Saturday, December 28, 2019
A Poem Draft
Long and Foggy Road
Father Time is marching step by step;
you and I are there, just passers-by.
Save for this, there is little that we know:
every heart, love, hope, and year must surely die.
Somewhere down this long and foggy road,
final berth whence never soul returns,
Time having reached its destined end,
maybe an eternal fire burns,
but you and I are still upon this path,
though follies of this age our step has slowed;
and this we must hold onto till the end:
it's you and I together on this road.
Let other folk grasp hard their lonely selves.
Every soul in the end reaps what it sowed.
Whatever darkness falls, we'll power through,
you and I, on this long and foggy road.
Year again is passing to its grave!
Never fear; I'll write to you this earnest ode:
step by step and each for each, we will not fail,
you and I, on this long and foggy road.
ADDED LATER: I had forgotten that I also had this one:
The Flowers Grow in Luthany
The flowers grow in Luthany
row by row beside the road;
the sunlight shines epiphany
on fields where hope and joy are sowed.
The trill of bird is riding breeze;
I heard it one day shrill and clear
like wind that blows across the seas,
sea-wave crispness bringing near.
A spring of water near a tree
bubbles over, sweet and glad,
but stillness lies on Luthany;
even laughing springs are sad.
For sometimes joy, an apple gold,
the painter paints on background dark;
the warmest flame is found in cold;
in darkness first will sing the lark.
And every joy in Luthany
is sweeter far for tears of grief,
a melancholy ecstasy,
an ache, and in the ache relief.
The flowers grow in Luthany
row by row beside the road
and mark the graves with sanctity
and pay with joy where debt is owed.
Father Time is marching step by step;
you and I are there, just passers-by.
Save for this, there is little that we know:
every heart, love, hope, and year must surely die.
Somewhere down this long and foggy road,
final berth whence never soul returns,
Time having reached its destined end,
maybe an eternal fire burns,
but you and I are still upon this path,
though follies of this age our step has slowed;
and this we must hold onto till the end:
it's you and I together on this road.
Let other folk grasp hard their lonely selves.
Every soul in the end reaps what it sowed.
Whatever darkness falls, we'll power through,
you and I, on this long and foggy road.
Year again is passing to its grave!
Never fear; I'll write to you this earnest ode:
step by step and each for each, we will not fail,
you and I, on this long and foggy road.
ADDED LATER: I had forgotten that I also had this one:
The Flowers Grow in Luthany
The flowers grow in Luthany
row by row beside the road;
the sunlight shines epiphany
on fields where hope and joy are sowed.
The trill of bird is riding breeze;
I heard it one day shrill and clear
like wind that blows across the seas,
sea-wave crispness bringing near.
A spring of water near a tree
bubbles over, sweet and glad,
but stillness lies on Luthany;
even laughing springs are sad.
For sometimes joy, an apple gold,
the painter paints on background dark;
the warmest flame is found in cold;
in darkness first will sing the lark.
And every joy in Luthany
is sweeter far for tears of grief,
a melancholy ecstasy,
an ache, and in the ache relief.
The flowers grow in Luthany
row by row beside the road
and mark the graves with sanctity
and pay with joy where debt is owed.
Friday, December 27, 2019
Feast of St. John
Earth Cannot Bar Flame from Ascending
by Christina Rossetti
Earth cannot bar flame from ascending,
Hell cannot bind light from descending,
Death cannot finish life never ending.
Eagle and sun gaze at each other,
Eagle at sun, brother at Brother,
Loving in peace and joy one another.
O St. John, with chains for thy wages,
Strong thy rock where the storm-blast rages,
Rock of refuge, the Rock of Ages.
Rome hath passed with her awful voice,
Earth is passing with all her joys,
Heaven shall pass away with a noise.
So from us all follies that please us,
So from us all falsehoods that ease us,–
Only all saints abide with their Jesus.
Jesus, in love looking down hither,
Jesus, by love draw us up thither,
That we in Thee may abide together.
Thursday, December 26, 2019
Dickens's A Christmas Carol
The structure of Dickens's Christmas ghost story, A Christmas Carol, is somewhat richer than it is usually seen to be. Scrooge, of course, famously responds to "A merry Christmas, uncle! God save you!" with "Bah! Humbug!" "Humbug" is not really something you say to indicate general approval; it is an implicit accusation of dishonesty or hypocrisy. Afer some discussion, Scrooge's nephew replies:
This response actually gives the real theme of the work, the fact that there are things from which we might derive good (Christmas among the rest) by which we have not profited. Scrooge in treating Christmas as a lie has demanded to be left alone from it instead of taking the opportunity to become a better person. He is then, of course, visited by four ghosts, each of whom introduces a part of the response to this attitude:
(1) Scrooge himself has done wrong (Ghost of Marley);
(2) in a world of people trying in small ways to make the world better, he has made himself selfish and worse (Ghost of Christmas Past);
(3) this selfishness is even now leading him to miss opportunities to do good (Ghost of Christmas Present);
(4) and, like everyone else, he is running out of time (Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come).
Scrooge's problem is that he has chosen to take a position from which he can look down on the little goods done by others as nothing but humbug, hypocrisy, fakery, and treat that very position as a reason why he himself need not do any such good at all. He has cultivated a wall of selfishness with the justification that he is seeing through all the nonsense of other people. When he learns his lesson, he responds by seizing his opportunities to do good to others while he still can.
“There are many things from which I might have derived good, by which I have not profited, I dare say,” returned the nephew. “Christmas among the rest. But I am sure I have always thought of Christmas time, when it has come round—apart from the veneration due to its sacred name and origin, if anything belonging to it can be apart from that—as a good time; a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time; the only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow-passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys. And therefore, uncle, though it has never put a scrap of gold or silver in my pocket, I believe that it has done me good, and will do me good; and I say, God bless it!”
This response actually gives the real theme of the work, the fact that there are things from which we might derive good (Christmas among the rest) by which we have not profited. Scrooge in treating Christmas as a lie has demanded to be left alone from it instead of taking the opportunity to become a better person. He is then, of course, visited by four ghosts, each of whom introduces a part of the response to this attitude:
(1) Scrooge himself has done wrong (Ghost of Marley);
(2) in a world of people trying in small ways to make the world better, he has made himself selfish and worse (Ghost of Christmas Past);
(3) this selfishness is even now leading him to miss opportunities to do good (Ghost of Christmas Present);
(4) and, like everyone else, he is running out of time (Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come).
Scrooge's problem is that he has chosen to take a position from which he can look down on the little goods done by others as nothing but humbug, hypocrisy, fakery, and treat that very position as a reason why he himself need not do any such good at all. He has cultivated a wall of selfishness with the justification that he is seeing through all the nonsense of other people. When he learns his lesson, he responds by seizing his opportunities to do good to others while he still can.
Wednesday, December 25, 2019
Tuesday, December 24, 2019
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