till I once look’d on you,
For I fear’d I might afterward lose you.
(Now we have met, we have look’d, we are safe;
Return in peace to the ocean, my love;
I too am part of that ocean, my love—we are not so much separated;
Behold the great rondure—the cohesion of all, how perfect!
But as for me, for you, the irresistible sea is to separate us,
As for an hour, carrying us diverse—yet cannot carry us diverse for ever;
Be not impatient—a little space—Know you, I salute the air, the ocean and the land,
Every day, at sundown, for your dear sake, my love.)

@PensivePost by #WaltWhitman

MAGDALEN WALKS

The little white clouds are racing over the sky,
And the fields are strewn with the gold of the flower of March,
The daffodil breaks under foot, and the tasselled larch
Sways and swings as the thrush goes hurrying by.
A delicate odour is borne on the wings of the morning breeze,
The odour of deep wet grass, and of brown new-furrowed earth,
The birds are singing for joy of the Spring's glad birth,
Hopping from branch to branch on the rocking trees.
And all the woods are alive with the murmur and sound of Spring,
And the rose-bud breaks into pink on the climbing briar,
And the crocus-bed is a quivering moon of fire
Girdled round with the belt of an amethyst ring.
And the plane to the pine-tree is whispering some tale of love
Till it rustles with laughter and tosses its mantle of green,
And the gloom of the wych-elm's hollow is lit with the iris sheen
Of the burnished rainbow throat and the silver breast of a dove.
See! the lark starts up from his bed in the meadow there,
Breaking the gossamer threads and the nets of dew,
And flashing adown the river, a flame of blue!
The kingfisher flies like an arrow, and wounds the air.

@PensivePost by #OscarWilde

SONG

Wintah, summah, snow er shine,
Hit's all de same to me,
Ef only I kin call you mine,
An' keep you by my knee
Ha'dship, frolic, grief er caih,
Content by night an' day,
Ef only I kin see you whaih
You wait beside de way
Livin', dyin', smiles er teahs,
My soul will still be free,
Ef only thoo de comin' yeahs
You walk de worl' wid me
Bird-song, breeze-wail, chune er moan,
What puny t'ings dey'll be,
Ef w'en I's seemin' all erlone,
I knows yo' hea't's wid me

@PensivePost by #PaulLaurenceDunbar

These 41 words should be of some use to any educated person including helping professionals in their speaking, writing, or reading. Like many words, these have multiple definitions. I’ve chosen the definition most widely used, especially in a psychological context.

apperception: perceiving something in light of previous experience.
badinage: banter
baleful: foreboding
benighted: ignorant
cant: informal jargon
casuistry: shallow often dishonest moralizing
contumacious: stubbornly disobedient
craven: contemptibly cowardly
diffident: reticent behavior because of shyness
discomfited: disconcerted
disquisition: an erudite explication
emulous: eager to emulate an older or more respected person
enjoin: an authority ordering an action
expiate: to make amends for
factitious: false or fake
folie a deux: a delusion shared by two people with close emotional ties.
fractious: unruly, quarrelsome
fulsome: excessively flattering
imperious: arrogant and domineering
importune: to implore, to beg urgently or persistently
ineluctable: inescapable as in a conclusion or event.
invidious: unjust, likely to cause anger
lubricious: salacious
lucubrate: to study or write learnedly and laboriously, especially at night.
malediction: a curse
mammon: material wealth that has a debasing influence
meretricious: only superficially attractive, of less worth than is apparent.
miasma: an oppressive or unwholesome atmosphere
nee: the word preceding a maiden name, e.g., Mrs. Smith, nee Jones.
noisome: bad-smelling
peroration: a long, pompous speech.
perquisite: a job’s perk
pertinacious: too persistent
propinquity: proximity or kinship
propitiate: appease
protean: versatile
querulous: whiny
redoubtable: formidable, especially used to describe an opponent
reify: to concretize an abstraction.
venal: predisposed to being corrupted.

Use as many of them as you can in a story.

@PensivePost