GOLDEN slumbers kiss your eyes,
Smiles awake you when you rise.
Sleep pretty wantons, do not cry,
And I will sing a lullaby;
Rock them, rock them, lullaby.
Care is heavy, therefore sleep you;
You are care, and care must keep you.
Sleep pretty wantons, do not cry,
And I will sing a lullaby;
Rock them, rock them, lullaby.
It is the sense of the sublime that we have to regard as the root of man’s creative activities in art, thought and noble living. Just as no flora has ever fully displayed the hidden vitality of the earth, so has no work of art ever brought to expression the depth of the unutterable, in the sight of which the souls of saints, poets and philosophers live.
+ + +
Only those who live on borrowed words believe in their gift of expression. A sensitive person knows that the intrinsic, the most essential, is never expressed.
+ + +
[from Man Is Not Alone: A Philosophy of Religion (Noonday, 1979), p. 4]
A beautiful poem from Z at Some Turbid Night.
All my heart this night rejoices
As I hear
Far and near
Sweetest angel voices;
“Christ is born,” their choirs are singing,
Till the air
Ev’rywhere
Now with joy is ringing.
Come, then, let us hasten yonder;
Here let all,
Great and small,
Kneel in awe and wonder,
Love him who with love is yearning;
Hail the Star,
That from far
Bright with hope is burning!
Ye who pine in weary sadness,
Weep no more,
For the door
Now is found of gladness.
Cling to him, for he will guide you
Where no cross,
Pain or loss
Can again betide you.
Paul Gerhardt, 1607-76, trans. Catherine Winkworth, 1827-78
snowless freeze
and late November sunlight
the rusty workmanship
of ordinary time
“the fences of the light”
brown leaves gray trees
the industry of man
in metallic suburbs
abandoned shells of trucks
beside the endless railroad
no sunlight colder than yesterday’s
*
the monarchy of yesteryear
has fallen like a city
the landscape writes a song of desolation
its entertainments are the cloak of grief
its prayers are phrased to distant vacancy
the earth grows adamant and passionless
beneath the tiny grandeur of the stars
can darkness comprehend
beatitude
Wine, guitars, blue bulls, red sun,
outmoded whispers –
*
The haiku of blue
by Kobayashi-Rimbaud:
étoile, planète, lune …
*
Ashberyana:
traceries of yestermorn,
forgeries of night
*
Hoosegow bumpkin strums a tune
on mauve mandolin
*
Weighing grey, rehearsing sound,
eccola! Spring rain
drops like light
On a Saturday.
Rain in the big bean.
April’s endless pour.
Coffee’s second mug.
Sommeil évanoui.
Sit we, do not stride.
Vigil Mass at four.
Several hours away.
Wood and dust and books.
Bending low, desk-lamp.
Icon smiles upon
Our inchoate words.
TD
My life is moving difficult
As a startless engine as a sparkless fire
As a book without a crux or gist
A play without a point or vital strife
My life is moving splendidly
Like Dominique at Barcelona
Like skaters in The Bishop’s Wife
Like trains through tunnels slicker than grease
Like circulation like tickertape
My life is actually quite still
A pebble or a broken clock
A stylite on a stem of grace
A dusty book which no one reads
A permanent mobility
That moves so fast it does not move
My life and mind are stiller than the spheres
Serene as the commotion of commuters
As silent as a battering thunderstorm
As violent as monks as pure as lust
As awful as a sudden happenstance
As austere as the spouse of Anne Boleyn
As orderly as chaos prim and brash
TD
We continue to be amazed and to believe even more in this “crazy” God who chose to become a small, poor, and fragile child. That child who two thousand years ago came into the world and exploded into history “bursts” into our lives today to re-write our history: mine, yours, and that of all of our wounded humanity. This Jesus shatters our reality and makes his way with only the weapon of love, the only weapon that can cause the rocks of the hardest heart to crumble.
[From the December 2011 Magnificat, meditation for Monday the 26th, p. 395]
Festivities bestow
upon this twelfth-month night
a whisper of the brisk miraculous:
all but the evergreens stand bare,
relieved of their burdens
(though a few trees harbor “winter-hardy leaves”);
moonlight assuages the cumulative ill
of the dying year, and an old star guides
wise and foolish alike toward rebirth.
TD
1990
Midnight, O Christians, is the solemn hour
when God who is truly Man comes to you:
he shall remove the stain of our offenses;
he’ll please his Father and make all things new!
The whole world trembles, chills of expectation:
the long-sought night which brings us saving grace
now has arrived! O kneel in adoration!
Behold, behold the Child-Redeemer’s face!
Now may the light of faith ceaselessly burning
show us the way to the cradle of birth,
just as of old, the brightest star in heaven
led Eastern sages across desert earth.
The King of Kings is born where beasts are feeding:
O powers-that-seem, so boastful of your place,
proud men and cold, now heed the silent teaching!
The Child is God, his Mother full of grace.
The Savior’s strength has burst through every fetter;
our world is free, heaven open once again:
a lowly slave becomes a prince’s brother;
chains break asunder. United are men!
What shall we give the Lord for all his goodness,
made flesh for us, to suffer pain and death?
Rise from your sleep! Deliverance is upon us!
A child is born: praise him with every breath.
+ + +
trans. TD
stanzas 1 and 2 c. 1997
stanza 3 2010
Keep watch, dear Lord, with those who work, or watch, or weep this night, and give your angels charge over those who sleep. Tend the sick, Lord Christ; give rest to the weary, bless the dying, soothe the suffering, pity the afflicted, shield the joyous; and all for your love’s sake. Amen.
My poetry blog, The Crystal Tambourine, has lately been updated with a few dozen haiku-like three-line poems and apothegms. Do take a look, if so inclined!
“Cold War”:
Helen Waite is in charge of the complaints department.
If you have a complaint, go to Helen Waite.
[Word & Question 17: the poetry challenge originated by Enbrethiliel]
Word: turkey
Question: Is silence deep enough for dreaming?
+ + +
LATE AUTUMN LYRIC
Silence engenders dreams, and dreams breed silence,
Especially in autumn, when the trees
Along the thoroughfares in Arlington
Are rusty brown, the leaves all papery like
The feathers of a crepe-paper turkey.
November sun today is “summery
On the hill’s shoulder,” as the Great One once wrote,
The susurrus of balmy autumn breezes
Agitating the asphalt-strewn foliage
Like so many memories of balked affection.
The Sunday light creates an ineffable
Longing for lasting things, and makes the things of earth
Shine with significance beyond the mundane.
A glass of wine rests on the desk, accepting
The quiet grace of early afternoon.
It is our God alone who satisfies
The restless heart and mind and soul. The thorns
In the flesh, the wound in the heart, the life
Vulnerable, precarious, and blest –
O Lord of seasons and of suns, have mercy.
by Claude McKay (1890-1948)
Bow down my soul in worship very low
And in the holy silences be lost.
Bow down before the marble man of woe,
Bow down before the singing angel host.
What jewelled glory fills my spirit’s eye,
What golden grandeur moves the depths of me!
The soaring arches lift me up on high
Taking my breath with their rare symmetry.
Bow down my soul and let the wondrous light
Of beauty bathe thee from her lofty throne,
Bow down before the wonder of man’s might.
Bow down in worship, humble and alone;
Bow lowly down before the sacred sight
Of man’s divinity alive in stone.
In the morning are we filled with Your mercy, O Lord, and we rejoice and delight in all of our days. Let us delight therefore even in the days that you make us lowly and for the years that we have seen evils. And look upon Your servants and upon Your works and lead their sons aright. And let the light of the Lord our God be upon us, and the works of our hands may You guide aright. Yea, the works of our hands may You guide aright.
Glory to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit. Now and ever and unto the ages of ages. Amen.
You are more holy than all the Powers of Heaven, More honored than all, you are our foundation, O Theotokos, Mistress of the World. Entreat the Savior to save us from the multitude of stumbling blocks and rescue from danger those who pray to you, as you are the good one.
It is good to give praise to the Lord and to chant Your name O Exulted One. To proclaim Your mercy in the morning and Your truth in the night!
preached at St Paul’s, upon Christmas day, in the evening, 1624
God hath made no decree to distinguish the seasons of his mercies ; In paradise, the fruits were ripe, the first minute, and in heaven it is alwaies Autumne, his mercies are ever in their maturity. We ask panem quotidianum, our daily bread, and God never sayes you should have come yesterday, he never sayes you must againe to-morrow, but to-day, if you will heare his voice, to-day he will heare you. If some King of the earth have so large an extent of Dominion, in North, and South, as that he hath Winter and Summer together in his Dominions, so large an extent East and West, as that he hath day and night together in his Dominions, much more hath God mercy and judgement together : He brought light out of darknesse, not out of a lesser light ; he can bring thy Summer out of Winter, though thou have no Spring ; though in the wayes of fortune, or understanding, or conscience, thou have been benighted until now, wintred and frozen, clouded and eclypsed, damped and benummed, smothered and stupified till now, now God comes to thee, not as in the dawning of the day, not as in the bud of the spring, but as the Sun at noon to illustrate all shadowes, as the sheaves in harvest, to fill all penuries ; all occasions invite his mercies, and all times are his seasons.
ADVENT
Charm with your stainlessness these winter nights,
Skies, and be perfect!
Fly vivider in the fiery dark, you quiet meteors,
And disappear.
You moon, be slow to go down,
This is your full!
The four white roads make off in silence
Towards the four parts of the starry universe.
Time falls like manna at the corners of the wintry earth.
We have become more humble than the rocks,
More wakeful than the patient hills.
Charm with your stainlessness these winter nights in Advent, holy spheres,
While minds, as meek as beasts,
Stay close at home in the sweet hay;
And intellects are quieter than the flocks that feed by starlight.
Oh pour your darkness and your brightness over all our solemn valleys,
You skies : and travel like the gentle Virgin,
Toward the planets’ stately setting,
Oh white full moon as quiet as Bethlehem!
God has created me to do Him some definite service; He has committed some work to me which he has not committed to another. I have my mission; I never may know it in this life, but I shall be told it in the next. I have a part in a great work; I am a link in a chain, a bond of connexion between persons. He has not created me for naught. I shall do good, I shall do His work; I shall be an angel of peace, a preacher of truth in my own place, while not intending it, if I do but keep His commandments. He does nothing in vain; He knows what He is about. He may take away my friends; He may throw me among strangers; He may make me feel desolate, make my spirits sink, hide my future from me — still He knows what he is about.
THE STARLIGHT NIGHT
LOOK at the stars! look, look up at the skies!
O look at all the fire-folk sitting in the air!
The bright boroughs, the circle-citadels there!
Down in dim woods the diamond delves! the elves’-eyes!
The grey lawns cold where gold, where quickgold lies!
Wind-beat whitebeam! airy abeles set on a flare!
Flake-doves sent floating forth at a farmyard scare! –
Ah well! it is all a purchase, all is a prize.
Buy then! bid then! — What? — Prayer, patience, aims, vows.
Look, look: a May-mess, like on orchard boughs!
Look! March-bloom, like on mealed-with-yellow sallows!
These are indeed the barn; withindoors house
The shocks. This piece-bright paling shuts the spouse
Christ home, Christ and his mother and all his hallows.
When is heaven truly and completely present? It is when all heaviness is gone; when all sluggishness has been overcome, all wickedness, coldness, pride, irritation, disobedience, and covetousness; when there is no danger anymore of falling away; when grace has made one’s whole being open up, body and soul, to the ultimate profundities, when there is no further danger that it will all close in again, become hardened in ways of evil; when all work to be done on earth is finished, and all guilt has been paid by repentance. What all this means is: after death.
After death — when time is no longer; when everything is in the everlasting now; when nothing can change anymore, but the creature stands illuminated by the light of eternity, before God — at that time, everything will be open, and will remain so. That is being in heaven …
This is how we properly understand heaven. It is that close presence wherein the Father stands in relation to Jesus Christ. And heaven for us will be participation in this intimacy of love. This condition is already beginning; it approaches closer; now in peril, it is fought over, lost, and won back again. So it goes with our Christian life.
[Via Magnificat, November 2011, pp. 275-6. From Msgr Guardini's book The Inner Life of Jesus]
The Coronation of the Blessed Virgin
Prayer
Mary,
Immaculate Love,
we bless you.
Because, though rooted in earth
as we are,
you opened your heart to God;
expanding and opening wide
to the heat of the sun
in your sinless heart,
you opened our hearts
to the light.
All generations bless you,
flower of our race.
We are crowned
in you,
Queen of Heaven,
crowned with stars
by the hands of Christ.
+ + +
[From The Essential Rosary (Sophia Institute Press, 1996), p. 59]
You will perhaps pardon me, as a nonlecturer, if I begin my second nonlecture with an almost inconceivable assertion : I was born at home.
For the benefit of those of you who can’t imagine what the word “home” implies, or what a home could possibly have been like, I should explain that the idea of home is the idea of privacy.
But again — what is privacy? You probably never heard of it.
Even supposing that (from time to time) walls exist around you, those walls are no longer walls; they are merest pseudosolidities, perpetually penetrated by the perfectly predatory collective organs of sight and sound. Any apparent somewhere which you may inhabit is always at the mercy of a ruthless and omnivorous everywhere. The notion of a house, as one single definite particular and unique place to come into, from the anywhereish and everywhereish world outside — that notion must strike you as fantastic. You have been brought up to believe that a house, or a universe, or a you, or any other object, is only seemingly solid :
really (and you are realists, whom nobody and nothing can deceive)
each seeming solidity is a collection of large holes — and, in the case of a house, the larger the holes the better; since the principal fucntion of a modern house is to admit whatever might otherwise remain outside. You haven’t the least or feeblest conception of being here, and now, and alone, and yourself. Why (you ask) should anyone want to be here, when (simply by pressing a button) anyone can be in fifty places at once? How could anyone want to be now, when anyone can go whening all over creation at the twist of a knob? What could induce anyone to desire aloneness, when billions of soi-disant dollars are mercifully squandered by a good and great government lest anyone anywhere should ever for a single instant be alone? As for being yourself — why on earth should you be yourself; when instead of being yourself you can be a hundred, or a thousand, or a hundred thousand thousand, other people? The very thought of being oneself in an epoch of interchangeable selves must appear supremely ridiculous.
Fine and dandy : but, so far as I am concerned, poetry and every other art was and is and forever will be a question of individuality. If poetry were anything — like dropping an atombomb — which anyone did, anyone could become a poet merely by doing the necessary anything; whatever that anything might or might not entail.
But (as it happens) poetry is being, not doing.
If you wish to follow, even at a distance, the poet’s calling (and here, as always, I speak from my own totally biased and entirely personal point of view) you’ve got to come out of the measurable doing universe into the immeasurable house of being. I am quite aware that, wherever our socalled civilization has slithered, there’s every reward and no punishment for unbeing. But if poetry is your goal, you’ve got to forget all about punishments and all about rewards and all about selfstyled obligations and duties and responsibilities etcetera ad infinitum and remember only one thing only : that it’s you — nobody else — who determine your destiny and decide your fate. Nobody else can be alive for you; nor can you be alive for anybody else.
Toms can be Dicks and Dicks can be Harrys, but none of them can ever be you.
There’s the artist’s responsibility; and the most awful responsibility on earth. If you can take it, take it — and be. If you can’t, cheer up and go about other people’s business; and do (or undo) till you drop.
Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s rendering of the sonnet found in section 21 of Dante Alighieri’s La Vita Nuova. The seventh line is actually an improvement on the original !
:: :: :: :: ::
“Hate loves, and pride becomes a worshipper”
My lady carries love within her eyes;
All that she looks on is made pleasanter;
Upon her path men turn to gaze at her;
He whom she greeteth feels his heart to rise,
And droops his troubled visage full of sighs,
And of his evil heart is then aware:
Hate loves, and pride becomes a worshipper.
O women, help to praise her in somewise.
Humbleness, and the hope that hopeth well,
By speech of hers into the mind are brought,
And who beholds is blessèd oftenwhiles.
The look she hath when she a little smiles
Cannot be said, nor holden in the thought;
’Tis such a new and gracious miracle.
:: :: :: :: ::
Ne li occhi porta la mia donna Amore,
per che si fa gentil ciò ch’ella mira;
ov’ella passa, ogn’om ver lei si gira,
e cui saluta fa tremar lo core,
sì che, bassando il viso, tutto smore,
e d’ogni suo difetto allor sospira:
fugge dinanzi a lei superbia ed ira.
Aiutatemi, donne, farle onore.
Ogne dolcezza, ogne pensero umile
nasce nel core a chi parlar la sente,
ond’è laudato chi prima la vide.
Quel ch’ella par quando un poco sorride,
non si pò dicer né tenere a mente,
sì è novo miracolo e gentile.
Rose-cheekt Laura, come;
Sing thou smoothly with thy beawties
Silent musick, either other
Sweetely gracing.
Lovely forms do flowe
From concent devinely framëd :
Heav’n is musick, and thy beawties
Birth is heavnly.
These dull notes we sing
Discords neede for helps to grace them;
Only beawty purely loving
Knowes no discord;
But still mooves delight,
Like cleare springs renu’d by flowing,
Ever perfect, ever in them-
selves eternall.
by Dr Eric Milner-White (1884-1963)
Blessed be thou, O Lord, in all things that have befallen me :
Blessed be thou in my temptations, when I have continued with thee,
and in thy deliverances when I have wandered away.
Blessed be thou in thy wholesome reproofs,
in all discipline and chastisement of my pride,
and in thy lifting up, when I have sought thy face :
Blessed be thou in any advances and victories,
the whole praise whereof I ascribe unto thee
with a thankful heart :
Blessed be thou for guiding my steps, most wonderfully,
when I knew not, understood not, nor even cared :
Blessed be thou for my holy calling,
for the joy of oblation,
for communion with thyself,
for aught thou hast wrought through me :
Blessed be thou for all whom I have loved,
and who have loved me :
And for THY love, from all eternity, beyond compare or compass :
merciful, tender, unalterable, irremovable.
Blessed be thou in all things that befall me,
and that shall befall me;
O grant me this last blessing, O GOD of my praise –
to be true to thee, and close to thee,
unto the end, and without end.
[E. Milner-White, My God, My Glory : Aspirations, Acts, and Prayers on the Desire for God, ed. Joyce Huggett (London : Triangle/SPCK, 1994), p. 118]
Wisdom 7.7 to 8.2
in the translation of Msgr Ronald Knox (Sheed & Ward, NY 1956)
Whence, then, did the prudence spring that endowed me? Prayer brought it; to God I prayed, and the spirit of wisdom came upon me. This I valued more than kingdom or throne; I thought nothing of my riches in comparison. There was no jewel I could match with it; all my treasures of gold were a handful of dust beside it, my silver seemed but base clay in presence of it. I treasured wisdom more than health or beauty, preferred her to the light of day; hers is a flame which never dies down. Together with her all blessings came to me; boundless prosperity was her gift. All this I enjoyed, with wisdom to prepare my way for me, never guessing that it all sprang from her. The lessons she taught me are riches honestly won, shared without stint, openly proclaimed; a treasure men will find incorruptible. Those who enjoy it are honoured with God’s friendship, so high a value he sets on her instruction.
God’s gift it is, if speech answers to thought of mine, and thought of mine to the message I am entrusted with. Who else can shew wise men the true path, check them when they stray? We are in his hands, we and every word of ours; our prudence in act, our skill in craftsmanship. Sure knowledge he has imparted to me of all that is; how the world is ordered, what influence have the elements, how the months have their beginning, their middle, and their ending, how the sun’s course alters and the seasons revolve, how the years have their cycles, the stars their places. To every living thing its own breed, to every beast its own moods; the winds rage, and men think deep thoughts; the plants keep their several kinds, and each root has its own virtue; all the mysteries and all the surprises of nature were made known to me; wisdom herself taught me, that is the designer of them all.
Mind-enlightening is the influence that dwells in her; set high apart; one in its source, yet manifold in its operation; subtle, yet easily understood. An influence quick in movement, inviolable, persuasive, gentle, right-thinking, keen-edged, irresistible, beneficent, kindly, gracious, steadfast, proof against all error and all solicitude. Nothing is beyond its power, nothing hidden from its view, and such capacity has it that it can pervade the minds of all living men; so pure and subtle an essence is thought. Nothing so agile that it can match wisdom for agility; nothing can penetrate this way and that, etherial as she. Steam that ascends from the fervour of divine activity, pure effluence of his glory who is God all-powerful, she feels no passing taint; she, the glow that radiates from eternal light, she, the untarnished mirror of God’s majesty, she, the faithful image of his goodness. Alone, with none to aid her, she is all-powerful; herself ever unchanged, she makes all things new; age after age she finds her way into holy men’s hearts, turning them into friends and spokesmen of God. Her familiars it is, and none other, that God loves. Brightness is hers beyond the brightness of the sun, and all the starry host; match her with light itself, and she outvies it; light must still alternate with darkness, but where is the conspiracy can pull down wisdom from her throne?
Bold is her sweep from world’s end to world’s end, and everywhere her gracious ordering manifests itself.
She, from my youth up has been my heart’s true love, my heart’s true quest; she was the bride I longed for, enamoured of her beauty.
From Daily Readings in Orthodox Spirituality (ed. P. Bouteneff, Templegate, 1996, 94 pp)
p 42 The Struggle and the Kingdom
Amma Theodora said, “Let us strive to enter through the narrow gate. Just as the trees, if they have not stood before the winter’s storms cannot bear fruit, so it is with us; the present age is a storm and it is only through many trials and temptations that we can obtain an inheritance in the kingdom of heaven.”
Amma Synclectica said, “Great endeavors and hard struggles await those who are converted, but afterwards inexpressible joy. If you want to light a fire, you are troubled at first by smoke, and your eyes water. But in the end you achieve your aim. Now it is written : ‘Our God is a consuming fire.’ So we must light the divine fire in us with tears and struggle.”
:: :: :: :: :: ::
p 43 Temptation and Humility
Abba Anthony said to Abba Poemen, “This is the great work of a man : always to take the blame for his own sins before God and to expect temptation to his last breath.”
He also said, “Whoever has not experienced temptation cannot enter into the Kingdom of Heaven.” He even added, “Without temptations, no one can be saved.”
He also said, “I saw all the snares that the enemy spreads out over the world and I said groaning, ‘What can get one through such snares?’ Then I heard a voice saying to me, ‘Humility.’”
The Waking
by Theodore Roethke (1908-63)
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
I feel my fate in what I cannot fear.
I learn by going where I have to go.
We think by feeling. What is there to know?
I hear my being dance from ear to ear.
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
Of those so close beside me, which are you?
God bless the Ground! I shall walk softly there,
And learn by going where I have to go.
Light takes the Tree; but who can tell us how?
The lowly worm climbs up a winding stair;
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
Great Nature has another thing to do
To you and me, so take the lively air,
And, lovely, learn by going where to go.
This shaking keeps me steady. I should know.
What falls away is always. And is near.
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
I learn by going where I have to go.
I rather like this song. So sue me.
[by the blogger]
Few leaves cling to the gust-whipt gale-stript tree;
Frail flesh, fall-flesh, thrills to a weather wild!
As dim as dreams, cloud-balked, the sun leaks through,
Spilling weak light on a world no longer mild.
The screech of a lone black crow pierces the cold,
Presaging winter’s brunt of snow and ice:
November’s stubborn flowers nipped and killed
By north-wind’s stinging blast; skies gray as mice.
Some souls there are who watch, grace-parched, light-starved,
For love’s long-prophesied nativity
In a stone-hard, bone-chilled place: a fear-wracked time:
Unvisited, it seems, unblessed, unmoved
By him who makes all dead life live anew:
Each human heart a cave in Bethlehem.
Poetry is the Mogul’s dream: to be intensively toiling at what is a pleasure; La Fontaine’s indolence being, as the most innocent observer must realize, a mere metaphor. As for the hobgoblin obscurity, it need never entail compromise. It should mean that one may fail and start again, never mutilate an auspicious premise. The objective is architecture, not demolition; grudges flower less well than gratitudes.
from The Complete Prose of Marianne Moore, p. 506
by William Wordsworth (1770-1850)
Mother! whose virgin bosom was uncrost
With the least shade of thought to sin allied;
Woman! above all women glorified,
Our tainted nature’s solitary boast;
Purer than foam on central ocean tost;
Brighter than eastern skies at daylight strewn
With fancied roses, than the unblemished moon
Before her wane begins on heaven’s blue coast;
Thy Image falls to earth. Yet some, I ween,
Not unforgiven the suppliant knee might bend,
As to a visible Power, in which did blend
All that was mixed and reconciled in Thee
Of mother’s love with maiden purity,
Of high with low, celestial with terrene!
for the first time
La Vita Nuova, section 2
At that moment
I say most truly that the spirit of life, which hath its dwelling in the secretest chamber of the heart, began to tremble so violently that the least pulses of my body shook therewith; and in trembling it said these words : “Here is a deity stronger than I; who, coming, shall rule over me.” At that moment the animate spirit, which dwelleth in the lofty chamber whither all the senses carry their perceptions, was filled with wonder, and speaking more especially unto the spirits of the eyes, said these words : “Your beatitude hath now been made manifest unto you.” At that moment the natural spirit, which dwelleth there where our nourishment is administered, began to weep, and in weeping said these words : “Alas! how often shall I be disturbed from this time forth.” I say that, from that time forward, Love quite governed my soul; which was immediately espoused to him, and with so safe and undisputed a lordship, (by virtue of strong imagination) that I had nothing left for it but to do his bidding continually. He oftentimes commanded me to seek if I might see this youngest of the Angels : wherefore I in my boyhood often went in search of her, and found her so noble and praiseworthy that certainly of her might have been said those words of the poet Homer,
She seemed not to be the daughter of a mortal man, but of God.
Translated into English by Dante Gabriel Rossetti. Painting by Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Beata Beatrix, 1863.
by E E Cummings (1894-1962)
true lovers in each happening of their hearts
live longer than all which and every who;
despite what fear denies,what hope asserts,
what falsest both disprove by proving true
(all doubts,all certainties,as villains strive
and heroes through the mere mind’s poor pretend
–grim comics of duration:only love
immortally occurs beyond the mind)
such a forever is love’s any now
and her each here is such an everywhere,
even more true would truest lovers grow
if out of midnight dropped more suns than are
(yes;and if time should ask into his was
all shall,their eyes would never miss a yes)
[#525]
I think the Hemlock likes to stand
Upon a Marge of Snow –
It suits his own Austerity
And satisfies an awe
That men, must slake in Wilderness –
And in the Desert — cloy –
An instinct for the Hoar, the Bald –
Lapland’s — necessity –
The Hemlock’s nature thrives — on cold –
The Gnash of Northern winds
Is sweetest nutriment — to him –
His best Norwegian Wines –
To satin Races — he is nought –
But Children on the Don,
Beneath his Tabernacles, play,
And Dnieper Wrestlers, run.
[From the "Autumn" section of The Seasons]
But see the fading many-coloured woods,
Shade deepening over shade, the country round
Imbrown; a crowded umbrage dusk and dun,
Of every hue, from wan declining green
To sooty dark. These now the lonesome muse,
Low whispering, lead into their leaf-strewn walks,
And give the season in its latest view.
Meantime, light shadowing all, a sober calm
Fleeces unbounded ether : whose least wave
Stands tremulous, uncertain where to turn
The gentle current; while illumined wide,
The dewy-skirted clouds imbibe the sun,
And through their lucid veil his softened force
Shed o’er the peaceful world. Then is the time,
For those whom virtue and whom nature charm,
To steal themselves from the degenerate crowd,
And soar above this little scene of things :
To tread low-thoughted vice beneath their feet;
To soothe the throbbing passions into peace;
And woo lone Quiet in her silent walks.
Thus solitary, and in pensive guise,
Oft let me wander o’er the russet mead,
And through the saddened grove, where scarce is heard
One dying strain, to cheer the woodman’s toil.
Haply some widowed songster pours his plaint,
Far, in faint warblings, through the tawny copse;
While congregated thrushes, linnets, larks,
And each wild throat, whose artless strains so late
Swelled all the music of the swarming shades,
Robbed of their tuneful souls, now shivering sit
On the dead tree, a dull despondent flock :
With not a brightness waving o’er their plumes,
And nought save chattering discord in their note.
O let not, aimed from some inhuman eye,
The gun the music of the coming year
Destroy; and harmless, unsuspecting harm,
Lay the weak tribes a miserable prey
In mingled murder, fluttering on the ground!
The pale descending year, yet pleasing still,
A gentler mood inspires; for now the leaf
Incessant rustles from the mournful grove;
Oft startling such as studious walk below,
And slowly circles through the waving air.
But should a quicker breeze amid the boughs
Sob, o’er the sky a leafy deluge streams;
Till choked, and matted with the dreary shower,
The forest walks at every rising gale,
Roll wide the withered waste, and whistle bleak.
Fled is the blasted verdure of the fields;
And, shrunk into their beds, the flowery race
Their sunny robes resign. E’en what remained
Of stronger fruits falls from the naked tree;
And woods, fields, gardens, orchards all around,
The desolated prospect thrills the soul.
Justus quidem tu es, Domine, si disputem tecum: verumtamen justa loquar ad te: Quare via impiorum prosperatur? &c.
THOU art indeed just, Lord, if I contend
With thee; but, sir, so what I plead is just.
Why do sinners’ ways prosper? and why must
Disappointment all I endeavour end?
Wert thou my enemy, O thou my friend,
How wouldst thou worse, I wonder, than thou dost
Defeat, thwart me? Oh, the sots and thralls of lust
Do in spare hours more thrive than I that spend,
Sir, life upon thy cause. See, banks and brakes
Now leavèd how thick! lacèd they are again
With fretty chervil, look, and fresh wind shakes
Them; birds build — but not I build; no, but strain,
Time’s eunuch, and not breed one work that wakes.
Mine, O thou lord of life, send my roots rain.
