How clear, how lovely bright *How beautiful to sight each beam of morning play *How Heaven laughs out with glee *When like a bird set free *Up from the eastern sea soars the delightful day.

*Today I shall be strong *No more shall yield to wrong *Shall squander life no more *Days lost, I know not how *I shall retrieve them now *Now I shall keep the vow I never kept before. A. E. Housman

One of the things I have noticed since joining Hi is the number of people who at some stage express their resolution, or perhaps it’s just a dream, to write a little something each day. Indeed I wonder if this isn’t an almost universal feeling among busy professionals, who probably love their work, but also have a secret life as a writer . . . of fiction, of poetry, of film reviews, of essays (or blogs as we now say), of travel journals, of meditations. You know, with the proverbial nearly finished novel in the bottom drawer. Hi is particularly sympathetic to that sort of person, especially to those who like the interplay of words and pics, their coffee with cream, saying and seeing.

Some of you will already know that there is a final canto to the Housman verse, quoted above, in which the end of the day arrives with the poet’s resolution unkept. As a boy I memorized those first two stanzas, reciting them boldly each morning to strengthen my resolve to be an Oklahoma boy who became one of the competent ones of his generation. Years later, I rediscovered with dismay Housman’s downbeat final verse. Yet, in the end Housman became quite the balladeer, and he was no slouch at the Classics either. I reckon the quotidian sunrise worked for him. I reckon it’s working for me.