*green peace for ever*
A long time ago (April, 1905), in a world far far away (St. Petersburg), an outstanding poet by the name of Alexander Blok wrote a poem called The Little Priest of Marshland or The Marsh Little Priest that ended in this way (translation is mine):

…He takes off his hat and prays
for the blade of grass that sways
for every animal’s bad paw
and for the Pope.
Don’t fear the quagmire--
the little black cope saves everywhere.

Reading the poem I though why the Marsh Little Priest? And I quickly could answer the question: in Russian the “duckweed” that covers stagnant water is the word that can be translated as “the little cope” or “the little vestment” or “the little cassock”. So, as I think, the poet says to himself: if there is the little vestment of a priest, then there should be the little priest himself, who dwells in the marshland, saying his prayers among the hillocks and stagnant water covered with duckweed. And he invents the Marsh Little Priest who is a fairy personage akin to a gnome or wood-goblin or rather marsh-goblin or nix. The poem that depicts this fairy entity and his environment is from the cycle of poems entitled Bubbles of the Earth. In THE TRAGEDY OF MACBETH by William Shakespeare we can read: “BANQUO. The earth hath bubbles as the water has, And these are of them. Whither are they vanish'd?” And the town of St. Petersburg, as my reader knows, was built on the marshland.

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Blok’s poetry related graffiti

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*rereading Shakespeare*
Two green peace themed quotations:

"...swearing that we
Are mere usurpers, tyrants and what's worse,
To fright the animals and to kill them up
In their assign'd and native dwelling-place".
(Shakespeare, As You Like It)

"...And this our life exempt from public haunt
Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks,
Sermons in stones and good in every thing.
I would not change it".
(Shakespeare, As You Like It)

*creative writing and arts conception*
“…for affection,
Mistress of passion, sways it to the mood
Of what it likes or loathes”.
(Shakespeare, Merchant of Venice)
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reading some books:
“We should look for knowledge where we may expect to find it, and why should a man be despised who goes in search of it? Those who remain at home may grow richer and live more comfortably than those who wander; but I desire neither to live comfortably nor to grow rich.” (Paracelsus)

"…while desiring to be rid of prejudice, to refrain from all passion, every man goes for choice to those works which correspond most intimately with his own temperament and he ends by relegating all the rest to the background". (Joris-Karl Huysmans, A Rebours)

"…and indeed it is very true that, just as the finest air in the world is vulgarized beyond all bearing once the public has taken to hum it and the street organs to play it, so the work of art that has appealed to the sham connoisseurs, that is admired by the uncritical, that is not content to rouse the enthusiasm of only a chosen few, becomes for this very reason, in the eyes of the elect, a thing polluted, commonplace, almost repulsive." (Joris-Karl Huysmans, A Rebours)

"Nations have always good reasons for being what they are, and the best of all is that they cannot be otherwise." (Marquis de Custine(1790–1857), Empire of the Czar: A Journey Through Eternal Russia)

"The love of their country is with them only a mode of flattering its master; as soon as they think that master can no longer hear, they speak of everything with a frankness which is the more startling because those who listen to it become responsible." (Marquis de Custine, Empire of the Czar: A Journey Through Eternal Russia)

"I came here to see a country, but what I find is a theater... The name are the same as everywhere else... In appearances everything happens as it does everywhere else. There is no difference except in the very foundation of things." (Marquis de Custine, Empire of the Czar: A Journey Through Eternal Russia)

"If a God had made this world, I should not like to be that God; the misery of the world would break my heart." (Schopenhauer)
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*Easter musings*
There is a poem Hamlet by the famous Russian poet Boris Pasternak, and it’s most interesting to know my reader’s opinion whether the author exact depicting Shakespeare’s personage or not:

The murmurs ebb; onto the stage I enter.
I am trying, standing in the door,
To discover in the distant echoes
What the coming years may hold in store.

The nocturnal darkness with a thousand
Binoculars is focused onto me.
Take away this cup, O Abba Father,
Everything is possible to Thee.

I am fond of this Thy stubborn project,
And to play my part I am content.
But another drama is in progress,
And, this once, O let me be exempt.

But the plan of action is determined,
And the end irrevocably sealed.
I am alone; all round me drowns in falsehood:
Life is not a walk across a field.
(1946)

In my view, in this poem the author mixes up (deliberately) images of Hamlet and Jesus. I remember, how I was sorry for Jesus, when I was a kid. Then I saw the movie Hamlet (Russian version), and Hamlet had become the second literary personage after Jesus, who I was sorry for--feeling it in the same way. Then, being a schoolgirl, I read the play Hamlet and felt the same what I felt to him when I was younger, being impressed yet more. Of the poem Hamlet (as well as of all the rest Pasternak’s poems and of his novel) I could learn only in 1989, and now it’s most interesting to see that the author of the poem shares my delusion (or very personal opinion) concerning the two personages. At present, following Vladimir Nabokov I can say: “I love junction of times” (!!)
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