..but oh that it be true that for one grand and glorious moment, that I escaped the quotidian, there on that blessed ground, that holy ground, upon an emerald lake under a giving sun. Oh to think, as I wind down the slate gray stairs with the exposed insulation, oh to think that I was there...and vicariously I fly to it again, with our dog in the lake, swimming, a life preserver on him, oh the caninity! Oh to be flopping, flapping in the coddling waters of Lake Cumberland....Oh to have been on that pontoon with Aquinas and a beer and the spectacle of it all...the stratified rocky cliffs, the benevolent water, the shade-giving trees....It doesn't matter that I'm not there now, just that I was and glimpsed it and can reclaim it. Like that happy Lab that leapt when his owners returned, so Shakespeare's words jump and sprite to mind!
This royal throne of kings, this scepter'd isle,
This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars,
This other Eden, demi-paradise . . .
This happy breed of men, this little world,
This precious stone set in the silver sea...
Against the envy of less happier lands,
This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England.
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