“After dark vapors have oppress’d our plains

For a long dreary season, comes a day

Born of the gentle South, and clears away

From the sick heavens all unseemly stains.

The anxious month, relieved of its pains,

Takes as a long-lost right the feel of May;

The eyelids with the passing coolness play

Like rose leaves with the drip of Summer rains.

The calmest thoughts came round us; as of leaves

Budding—fruit ripening in stillness—Autumn suns

Smiling at eve upon the quiet sheaves—

Sweet Sappho’s cheek—a smiling infant’s breath—

The gradual sand that through an hour-glass runs—

A woodland rivulet—a Poet’s death.” — Keats

(It has been my custom to post a poem by Chesterton every Christmas. But I didn’t do that this year. I thought of posting a New Year’s poem tonight, but it looks as if Chesterton didn’t write any. This, however, is close. Happy New Year.)

The old earth keepeth her watch the same,

Alone in a voiceless void doth stand,

Her orange flowers in her bosom flame,

Her gold ring in her hand,

The surfs of the long gold-crested morns

Break evermore at her great robe’s hem,

And evermore come the bleak moon-horns,

But she keepeth not watch for them.

She keepeth her watch through the aeons,

But the heart of her groweth not old,

For the peal of the bridegroom’s paeons,

And the tale she once was told.

The nations shock and the cities reel,

The empires travail and rive and rend,

And she looks on havoc and smoke and steel,

And knoweth it is not the end.

The faiths may choke and the powers despair,

The powers re-arise and the faiths renew,

She is only a maiden, waiting there,

For the love whose word is true.

She keepeth her watch through the aeons,

But the heart of her groweth not old,

For the peal of the bridegroom’s paeons,

And the tale she once was told.

Through the cornfield’s gleam and the cottage shade,

They wait unwearied, the young and old,

Mother for child and man for maid,

For a love that once was told.

The hair grows grey under thatch or slates,

The eyes grow dim behind lattice panes,

The earth-race wait as the old earth waits,

And the hope in the heart remains.

She keepeth her watch through the aeons,

But the heart of her groweth not old,

For the peal of the bridegroom’s paeons,

And the tale she once was told.

God’s gold ring on her hand is bound,

She fires with blossom the grey hill-sides,

Her fields are quickened, her forests crowned,

While the love of her heart abides,

And we from the fears that fret and mar,

Look up in hours and behold a while

Her face, colossal, mid star on star,

Still looking forth with a smile.

She keepeth her watch through the aeons,

But the heart of her groweth not old,

For the peal of the bridegroom’s paeons,

And the tale she once was told.

Man’s Maker was made man

that the Bread might be hungry,

the Fountain thirst,

the Light sleep,

the Way be tired from the journey;

that Strength might be made weak,

that Life might die.

~ St. Augustine (via Relief Journal, Painting by Guido Reni) Continue reading “Man’s Maker was made man” →

Professor Hunter Bakers writes, “It is interesting to read about education in the 19th century. One encounters a former emphasis on memorization and recitation. I suppose that method is considered inadequate now and we have moved well past it.”

I think memorizing is important. It’s recommended in the Trivium at early ages, because kids like to rattle off quotes. They are little parrots at that age.

Andrew Peterson talks about discovering a poem by Wendell Berry. “Just a few days ago my kind neighbor Tommy gave me permission to harvest a few maple seedlings from his property and I spent an afternoon replanting them around the Warren with these same hopes for the blessing they might be to my children’s children. Once again, the sage words of the Mad Farmer gave me a clear picture of what it means for us to be keepers of his creation, standing amidst a breadth of old beauty that we didn’t ask for and don’t deserve.”