For how long have you been doing this?
I donโt know. For a while now. I just like reading stuff like this.
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I assume for some time before this thread was established already?
Precisely. I would like to read poetry more often and more consistently, but a modern life is very tiring and stressful.
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I see. The state of the habit is stable though, right?
I am attempting to make it a regular habit.
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How close are you to achieving that?
Not even remotely closeโฆ
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Has it not been declining in getting closer to the goal?
I donโt know. Maybe? 
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Well hopefully the goal will be reachedโฆ one dayโฆ
Ulysses
By Alfred, Lord Tennyson, English Poet (6 August 1809 โ 6 October 1892)
It little profits that an idle king,
By this still hearth, among these barren crags,
Matchโd with an aged wife, I mete and dole
Unequal laws unto a savage race,
That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me.
I cannot rest from travel: I will drink
Life to the lees: All times I have enjoyโd
Greatly, have sufferโd greatly, both with those
That loved me, and alone, on shore, and when
Throโ scudding drifts the rainy Hyades
Vext the dim sea: I am become a name;
For always roaming with a hungry heart
Much have I seen and known; cities of men
And manners, climates, councils, governments,
Myself not least, but honourโd of them all;
And drunk delight of battle with my peers,
Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy.
I am a part of all that I have met;
Yet all experience is an arch wherethroโ
Gleams that untravellโd world whose margin fades
For ever and forever when I move.
How dull it is to pause, to make an end,
To rust unburnishโd, not to shine in use!
As thoโ to breathe were life! Life piled on life
Were all too little, and of one to me
Little remains: but every hour is saved
From that eternal silence, something more,
A bringer of new things; and vile it were
For some three suns to store and hoard myself,
And this gray spirit yearning in desire
To follow knowledge like a sinking star,
Beyond the utmost bound of human thought.
This is my son, mine own Telemachus,
To whom I leave the sceptre and the isle,โ
Well-loved of me, discerning to fulfil
This labour, by slow prudence to make mild
A rugged people, and throโ soft degrees
Subdue them to the useful and the good.
Most blameless is he, centred in the sphere
Of common duties, decent not to fail
In offices of tenderness, and pay
Meet adoration to my household gods,
When I am gone. He works his work, I mine.
There lies the port; the vessel puffs her sail:
There gloom the dark, broad seas. My mariners,
Souls that have toilโd, and wrought, and thought with meโ
That ever with a frolic welcome took
The thunder and the sunshine, and opposed
Free hearts, free foreheadsโyou and I are old;
Old age hath yet his honour and his toil;
Death closes all: but something ere the end,
Some work of noble note, may yet be done,
Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods.
The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks:
The long day wanes: the slow moon climbs: the deep
Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends,
'T is not too late to seek a newer world.
Push off, and sitting well in order smite
The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die.
It may be that the gulfs will wash us down:
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,
And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.
Thoโ much is taken, much abides; and thoโ
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
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How did this piece make you feel?
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Uplifted and that nothing is impossible.
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Well, some things are rather difficult to achieveโฆ
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The Snow Man
One must have a mind of winter
To regard the frost and the boughs
Of the pine-trees crusted with snow;
And have been cold a long time
To behold the junipers shagged with ice,
The spruces rough in the distant glitter
Of the January sun; and not to think
Of any misery in the sound of the wind,
In the sound of a few leaves,
Which is the sound of the land
Full of the same wind
That is blowing in the same bare place
For the listener, who listens in the snow,
And, nothing himself, beholds
Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is.
Source: Poetry magazine (1921)
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I wonder when were the first snowmen createdโฆ
Since there is a Conspiracy of Ravens located outside, it made me think of Edgar Allen Poe.
The Raven
By Edgar Allan Poe
Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten loreโ
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.
โโTis some visitor,โ I muttered, โtapping at my chamber doorโ
Only this and nothing more.โ
Ah, distinctly I remember it was in the bleak December;
And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor.
Eagerly I wished the morrow;โvainly I had sought to borrow
From my books surcease of sorrowโsorrow for the lost Lenoreโ
For the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenoreโ
Nameless here for evermore.
And the silken, sad, uncertain rustling of each purple curtain
Thrilled meโfilled me with fantastic terrors never felt before;
So that now, to still the beating of my heart, I stood repeating
โโTis some visitor entreating entrance at my chamber doorโ
Some late visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door;โ
This it is and nothing more.โ
Presently my soul grew stronger; hesitating then no longer,
โSir,โ said I, โor Madam, truly your forgiveness I implore;
But the fact is I was napping, and so gently you came rapping,
And so faintly you came tapping, tapping at my chamber door,
That I scarce was sure I heard youโโhere I opened wide the door;โ
Darkness there and nothing more.
Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there wondering, fearing,
Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before;
But the silence was unbroken, and the stillness gave no token,
And the only word there spoken was the whispered word, โLenore?โ
This I whispered, and an echo murmured back the word, โLenore!โโ
Merely this and nothing more.
Back into the chamber turning, all my soul within me burning,
Soon again I heard a tapping somewhat louder than before.
โSurely,โ said I, โsurely that is something at my window lattice;
Let me see, then, what thereat is, and this mystery exploreโ
Let my heart be still a moment and this mystery explore;โ
โTis the wind and nothing more!โ
Open here I flung the shutter, when, with many a flirt and flutter,
In there stepped a stately Raven of the saintly days of yore;
Not the least obeisance made he; not a minute stopped or stayed he;
But, with mien of lord or lady, perched above my chamber doorโ
Perched upon a bust of Pallas just above my chamber doorโ
Perched, and sat, and nothing more.
Then this ebony bird beguiling my sad fancy into smiling,
By the grave and stern decorum of the countenance it wore,
โThough thy crest be shorn and shaven, thou,โ I said, โart sure no craven,
Ghastly grim and ancient Raven wandering from the Nightly shoreโ
Tell me what thy lordly name is on the Nightโs Plutonian shore!โ
Quoth the Raven โNevermore.โ
Much I marvelled this ungainly fowl to hear discourse so plainly,
Though its answer little meaningโlittle relevancy bore;
For we cannot help agreeing that no living human being
Ever yet was blessed with seeing bird above his chamber doorโ
Bird or beast upon the sculptured bust above his chamber door,
With such name as โNevermore.โ
But the Raven, sitting lonely on the placid bust, spoke only
That one word, as if his soul in that one word he did outpour.
Nothing farther then he utteredโnot a feather then he flutteredโ
Till I scarcely more than muttered โOther friends have flown beforeโ
On the morrow he will leave me, as my Hopes have flown before.โ
Then the bird said โNevermore.โ
Startled at the stillness broken by reply so aptly spoken,
โDoubtless,โ said I, โwhat it utters is its only stock and store
Caught from some unhappy master whom unmerciful Disaster
Followed fast and followed faster till his songs one burden boreโ
Till the dirges of his Hope that melancholy burden bore
Of โNeverโnevermoreโ.โ
But the Raven still beguiling all my fancy into smiling,
Straight I wheeled a cushioned seat in front of bird, and bust and door;
Then, upon the velvet sinking, I betook myself to linking
Fancy unto fancy, thinking what this ominous bird of yoreโ
What this grim, ungainly, ghastly, gaunt, and ominous bird of yore
Meant in croaking โNevermore.โ
This I sat engaged in guessing, but no syllable expressing
To the fowl whose fiery eyes now burned into my bosomโs core;
This and more I sat divining, with my head at ease reclining
On the cushionโs velvet lining that the lamp-light gloated oโer,
But whose velvet-violet lining with the lamp-light gloating oโer,
She shall press, ah, nevermore!
Then, methought, the air grew denser, perfumed from an unseen censer
Swung by Seraphim whose foot-falls belgiumd on the tufted floor.
โWretch,โ I cried, โthy God hath lent theeโby these angels he hath sent thee
Respiteโrespite and nepenthe from thy memories of Lenore;
Quaff, oh quaff this kind nepenthe and forget this lost Lenore!โ
Quoth the Raven โNevermore.โ
โProphet!โ said I, โthing of evil!โprophet still, if bird or devil!โ
Whether Tempter sent, or whether tempest tossed thee here ashore,
Desolate yet all undaunted, on this desert land enchantedโ
On this home by Horror hauntedโtell me truly, I imploreโ
Is thereโis there balm in Gilead?โtell meโtell me, I implore!โ
Quoth the Raven โNevermore.โ
โProphet!โ said I, โthing of evil!โprophet still, if bird or devil!
By that Heaven that bends above usโby that God we both adoreโ
Tell this soul with sorrow laden if, within the distant Aidenn,
It shall clasp a sainted maiden whom the angels name Lenoreโ
Clasp a rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore.โ
Quoth the Raven โNevermore.โ
โBe that word our sign of parting, bird or fiend!โ I shrieked, upstartingโ
โGet thee back into the tempest and the Nightโs Plutonian shore!
Leave no black plume as a token of that lie thy soul hath spoken!
Leave my loneliness unbroken!โquit the bust above my door!
Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form from off my door!โ
Quoth the Raven โNevermore.โ
And the Raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting
On the pallid bust of Pallas just above my chamber door;
And his eyes have all the seeming of a demonโs that is dreaming,
And the lamp-light oโer him streaming throws his shadow on the floor;
And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor
Shall be liftedโnevermore!
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A group of ravens is called a murder to my knowledge. Or was that for crows only?
Murder is only for Crows. Imagine what group of both birds together would be called. A Murder Conspiracy? 
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