In the aftermath of Shipping Lines Liverpool Literary Festival (reviews and stories will be coming up during the week), The Reader Organisation office is in quite a state of chaos. It is also in a state of utter exultation: the festival was a great success; everyone (audience, writers, staff, volunteers) thoroughly enjoyed themselves and although we’re exhausted, it is brilliant to feel that all the hard, hard work paid off. We’re all relishing in a sense of great achievement and, although in the need of a lot of sleep and some clearing-up, we’re still standing and still smiling. So, understandably, we’re in celebration mode:

Great Things

 

Sweet cyder is a great thing,

A great thing to me,

Spinning down to Weymouth town

By Ridgway thirstily,

And maid and mistress summoning

Who tend the hostelry:

O cyder is a great thing,

A great thing to me!

 

The dance it is a great thing,

A great thing to me,

With candles lit and partners fit

For night-long revelry;

And going home when day-dawning

Peeps pale upon the lea:

O dancing is a great thing,

A great thing to me!

 

Love is, yea, a great thing,

A great thing to me,

When, having drawn across the lawn

In darkness silently,

A figure flits like one a-wing

Out from the nearest tree:

O love is, yes, a great thing,

A great thing to me!

 

Will these be always great things,

Great things to me? . . .

Let it befall that One will call,

“Soul, I have need of thee”:

What then? Joy-jaunts, impassioned flings,

Love, and its ecstasy,

Will always have been great things,

Great things to me!

 

Thomas Hardy