The speckled sky is dim with snow,
The light flakes falter and fall slow;
Athwart the hill-top, rapt and pale,
Silently drops a silvery veil;
And all the valley is shut in
By flickering curtains gray and thin.
Read more of “Midwinter” by John Townsend Trowbridge
“He asked if I would sell my Christmas trees;
My woods—the young fir balsams like a place
Where houses all are churches and have spires.
I hadn’t thought of them as Christmas Trees.”
Sherry offers a work by D. Gabriel Rossetti:
She fell asleep on Christmas Eve:
At length the long-ungranted shade
Of weary eyelids overweigh’d
The pain nought else might yet relieve. . . .
Also, Frank Wilson offers a piece he wrote last year:
The leaves are fallen, but the sky is clear
(Though winter’s scheduling an arctic flight).
The rumor is a rendezvous draws near. . . .
Words like these put me in the mood for a song. “Oh by golly, have a holly, jolly–” NOT THAT SONG. Something closer to the holiday will be better. Here’s part of one we sang tonight.
As with joyful steps they sped
To that lowly cradle bed,
There to bend the knee before
Him whom heaven and earth adore;
So may we with willing feet
Ever seek thy mercy-seat.…
Holy Jesus, ev’ry day
Keep us in the narrow way;
And, when earthly things are past,
Bring our ransomed souls at last
Where they need no star to guide,
Where no clouds thy glory hide.
“Be Thou My Vision” is one of my favorite hymns. It’s one I wish I could speak as a confession instead of an aspiration. Here are two of the less familiar verses:
Be Thou my battle Shield, Sword for the fight;
Be Thou my Dignity, Thou my Delight;
Thou my soul’s Shelter, Thou my high Tower:
Raise Thou me heavenward, O Power of my power.
Riches I heed not, nor man’s empty praise,
Thou mine Inheritance, now and always:
Thou and Thou only, first in my heart,
High King of Heaven, my Treasure Thou art.
We’ve been talking about women a bit this week, so I submit this Longfellow poem to cap things off. Here’s a portion:
MAIDEN! with the meek, brown eyes,
In whose orbs a shadow lies
Like the dusk in evening skies!
Thou whose locks outshine the sun,
Golden tresses, wreathed in one,
As the braided streamlets run!
…
Bear a lily in thy hand;
Gates of brass cannot withstand
One touch of that magic wand.
from “Maidenhood”
I felt I should confess what is probably obvious to all of our regular readers. This blog could be in the top 10 of the blogosphere, if Lars and I weren’t holding back. As an illustration, I offer this poem by Holmes:
I WROTE some lines once on a time
In wondrous merry mood,
And thought, as usual, men would say
They were exceeding good.
They were so queer, so very queer,
I laughed as I would die;
Albeit, in the general way,
A sober man am I.
I called my servant, and he came; Read on
from “The Height of the Ridiculous,” by Oliver Wendell Holmes
The title of this post is stolen from an article referred to by Sean O’Brien and describes part of his point in this Guardian article on the vocation of poetry. “Poetry is an imaginative necessity for the poet, for good or ill,” he writes. He believes the creative process should be encouraged and taught by accomplished authors.
From the poet’s point of view (the other forms can look after themselves) this [encouragement] needs to be combined with a braking effect, a reminder that the point is not in the first place to publish but to learn to write as well as possible, to read everything, to think in terms of language rather than attitude, to master form, and not to mistake self-expression for art.
Publication may follow in time, but there are usually, and rightly, dues to be paid first, and maybe in perpetuity.
[via Books, Inq.]
Since Lars is gone this week, I feel the need to post something Vikinesque. Here’s part of a modern poem by Christie Ward, called “Creation,” which claims to be in the style of Viking poetry. You can read the whole thing through the link.
Of men there are many, and many the singers.
One is the song that shall rise above all:
of man sing the song then! The ideal! The spirit!
Away shall pass peoples, but never the power
of song, nor the poet who sings the soul of his people.
Here’s a fun poem by Mark Jarman, printed in The New Criterion.
When we arrive, the future will adore us
As being so much better than it expected.
We went to school with thugs and contagion.
We went to school with tidal waves and felons.
And we turned out OK. We’re at the future!
. . . Read on
“GENTLY, Lord, oh, gently lead us,
Pilgrims in this vale of tears . . .
Suffer not our hearts to languish,
Suffer not our souls to fear”
from Thomas Hastings, “In Sorrow”