The glory of the day was in her face,
The beauty of the night was in her eyes.
And over all her loveliness, the grace
Of Morning blushing in the early skies.
And in her voice, the calling of the dove
Like music of a sweet melodious part.
And in her smile, the breaking light of love;
And all the gentle virtues in her heart.
And now the glorious day, the beauteous night,
The birds that signal to their mates at dawn,
To my dull ears, to my tear-blinded sight
Are one with all the dead, since she is gone.
Sunday, October 12, 2008
Saturday, October 11, 2008
psalmus David
iudica me Deus et discerne causam meam de gente non sancta
ab homine iniquo et doloso erue me
quia tu es Deus fortitudo mea
quare me reppulisti
quare tristis incedo dum affligit me inimicus
emitte lucem tuam et veritatem tuam
ipsa me deduxerunt et adduxerunt
in montem sanctum tuum et in tabernacula tua
et introibo ad altare Dei
ad Deum qui laetificat iuventutem meam
ab homine iniquo et doloso erue me
quia tu es Deus fortitudo mea
quare me reppulisti
quare tristis incedo dum affligit me inimicus
emitte lucem tuam et veritatem tuam
ipsa me deduxerunt et adduxerunt
in montem sanctum tuum et in tabernacula tua
et introibo ad altare Dei
ad Deum qui laetificat iuventutem meam
Thomas Campion (1567-1620)
Rose-cheekt Laura, come;
Sing thou smoothly with thy beauty's
Silent music, either other
Sweetly gracing.
Lovely forms do flow
From concent divinely framèd:
Heav'n is music, and thy beauty's
Birth is heav'nly.
These dull notes we sing
Discords need for helps to grace them;
Only beauty purely loving
Knows no discord;
But still moves delight,
Like clear springs renew'd by flowing,
Ever perfect, ever in them-
selves eternall.
Sing thou smoothly with thy beauty's
Silent music, either other
Sweetly gracing.
Lovely forms do flow
From concent divinely framèd:
Heav'n is music, and thy beauty's
Birth is heav'nly.
These dull notes we sing
Discords need for helps to grace them;
Only beauty purely loving
Knows no discord;
But still moves delight,
Like clear springs renew'd by flowing,
Ever perfect, ever in them-
selves eternall.
More on the Beatitudes
Fr Gawronski informs us, "They are sung in every Byzantine liturgy, as the Word of God is formally borne into the Church" (A Closer Walk with Christ, p. 138).
I have never been present at a Byzantine liturgy, but it is refreshing to know that there are divine celebrations that begin without the singing of "All Are Welcome" or "Gather Us In."
I have never been present at a Byzantine liturgy, but it is refreshing to know that there are divine celebrations that begin without the singing of "All Are Welcome" or "Gather Us In."
Friday, October 10, 2008
Blessed are the peacemakers
Those who are peacemakers can expect to suffer much, for the world is constantly urging us to take simple sides in its battles. We do have to take a side in the end, but it is the side of Jesus, and Jesus is the one everyone seems to reject! Both Pharisees and Sadducees, the great parties of His day, rejected Him. Though He was closest to the Pharisees, He was also most critical of them. Although coming so very close, they still missed the boat, and a miss is as good as a mile. One is often tempted to take sides -- is generally drawn to one side anyway -- and in the end, one runs out of patience and just opts for one side over the other. Jesus calls to a deeper peace than that reached in most of our battles. If in one battle we must be on one side, in another battle we will sometimes find ourselves on the other side, if we are truly listening to God. So to listen to God and to speak His word is to be free of all party claims. It is to be free to try and bring a peace that is not of this world, and so share in the work of the Son of God. Peacemakers are crucified by all, for they will not take sides. They offer an understanding that requires surrender of personal riches, the riches of giving ultimacy to human opinions.
Raymond Thomas Gawronski, SJ, A Closer Walk with Christ: A Personal Ignatian Retreat (Our Sunday Visitor, 2003), p. 142
Raymond Thomas Gawronski, SJ, A Closer Walk with Christ: A Personal Ignatian Retreat (Our Sunday Visitor, 2003), p. 142
"What else does the box say?"
1. Has anyone else seen that commercial?
2. If you've answered "yes" to question #1, do you hate the commercial as much as I do?
2. If you've answered "yes" to question #1, do you hate the commercial as much as I do?
from "An October Journey"
by Margaret Walker (1915-98)
I want to tell you what hills are like in October
when colors gush down mountainsides
and little streams are freighted with a caravan of leaves.
I want to tell you how they blush and turn in fiery shame and joy,
how their love burns with flames consuming and terrible
until we wake one morning and woods are like a smoldering plain --
a glowing caldron full of jewelled fire;
the emerald earth a dragon's eye,
the poplars drenched in yellow light
and dogwoods blazing bloody red.
Travelling southward earth changes from gray rock to green velvet.
Earth changes to red clay
with green grass growing brightly
with saffron skies of evening setting dully
with muddy rivers moving sluggishly.
In the early spring when the peach tree blooms
wearing a veil like a lavender haze
and the pear and the plum in their bridal hair
gently snow their petals on earth's grassy bosom below
then their soughing breeze is soothing
and the world seems bathed in tenderness,
but in October
blossoms have long since fallen.
A few red apples hang on leafless boughs;
wind whips bushes briskly.
And where a blue stream sings cautiously
a barren land feeds
hungrily.
From The Vintage Book of African American Poetry, eds. Michael S. Harper & Anthony Walton (Vintage, 2000), pp. 180-1
I want to tell you what hills are like in October
when colors gush down mountainsides
and little streams are freighted with a caravan of leaves.
I want to tell you how they blush and turn in fiery shame and joy,
how their love burns with flames consuming and terrible
until we wake one morning and woods are like a smoldering plain --
a glowing caldron full of jewelled fire;
the emerald earth a dragon's eye,
the poplars drenched in yellow light
and dogwoods blazing bloody red.
Travelling southward earth changes from gray rock to green velvet.
Earth changes to red clay
with green grass growing brightly
with saffron skies of evening setting dully
with muddy rivers moving sluggishly.
In the early spring when the peach tree blooms
wearing a veil like a lavender haze
and the pear and the plum in their bridal hair
gently snow their petals on earth's grassy bosom below
then their soughing breeze is soothing
and the world seems bathed in tenderness,
but in October
blossoms have long since fallen.
A few red apples hang on leafless boughs;
wind whips bushes briskly.
And where a blue stream sings cautiously
a barren land feeds
hungrily.
From The Vintage Book of African American Poetry, eds. Michael S. Harper & Anthony Walton (Vintage, 2000), pp. 180-1
By Achmelvich Bridge
by Norman MacCaig (1910-96)
Night stirs the trees
With breathings of such music that they sway,
Skirts, sleeves, tiaras, in the humming dark,
Their highborn heads tossing in disarray.
A floating owl
Unreels his silence, winding in and out
Of different darknesses. The wind takes up
And scatters a sound of water all about.
No moon need slide
Into the sky to make that water bright;
It ties its swelling self with glassy ropes;
It jumps from stones in smithereens of light.
The mosses on the wall
Plump their fat cushions up. They smell of wells,
Of under bridges and of spoons. They move
More quiveringly than the dazed rims of bells.
A broad cloud drops
A darker darkness. Turning up his stare,
Letting the world pour under him, owl goes off,
His small soft foghorn quavering through the air.
From The Oxford Book of Scottish Verse, eds. J. MacQueen and T. Scott (Oxford University Press, 1989), p. 560
Night stirs the trees
With breathings of such music that they sway,
Skirts, sleeves, tiaras, in the humming dark,
Their highborn heads tossing in disarray.
A floating owl
Unreels his silence, winding in and out
Of different darknesses. The wind takes up
And scatters a sound of water all about.
No moon need slide
Into the sky to make that water bright;
It ties its swelling self with glassy ropes;
It jumps from stones in smithereens of light.
The mosses on the wall
Plump their fat cushions up. They smell of wells,
Of under bridges and of spoons. They move
More quiveringly than the dazed rims of bells.
A broad cloud drops
A darker darkness. Turning up his stare,
Letting the world pour under him, owl goes off,
His small soft foghorn quavering through the air.
From The Oxford Book of Scottish Verse, eds. J. MacQueen and T. Scott (Oxford University Press, 1989), p. 560
Autumn
from The Seasons
by James Thomson (1700-48)
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.
by James Thomson (1700-48)
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.
Quotations of note
Those who justify themselves do not convince.
Lao-tzu
The only wisdom we can hope to acquire
Is the wisdom of humility: humility is endless.
T. S. Eliot
Therefore Dear Reader, forgive what you do not approve, & love me for this energetic exertion of my talent.
William Blake, "To the Public," preface to Jerusalem
"All things are lawful for me," but not all things are helpful.
1 Corinthians 6:12.
We should value others by the most that they are, and ourselves by the least that we are.
Marianne Moore (from memory, wording may be inexact)
Satisfaction is a lowly thing, how pure a thing is joy.
Marianne Moore, from the poem "What Are Years?"
Be gentle with others, be severe with yourself.
Saint Teresa of Avila, quoted somewhere in The Complete Prose of Marianne Moore
deeds cannot dream what dreams can do
--time is a tree(this life one leaf)
but love is the sky and i am for you
just so long and long enough
edward estlin cummings, "as freedom is a breakfastfood"
I'm a very gentle man,
Even-tempered and good-natured, whom you never hear complain,
Who has the milk of human kindness by the quart in every vein:
A patient man am I
Down to my fingertips
The sort who never would, ever could
Let an insulting remark escape his lips ...
Rex Harrison as Professor Higgins in "My Fair Lady"
This Humanist whom no belief constrained
Grew so broad-minded he was scatter-brained.
J. V. Cunningham (1911-86)
Lao-tzu
The only wisdom we can hope to acquire
Is the wisdom of humility: humility is endless.
T. S. Eliot
Therefore Dear Reader, forgive what you do not approve, & love me for this energetic exertion of my talent.
William Blake, "To the Public," preface to Jerusalem
"All things are lawful for me," but not all things are helpful.
1 Corinthians 6:12.
We should value others by the most that they are, and ourselves by the least that we are.
Marianne Moore (from memory, wording may be inexact)
Satisfaction is a lowly thing, how pure a thing is joy.
Marianne Moore, from the poem "What Are Years?"
Be gentle with others, be severe with yourself.
Saint Teresa of Avila, quoted somewhere in The Complete Prose of Marianne Moore
deeds cannot dream what dreams can do
--time is a tree(this life one leaf)
but love is the sky and i am for you
just so long and long enough
edward estlin cummings, "as freedom is a breakfastfood"
I'm a very gentle man,
Even-tempered and good-natured, whom you never hear complain,
Who has the milk of human kindness by the quart in every vein:
A patient man am I
Down to my fingertips
The sort who never would, ever could
Let an insulting remark escape his lips ...
Rex Harrison as Professor Higgins in "My Fair Lady"
This Humanist whom no belief constrained
Grew so broad-minded he was scatter-brained.
J. V. Cunningham (1911-86)
Tuesday, October 07, 2008
Untitled, 2002
He pilfered her poems, he stole all her prose,
Absconded with meter and rhyme:
With never an ode of his own to compose,
He took to the plagiarist's crime.
He twisted the syllables, wrenched every word --
How barbarous was his technique!
A more brutish din you never have heard.
Such havoc the snatcher would wreak!
He'd say it in Portuguese, then Double Dutch,
And maybe a soupçon of French:
He'd stand on a soapbox in big city squares
Disturbing the drunk on the bench.
His phrases were noisy: a big pile of books
That loudestly falls to the floor.
His poems all merited murderous looks
And catcalls of "Plagiarist! Boor!"
But one happy day, this most burglarish bard
Received a felicitous turn:
He left all his poems heaped in the backyard
With the leaves he intended to burn.
The vowels and consonants went up in smoke;
His lyrics became quite extinct.
A quite fitting fate for this silly old bloke
Who stealed what his betters had thinked!
Absconded with meter and rhyme:
With never an ode of his own to compose,
He took to the plagiarist's crime.
He twisted the syllables, wrenched every word --
How barbarous was his technique!
A more brutish din you never have heard.
Such havoc the snatcher would wreak!
He'd say it in Portuguese, then Double Dutch,
And maybe a soupçon of French:
He'd stand on a soapbox in big city squares
Disturbing the drunk on the bench.
His phrases were noisy: a big pile of books
That loudestly falls to the floor.
His poems all merited murderous looks
And catcalls of "Plagiarist! Boor!"
But one happy day, this most burglarish bard
Received a felicitous turn:
He left all his poems heaped in the backyard
With the leaves he intended to burn.
The vowels and consonants went up in smoke;
His lyrics became quite extinct.
A quite fitting fate for this silly old bloke
Who stealed what his betters had thinked!
From a 1956 anthology entitled Saint Francis and the Poet, ed. Elizabeth Patterson, preface by Archbishop Richard J. Cushing
October
by Teresa Hooley
Praised be my Lord for Brother October,
Who is exceedingly forthright,
Tempestuous and loud.
He coloreth the woods with glory,
So that they burn and glow.
He raketh them with his winds
And the leaves are scattered abroad like ashes.
Thanks be to my Lord for Brother October.
The plow worketh beside him,
And the earth is furrowed for the sowing of bread.
Beauty followeth after
In a cloud of wings,
For man doth not live by bread alone.
Brother rook plundereth the walnut-tree
And Sister squirrel the hazel;
Brother thrush pulleth the berries of the yew,
For your Heavenly Father feedeth them.
Praised be my Lord for Brother October,
Tenth of the apostle months of the circling year.
by Teresa Hooley
Praised be my Lord for Brother October,
Who is exceedingly forthright,
Tempestuous and loud.
He coloreth the woods with glory,
So that they burn and glow.
He raketh them with his winds
And the leaves are scattered abroad like ashes.
Thanks be to my Lord for Brother October.
The plow worketh beside him,
And the earth is furrowed for the sowing of bread.
Beauty followeth after
In a cloud of wings,
For man doth not live by bread alone.
Brother rook plundereth the walnut-tree
And Sister squirrel the hazel;
Brother thrush pulleth the berries of the yew,
For your Heavenly Father feedeth them.
Praised be my Lord for Brother October,
Tenth of the apostle months of the circling year.
Won't be online tomorrow
(most likely)
... but it'll be the sixth anniversary of the inception of this here blog.
... but it'll be the sixth anniversary of the inception of this here blog.
blogstuff
There are some blogs I'd like to "follow," but some of you haven't enabled your feed yet (is that the correct terminology?). So I can't follow you!
You know who you are ...
You know who you are ...
Monday, October 06, 2008
Poem #849
by Emily Dickinson (1830-86)
The good Will of a Flower
The Man who would possess
Must first present
Certificate
Of minted Holiness.
The good Will of a Flower
The Man who would possess
Must first present
Certificate
Of minted Holiness.
Quotation
Even as He is filled with the Holy Spirit just descended upon Him, there is no raucous ecstasy but a silent majesty. It is ecstatic, yet has that holy and silent restraint that speaks of God.
Fr Raymond Thomas Gawronski, SJ, about Our Lord's Baptism in the Jordan, in A Closer Walk with Christ (Our Sunday Visitor, 2003), p. 118
emphasis mine
Fr Raymond Thomas Gawronski, SJ, about Our Lord's Baptism in the Jordan, in A Closer Walk with Christ (Our Sunday Visitor, 2003), p. 118
emphasis mine
I don't get this meme
Am I supposed to say what I think I should be patron of, if I hubristically foresee my eventual canonization, or, as this blogger has it, do I say what the person who tagged me should be patron of?
For TS, who tagged me, I'll go with patron of Guinness drinkers, used bookstores, Ohio, and summer. For myself, patron of Newcastle drinkers, used bookstores, Massachusetts, and autumn. (Do seasons have patron saints? Maybe lovers of certain seasons have patron saints ...)
For TS, who tagged me, I'll go with patron of Guinness drinkers, used bookstores, Ohio, and summer. For myself, patron of Newcastle drinkers, used bookstores, Massachusetts, and autumn. (Do seasons have patron saints? Maybe lovers of certain seasons have patron saints ...)
Friday, October 03, 2008
Thursday, October 02, 2008
Wednesday, October 01, 2008
Hayden Carruth (1921-2008)
Hayden Carruth, poet, anthologist, sometime editor of Poetry magazine, author of from snow and rock, from chaos (1973) and Scrambled Eggs and Whiskey (1990s), editor of the important anthology The Voice that is Great Within Us (1970), has died at age 87. Vermonter, political radical, better-than-decent poet. See especially the 1973 collection mentioned above.
(Link via the Poetry Foundation.)
Here is his poem Tabula Rasa.
(Link via the Poetry Foundation.)
Here is his poem Tabula Rasa.
Sunday, September 28, 2008
Kenneth Koch (1925-2002) on revision
Some poets and some who think about poetry and many who don't think about it are "opposed" to revision. Poetry, they believe, should come full-fledged like an angel from the Imagination. Anything else is tainted. What can the intellect do that would favorably affect this angel? Well, everyone likes the angel, but why limit the angel to one flight? The angel not only arrives but also may be there during the writing, may disappear and may return for revision. "If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind" is not an example of "First thought, best thought," and neither is Williams's "Among/of/green//stiff/old/bright//broken/ branch." The enemy is not revision but the absence of the angel. By the right kind of work, one can have it there at every stage.
Kenneth Koch, Making Your Own Days: The Pleasures of Reading and Writing Poetry, p. 108
Kenneth Koch, Making Your Own Days: The Pleasures of Reading and Writing Poetry, p. 108
Me too
Hungry for what I was learning, I tended to swallow it whole. Critical thinking has never been my strong suit; I have what, being kind to myself, I will term a capacity to believe whatever I am reading at the moment. When I can spot a logical fallacy, it's a bad one, something a sensible twelve-year-old might question.
Kathleen Norris, Amazing Grace: A Vocabulary of Faith, p. 129
Kathleen Norris, Amazing Grace: A Vocabulary of Faith, p. 129
From today's Communion hymn
I cannot remember
A trial or a pain
That God did not recycle
To bring me some gain.
A trial or a pain
That God did not recycle
To bring me some gain.
Comedy and politics
Of course, it doesn't make sense to you, Senator. You're not a maverick.
Darrell Hammond as Sen. John McCain in a parody of the recent presidential debate, on Saturday Night Live last night
Darrell Hammond as Sen. John McCain in a parody of the recent presidential debate, on Saturday Night Live last night
Saturday, September 27, 2008
Weather
In the words of my best friend's college roommate, "It's raining harder than a cow p*ssing on a flat rock."
dylan the reluctant draggard
TS(O) at Video meliora has blogged a bit about how Bill O'Reilly chose the title of his recent memoir: he recalled a teacher's description of him in the third grade. The teacher, a nun, had called him "a bold, fresh piece of humanity."
I can boast nothing similar. At the end of my freshman year of high school, my English teacher, the late Mr F. J. Molloy, told me my grade for the year (D-plus, despite having turned in two late A papers) and diagnosed me quite aptly, I fear, by saying, "You're a reluctant draggard."
I can boast nothing similar. At the end of my freshman year of high school, my English teacher, the late Mr F. J. Molloy, told me my grade for the year (D-plus, despite having turned in two late A papers) and diagnosed me quite aptly, I fear, by saying, "You're a reluctant draggard."
Friday, September 26, 2008
"Forgiving Ourselves"
These words were seen on the sign in front of the Unitarian church near here -- indicating, no doubt, the theme of this coming Sunday's sermon.
It is truly puzzling: why belong to a church that preaches self-absolution?
It is truly puzzling: why belong to a church that preaches self-absolution?
Thursday, September 25, 2008
Earliest version of an unwritten poème-en-prose
There is no waterfall in the living-room. There is no wristwatch in the sky. There are no detectives among the goldfish. There is no anaphora in the modern liturgy. There are no psalms recited in the public schools. There is no fresh air in the halls of secularism. There are no dissenters in Utopia. There is no architecture in the quicksand. There are very few astronomers in the Capuchin order. There is no subversion among progressives. There is no sarcasm in the asylum. There are unlimited possibilities in Cellblock 61. There are no bottles of Montepulciano in the mountains of Vermont. There are no icons on television. There are no Broadway show-tunes in the eastern cathedrals. There is nothing ridiculous about ambition. There are interesting turns of phrase in the conversation of the effervescent sacristan. There are no lost thoughts in the age to come.
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
Poetry shop-talk
One of my favorite effects in iambic pentameter comes when the expected "stresses" of the second and fourth foot fall on unstressed syllables. Hard to explain, easy to illustrate by example. Robert Lowell, whom I've been reading with a small degree of avidity, has done this more than once:
I dabble in the dapple of the day
(from "Night Sweat")
My profit was a pocket with a hole
(from "Words for Hart Crane")
Another line almost pulls this off, but is notable more for its alliterative qualities, like the lines above:
The cannon on the Common cannot stun
(from "Christmas Eve under Hooker's Statue") ...
I don't know what it's called, when you do what's done in the first two examples, but it's wonderful.
I dabble in the dapple of the day
(from "Night Sweat")
My profit was a pocket with a hole
(from "Words for Hart Crane")
Another line almost pulls this off, but is notable more for its alliterative qualities, like the lines above:
The cannon on the Common cannot stun
(from "Christmas Eve under Hooker's Statue") ...
I don't know what it's called, when you do what's done in the first two examples, but it's wonderful.
"Ah! I made veep." -- S.P. Moody? Baby? Doom? P.S.: Peeved am I, ha!
The title of this post is, as you may have noticed, a Palin-drome: coined by one Alison Merrill, and published in this recent Boston Globe column by Alex Beam, which mostly deals with neologisms.
A lofty pronouncement
As for the Ten Commandments, when I could begin to let the family ghosts go, I found that they struck me as sensible, both outwardly, as tenets that help to sustain civil and social order, and inwardly, as principles that assist us in naming and resisting the more negative emotions, such as greed, malice, and covetousness.
Kathleen Norris, from Amazing Grace: A Vocabulary of Faith, p. 86
:: :: :: :: ::
Is it me or is there something a wee bit grating about someone declaring that the Ten Commandments are "sensible"? It seems a little lofty, as if God will be gratified to know that the esteemed poet Kathleen Norris finds Eternal Truth to be "sensible"! (I have to keep in mind that Norris is writing, to some extent, for her fellow progressives, and even for skeptics.)
There's a sentence on the next page I like a little better, about the 'jealousy' of God: "Who, after all, would trust a God, a parent, a spouse, or lover, who said to us, 'I really love you, but I don't care at all what you do or who you become'?"
Kathleen Norris, from Amazing Grace: A Vocabulary of Faith, p. 86
:: :: :: :: ::
Is it me or is there something a wee bit grating about someone declaring that the Ten Commandments are "sensible"? It seems a little lofty, as if God will be gratified to know that the esteemed poet Kathleen Norris finds Eternal Truth to be "sensible"! (I have to keep in mind that Norris is writing, to some extent, for her fellow progressives, and even for skeptics.)
There's a sentence on the next page I like a little better, about the 'jealousy' of God: "Who, after all, would trust a God, a parent, a spouse, or lover, who said to us, 'I really love you, but I don't care at all what you do or who you become'?"
Astronomers
Some like to study distant galaxies;
Some scan the skies for Jupiter and Mars:
I tell you, though, this young black woman's eyes
Could make astronomers forget the stars.
Some scan the skies for Jupiter and Mars:
I tell you, though, this young black woman's eyes
Could make astronomers forget the stars.
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
Quotation
You may have joie de vivre, but you're not twenty.
Robert Lowell, from "The Misanthrope and the Painter"
Robert Lowell, from "The Misanthrope and the Painter"
Monday, September 22, 2008
Autumn
by Robert Lowell (1917-77)
an imitation of "Chant d'automne," section I, by Charles Baudelaire (1821-67)
Now colder shadows ... Who'll turn back the clock?
Goodbye bright summer's brief too lively sport!
The squirrel drops its acorn with a shock,
cord-wood reverberates in my cobbled court.
Winter has entered in my citadel:
hate, anger, fear, forced work like splitting rock,
and like the sun borne to its northern hell,
my heart's no more than a red, frozen block.
Shaking, I listen for the wood to fall;
building a scaffold makes no deafer sound.
Each heart-beat knocks my body to the ground,
like a slow battering ram crumbling a wall.
I think this is the season's funeral,
some one is nailing a coffin hurriedly.
For whom? Yesterday summer, today fall --
the steady progress sounds like a goodbye.
an imitation of "Chant d'automne," section I, by Charles Baudelaire (1821-67)
Now colder shadows ... Who'll turn back the clock?
Goodbye bright summer's brief too lively sport!
The squirrel drops its acorn with a shock,
cord-wood reverberates in my cobbled court.
Winter has entered in my citadel:
hate, anger, fear, forced work like splitting rock,
and like the sun borne to its northern hell,
my heart's no more than a red, frozen block.
Shaking, I listen for the wood to fall;
building a scaffold makes no deafer sound.
Each heart-beat knocks my body to the ground,
like a slow battering ram crumbling a wall.
I think this is the season's funeral,
some one is nailing a coffin hurriedly.
For whom? Yesterday summer, today fall --
the steady progress sounds like a goodbye.
Sunday, September 21, 2008
Computer problems ...
... and a busy week, and a brain that is not exactly chock-full of interesting things to say, have all contributed to this past week's comparatively low blogging output. Am expecting a similar slowness this coming week.
Saturday, September 20, 2008
Found at the book sale
at the library at Arlington's Town Day:
Principal Products of Portugal, prose pieces by Donald Hall. Some are about baseball, some about basketball, most are about literature. The masterpiece of the collection is perhaps Hall's encomium for his contemporary, the late James Wright (1927-80).
Amazing Grace: A Vocabulary of Faith by Kathleen Norris. I've read this one before, but my cousin has my original copy. I remember reading this book the last time I was called for jury duty!
Two dollars apiece. Not bad for a couple of slightly roughed-up hardcovers.
Principal Products of Portugal, prose pieces by Donald Hall. Some are about baseball, some about basketball, most are about literature. The masterpiece of the collection is perhaps Hall's encomium for his contemporary, the late James Wright (1927-80).
Amazing Grace: A Vocabulary of Faith by Kathleen Norris. I've read this one before, but my cousin has my original copy. I remember reading this book the last time I was called for jury duty!
Two dollars apiece. Not bad for a couple of slightly roughed-up hardcovers.
Friday, September 19, 2008
Coldest morning in Boston
... since May 23rd
Woo hoo! As Emerson wrote, "The cold air invigorates." And 49 degrees isn't all that cold ...
Woo hoo! As Emerson wrote, "The cold air invigorates." And 49 degrees isn't all that cold ...
Thursday, September 18, 2008
Quotation
"a herd of tepid elephants sinking in seedy mud"
Robert Lowell's mother's description of Washington, DC. Found in Robert Lowell: A Biography by Ian Hamilton (Random House, 1982), p. 10
Robert Lowell's mother's description of Washington, DC. Found in Robert Lowell: A Biography by Ian Hamilton (Random House, 1982), p. 10
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
Vivificat must-reads
Vivificat! must-reads
A skeptic's prayer by Peter Kreeft.
"My God is hanging there" by Fr Richard Leonard, SJ, a meditation on suffering with refernce to Dachau, and how modern society has 'domesticated' the scandal of the Cross.
Traditional Catholicism, mainstream Catholicism, and a horror story involving Whitney Houston songs at Mass.
A skeptic's prayer by Peter Kreeft.
"My God is hanging there" by Fr Richard Leonard, SJ, a meditation on suffering with refernce to Dachau, and how modern society has 'domesticated' the scandal of the Cross.
Traditional Catholicism, mainstream Catholicism, and a horror story involving Whitney Houston songs at Mass.
Monday, September 15, 2008
Recently found
Recently found at the used bookstore
Imitations by Robert Lowell. A collection of Lowell's free renderings of seventy European poems, from the French, German, Italian, and Russian. First published in 1961, the book was controversial for the liberties that Lowell took with the originals, basically rewriting them into his own poems. In spite of this, or even because of this, the volume exerts considerable attraction: the voice is excellent mid-period Lowell; and we can always go back to the originals, if we are conversant in French or Italian, to acquaint ourselves better with literature we might otherwise have missed. (I didn't know this at the time, but the day I bought this book was the anniversary of Lowell's death -- an odd coincidence.)
A Closer Walk with Christ by Raymond Thomas Gawronski, SJ (Our Sunday Visitor Press). A book describing in detail the steps of an Ignatian retreat. The author seems to be in the main stream of Catholicism, and not to be one of those Jesuits who want to be Episcopalian. I have read only the first 20-30 pages, but the book seems to contain many helpful directions toward deepening one's life of prayer.
Imitations by Robert Lowell. A collection of Lowell's free renderings of seventy European poems, from the French, German, Italian, and Russian. First published in 1961, the book was controversial for the liberties that Lowell took with the originals, basically rewriting them into his own poems. In spite of this, or even because of this, the volume exerts considerable attraction: the voice is excellent mid-period Lowell; and we can always go back to the originals, if we are conversant in French or Italian, to acquaint ourselves better with literature we might otherwise have missed. (I didn't know this at the time, but the day I bought this book was the anniversary of Lowell's death -- an odd coincidence.)
A Closer Walk with Christ by Raymond Thomas Gawronski, SJ (Our Sunday Visitor Press). A book describing in detail the steps of an Ignatian retreat. The author seems to be in the main stream of Catholicism, and not to be one of those Jesuits who want to be Episcopalian. I have read only the first 20-30 pages, but the book seems to contain many helpful directions toward deepening one's life of prayer.
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