The Path of the Stars

Down through spheres that chant the Name of One

Who is the Law of Beauty and of Light

He came, and as He came the waiting Night

Shook with gladness of a Day begun;

And as He came, He said: Thy Will be Done

On Earth; and all His vibrant Words were white

And glistering with silver, and their might

Was of the glory of a rising sun.

Unto the Stars sang out His living Words

White and with silver, and their rhythmic sound

Was a might symphony unfurled;

And back from out the Stars like homing birds

They fell in love upon the sleeping ground.

And were forever in a wakened world.

 

~Thomas S. Jones Jr.

"Mary Pondered All These Things"

Mother Mary's mind-
A repository-
Cherished every kind
Of event and story.
She remembered what
Joseph soon forgot.

Quite incredible
How she could recall
Word and miracle,
Pain and passion! All
Through the days she pondered
In her heart, and wondered.

Mother's still, it seems
Keep their hearts like Mary-
Full of words and dreams-
Like a reliquary.
Men like Joseph yet
Easily forget.

~Edwin McNeill Poteat

The Human Seasons

Four Seasons fill the measure of the year;
 There are four seasons in the mind of man:
He has his lusty Spring, when fancy clear
 Takes in all beauty with an easy span:
He has his Summer, when luxuriously
 Spring's honey'd cud of youthful thought he loves
To ruminate, and by such dreaming high
  Is nearest unto Heaven: quiet coves
His soul has in it's Autumn, when his wings
  He furleth close; contented so to look
On mists in idleness - to let fair things
  Pass by unheeded as a threshold brook.
He has his Winter too of pale misfortune,
Or else he would forego his mortal nature.

~John Keats

On the Grasshopper and Cricket

The poetry of earth is never dead:
   When all the birds are faint with the hot sun,
   And hide in cooling trees, a voice will run
From hedge to hedge about the new-mown mead;
That is the Grasshopper's - he takes the lead
   In summer luxury, - he has never don
   With his delights; for when tired out with fun
He rests at ease beneath some pleasant wee.
The poetry of earth is ceasing never:
  On a lone winter evening, when the frost
    Has wrought a silence, from the stove there shrills
The Crickets song in warmth increasing ever,
  And seems to one in drowsiness half lost,
    The Grasshopper's among some grassy hills.

~John Keats

Resurrection

Moist with one drop of thy blood, my dry soul
Shall (though she now be in extreme degree
Too stony hard, and yet too fleshly) be
Freed by that drop, from being starved, hard, or foul,
And life, by this death abled, shall control
Death, whom thy death slew; nor shall to me
Fear of first or last death, bring misery,
If in thy little book my name enroll,
Flesh in that long sleep is not putrified,
But made that there, of which, and for which twas;
Nor can by other means be glorified.
May then sins sleep, and deaths soon from me pass,
That waked from both, I again risen may
Salute the last, and everlasting day.

~John Donne

Into the Woods

Into the woods my Master went,
Clean forspent, forspent.
Into the woods my Master came,
Forspent with love and shame.
But the olives they were not blind to Him,
The little gray leaves were kind to Him:
The thorn tree had a mind to Him
When into the woods He came.

Out of the woods my Master went,
And He was well content.
Out of the woods my Master came,
Content with death and shame.
When Death and Shame would woo Him last,
From under the trees they drew Him last:
'Twas on a tree they slew Him - last
When out of the woods He came.

~Sidney Lanier

March Days

So spring comes, at least that's what the calendar tells us!

There Was A Child Went Forth

There was a child went forth every day,
And the first object he look'd upon, that object he became,
And that object became part of him for the day or a certain part of the day,
Or for many years or stretching eyeles of years.

The early lilacs became part of this child,
And grass and white and red morning-glories, and white and red clover, and the song
  of the phoebe-bird,
And the Third-month lambs and the sow's pink-faint litter, and the mare's foal and the cow's calf,
And the noisy brood of the barnyard of by the mire of the pondside,
And the fish suspending themselves so curiously below there, and the beautiful curious liquid,
And the water-plants with their graceful flat heads, all became part of him.
His own parents, he that had father'd him and she that had conceiv'd him in her womb and
  birthed him.
They gave this child more of themselves than that,
They gave him afterward everyday, they became part of him.

~Walt Whitman

October's Party

October gave a party,
The leaves of hundreds came-
The Chestnuts, Oaks, and Maples,
And leaves of every name.
The Sunshine spread a carpet,
And everything was grand,
Miss Weather led the dancing,
Professor Wind the band.

The Chestnuts came in yellow,
The Oaks in crimson dressed;
The lovely Misses Maple
In scarlet looked their best;
All balanced to their partners
And gaily flutter by;
The sight was a like a rainbow
New-fallen from the sky.

Then in the rustic hollow
At hide and seek they played;
The party closed at sundown
And everybody stayed.
Professor Wind played louder;
They flew along the ground;
And the party ended
With jolly "hands around."

~George Cooper

Ah! Sunflower

Ah! Sunflower! weary of time,
Who countest the steps of the Sun,
Seeking after that sweet golden clime
Where the travelers journey is done:

Where the Youth pined away with desire,
And the pale Virgin shrouded in snow
Arise from their graves and aspire
Where my Sunflower wishes to go.

~William Blake

One of my favorite autumnal flowers is the red and black sunflowers. They match the dark, yet bright tones that mark the remarkable change in seasons, much different from the standard bright yellow of summery sunflowers. It is remarkable how each plant changes through a year.

The Charge of the Light Brigade

Half a league, half a league,
 Half a league onward,
All in the Valley of Death
 Rode the six hundred.
"Forward the Light Brigade!
Charge for the guns!" he said:
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.

"Forward the Light Brigade!"
Was there a man dismayed?
Not tho' the soldier knew
  Some one had blundered:
Theirs not to make reply,
Theirs not to reason why,
Theirs but to do and die,
Into the valley of Death,
Rode the six hundred.

Cannon to the right of them,
Cannon to the left of them,
Cannon in front of them
  Volleyed and thundered;
Stormed at with shot and shell,
Boldly they rode and well,
Into the jaws of Death,
Into the mouth of Hell,
  Rode the six hundred.

Flashed all their sabres bare,
Flashed as they turned in the air,
Sabering the gunners there,
Charging the army, while
All the world wondered:
Plunged in the battery smoke
Right through the line they broke:
Cossack and Russian
Reeled from the sabre stroke
Shattered and sundered
Then they rode back, but not,
Not the six hundred.

Cannon to the right of them,
Cannon to the left of them,
Cannon behind them
Volleyed and thundered;
Stormed at with shot and shell,
While horse and hero fell,
They that had fought so well
Came through the jaws of Death
Back from the mouth of Hell,
All that was left of them,
Left of six hundred.

When can their glory fade?
O the wild charge they made!
  All the world wondered.
Honour the charge they made!
Honour the Light Brigade!
  Noble six hundred!

~Alfred, Lord Tennyson

All-Hollows-Eve

I quite enjoyed this thought provoking video:
Halloween: A Poem
Whatever side you may take on how to celebrate this rather major autumnal holiday, take some time to listen and reflect on this most ghastly of holidays as it fills the stores and homes around us. And perhaps, Christians should take some time to consider good ways of celebrating All-Saints-Day, a day to honor that the lives of men and women who have faced the darkness of the world and proven conquerors in the name of Christ.

A Good Boy

I woke before the morning, I was
     happy all the day,
I never said an ugly word, but smiled
     and stuck to play.

And now at last the sun is going down
     behind the wood,
And I am very happy for I know that
     I've been good.

My bed is waiting cool and fresh with
     linen smooth and fair,
And I must go to sleepsin-by, and not
     forget my prayer.

I know that, till tomorrow I shall see
     the sun arise,
No ugly dream shall fright my mind, no
     ugly sight my eyes.

But slumber hold me tightly till I waken
     in the dawn,
And hear the thrushes singing in the
    lilacs round the lawn.

~Robert Louis Stevenson

Dear Lord And Father Of Mankind

Dear Lord and Father of mankind,
Forgive our fev'rish ways!
Reclothe us in our rightful mind;
In purer lives Thy service find,
In deeper reverence, praise.

In simple trust like theirs who heard,
Beside the Syrian Sea,
The gracious calling of the Lord,
Let us, like them, without a word,
Rise up and follow Thee.

O Sabbath rest by Galilee!
O calm of hills above,
Where Jesus knelt to share with thee
The silence of eternity,
Interpreted by love.

Drop Thy still dews of quietness
Till all our strivings cease;
Take from our souls the strain and stress,
And let our ordered lives confess
The beauty of Thy peace.

Breathe thru the heats of our desire
Thy coolness and Thy balm;
Let sense be dumb, let flesh retire;
Speak thru the earthquake, wind, and fire,
O still small voice of calm.

~John Greenleaf Whittier

Faults

Fire and Ice

Some say the world will end in fire
Some say in ice.
From what I've tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire,
But if it had to perish twice
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.

~Robert Frost

A Little Library

What You Are and Will Be

I love you for what you are, but I
  love you
yet more for what you are going to
  be.
I love you not so much for your
  realities
as for your ideals.
I pray for your desires that they may
  be great,
rather than for your satisfactions,
which may be so hazardously little.
You are going forward toward
  something great.
I am on the way with you,
and therefore I love you.

~Carl Sandburg

From My Reading List

If the heights of our joy are measured by the depths of our gratitude, and gratitude is but a way of seeing, a spiritual perspective of smallness night offer a vital way of seeing especially conducive to gratitude. A Thousand Gifts, Ann Voskamp

Pride slays thanksgiving...A proud man is seldom a grateful man, for he never thinks he gets as much as he deserves. Henry Ward Beecher

Polly didn't think she had done much, but it was one of the little things which are always waiting to be done in this world of ours, when rainy days come so often, where spirits get out of tune and duty won't go hand in hand with pleasure. Little things of this sort are especially good work for little people; a kind little thought, an unselfish little act, a cheery little word, are so sweet and comfortable that no one can fail to feel their beauty and love the giver no matter how small they are. Mothers do a deal of this sort of thing, unseen, unthanked, but felt and remembered long afterward and never lost, for this is the simple magic that binds hearts together and keeps homes happy. An Old-Fashioned Girl, Louisa May Alcott

Scaffolding