From The Tragicall Historie of the Life and Death of Doctor Faustus

Now that the gloomy shadow of the earth,
Longing to view Orion's drizzling look,
Leaps from th' antarctic world unto the sky,
And dims the welkin with her pitchy breath,
Faustus, begin thine incantations ...

Quotation of note

Sure, writing is work, but it is not labor: however mopey or melancholic your verse, it wants to have included some element of the playful, or else it'll be dull for maker and reader both.

Sydney Lea, in The Practice of Poetry: Writing Exercises from Poets Who Teach, ed. Robin Behn and Chase Twichell (Quill/HarperCollins, 1992), p.18

From the archives

A sonnet about The 5th Dimension.  Here.

Spring and fall

Awake, after a long long sleep--six hours!
Trucks and buses rumble down Centre Street.
A pleasant morning--no oppressive heat,
But just enough warmth to delight the flowers.


Today is cloudy with a chance of showers.
These days of spring--so surpassingly sweet!
A cup of coffee and a bite to eat
And a few pages from Barchester Towers ...


The poet says these days soon "sour with sinning":
Chaste May becomes a lewd and sultry June.
Temperatures rise.  This large man starts to grumble.


I won't be happy lest the mercury tumble,
Green trees blush red beneath a frosty moon
And bracing breezes set the dead leaves spinning!

The Crystal Tambourine

has lately been updated with two poems, "Alphabet" and "Before Dawn."

Vincent McNabb, OP

"Lord Jesus, the one whom Thou lovest is sick" (Jn 11:3).

The one whom Thou lovest is strayed.

I have lost Thee.

I cannot find Thee.

Find me.

Seek me.

I cannot find Thee.

I have lost my way.

Thou art the Way.

Find me, or I am utterly lost.

Thou lovest me.

I do not know if I love Thee;

but I know Thou lovest me.

I do not plead my love, but Thine.

I do not plead my strength, but Thine.

I do not plead my deed, but Thine.

The one whom Thou lovest is sick.

I dare not say:

The one who loves Thee is sick.

My sickness is that I do not love Thee.

That is the source of my sickness which is approaching death.

I am sinking.

Raise me.

Come to me upon the waters.

Lord Jesus, "the one whom Thou lovest is sick."


+ + + + + + +


[found at Feast of All Saints, on the Pick a Prayer page
-- alas, this website has not been updated
since 2004!]

Blessed John Henry Newman

May He support us all the day long, till the shades lengthen, and the evening comes, and the busy world is hushed, and the fever of life is over, and our work is done. Then in His mercy may He give us a safe lodging, and a holy rest, and peace at the last.

St Ignatius Loyola

Suscipe


Take, O Lord, and receive my entire liberty: my memory, my understanding, my whole will.  All that I am and all that I possess You have given me; I surrender it all to You to be governed according to Your will.  Give me only Your love and Your grace -- with these I will be rich enough, and will desire nothing more.


Suscipe, Domine, universam meam libertatem. Accipe memoriam, intellectum, atque voluntatem omnem. Quidquid habeo vel possideo mihi largitus es; id tibi totum restituo, ac tuae prorsus voluntati trado gubernandum. Amorem tui solum cum gratia tua mihi dones, et dives sum satis, nec aliud quidquam ultra posco.

Blessed Charles de Foucauld

Prayer of Abandonment




Father,
I abandon myself into your hands; do with me what you will.
Whatever you may do, I thank you:
I am ready for all, I accept all.
Let only your will be done in me, and in all your creatures.
I wish no more than this, O Lord. 


Into your hands I commend my soul;
I offer it to you
with all the love of my heart,
for I love you, Lord,
and so need to give myself,
to surrender myself into your hands,
without reserve,
and with boundless confidence,
for you are my Father. 

St Symeon the New Theologian

You, O Christ, are the Kingdom of Heaven; You, the land promised to the gentle; You, the grazing-lands of paradise; You, the hall of the celestial banquet; You, the ineffable marriage-chamber; You, the table set for all, You, the bread of life; You, the unheard-of drink; You, both the urn for the water and the life-giving water; You, moreover, the inextinguishable lamp for each one of the saints; You, the garment and the crown and the One who distributes the crowns; You, the joy and the rest; You, the delight and the glory; You, the gaiety and the mirth; and Your grace, grace of the Spirit of all sanctity, will shine like the sun in all the saints; and You, inaccessible sun, will shine in their midst, and all will shine brightly to the degree of their faith, their asceticism, their hope and their love, their purification and their illumination by Your Spirit.

via The Oxford Book of Prayer, ed. George Appleton

You have given life

The glory-braided maiden
We call Genitrix of grace, Mother of the Church,
Queen of all creation.

A countenance of luminous darkness
Receives the veneration of the moon:
Snow-capped mountains and the roots of rivers,
Cedars of Lebanon, pine trees of the northland,
Rest protected from all ill and evil
Beneath her heaven-woven mantle.

Wounded for a time, henceforth triumphant,
The tender-handed heart which cradled the dead Christ
Sends forth the light of hope
To the double-minded earth, to the five-fingered stars.

Sunlight and womanhood, wisdom, humility,
Harmonize, conspire, breathe together
To magnify the Lord:
Confounded are the hearts of all the proud.

Silent expectation
As the cold world waits its rescue and redemption:

For she is a vapour of the power of God
And a certain pure emanation
Of the glory of the all-mighty God.

She reneweth all things
And through nations conveyeth herself
Unto holy souls.

For she is more beautiful than the sun,
And above all the order of the stars.

You have given life to the One
Whose death and rising from the dead
Gives life to a fallen world: therefore, we praise you,
With angels, saints, and holy ones
Unto the ages of ages.

What Difference Does It Make

... in which the lyrics of the Smiths classic are illustrated with an impish cleverness!

Sonnet XVII

by Pablo Neruda (1904-73)




I don't love you as if you were the salt-rose, topaz 
or arrow of carnations that propagate fire: 
I love you as certain dark things are loved, 
secretly, between the shadow and the soul. 


I love you as the plant that doesn't bloom and carries 
hidden within itself the light of those flowers, 
and thanks to your love, darkly in my body 
lives the dense fragrance that rises from the earth. 


I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where, 
I love you simply, without problems or pride: 
I love you in this way because I don't know any other way of loving 


but this, in which there is no I or you, 
so intimate that your hand upon my chest is my hand, 
so intimate that when I fall asleep it is your eyes that close.


*


No te amo como si fueras rosa de sal, topacio 
o flecha de claveles que propagan el fuego: 
te amo como se aman ciertas cosas oscuras, 
secretamente, entre la sombra y el alma. 


Te amo como la planta que no florece y lleva 
dentro de sí, escondida, la luz de aquellas flores, 
y gracias a tu amor vive oscuro en mi cuerpo 
el apretado aroma que ascendió de la tierra. 


Te amo sin saber cómo, ni cuándo, ni de dónde, 
te amo directamente sin problemas ni orgullo: 
así te amo porque no sé amar de otra manera, 


sino así de este modo en que no soy ni eres, 
tan cerca que tu mano sobre mi pecho es mía, 
tan cerca que se cierran tus ojos con mi sueño.


+ + +


(100 Love Sonnets: Cien Sonetos De Amor, trans. by Stephen Tapscott)

The May Magnificat

by Gerard Manley Hopkins, SJ (1844-89)


May is Mary's month, and I
Muse at that and wonder why:
Her feasts follow reason,
Dated due to season—

Candlemas, Lady Day;
But the Lady Month, May,
Why fasten that upon her,
With a feasting in her honour?

Is it only its being brighter
Than the most are must delight her?
Is it opportunest
And flowers finds soonest?

Ask of her, the mighty mother:
Her reply puts this other
Question: What is Spring?—
Growth in every thing—

Flesh and fleece, fur and feather,
Grass and greenworld all together;
Star-eyed strawberry-breasted
Throstle above her nested

Cluster of bugle blue eggs thin
Forms and warms the life within;
And bird and blossom swell
In sod or sheath or shell.

All things rising, all things sizing
Mary sees, sympathising
With that world of good,
Nature's motherhood.

Their magnifying of each its kind
With delight calls to mind
How she did in her stored
Magnify the Lord.

Well but there was more than this:
Spring's universal bliss
Much, had much to say
To offering Mary May.

When drop-of-blood-and-foam-dapple
Bloom lights the orchard-apple
And thicket and thorp are merry
With silver-surfèd cherry

And azuring-over greybell makes
Wood banks and brakes wash wet like lakes
And magic cuckoocall
Caps, clears, and clinches all—

This ecstasy all through mothering earth
Tells Mary her mirth till Christ's birth
To remember and exultation
In God who was her salvation.

from Psalm 5

Verba mea auribus.


PONDER my words, O LORD,  consider my meditation.


O hearken thou unto the voice of my calling, my King and my God: for unto thee will I make my prayer.


My voice shalt thou hear betimes, O LORD; early in the morning will I direct my prayer unto thee, and will look up.


But as for me, in the multitude of thy mercy I will come into thine house; and in thy fear will I worship toward thy holy temple.


And let all them that put their trust in thee rejoice: they shall ever be giving of thanks, because thou defendest them; they that love thy Name shall be joyful in thee.


For thou, LORD, wilt give thy blessing unto the righteous, and with thy favourable kindness wilt thou defend him as with a shield.

Spaghetti

if I


choose to


write a


poem about


spaghetti


(and I


just might),


it will be


long and


thin and


rather


fun to


pick up


with a


fork

Immortal Literature

This is just to say
that I have not eaten the prunes
in William Carlos Williams' icebox
because I can't stand prunes.
The end.

Chesterbelloc: A Clerihew

Gilbert Keith
Had pretty teeth
But they couldn't quite compare
To those of his friend Hilaire.

Out of practice

A silly man of wit infirm
Believes I'll go to hell
If I admire the lovely form
Of a tall dark demoiselle.


*


Sweet lady, do not chide me for my gaze:
Your gestures and your looks simply amaze!


*


Her feet were made of Jesus, and her voice
Could make the cold stones tremble and rejoice.


*


How do I love you?  Well, if truth be told,
I'd gladly kiss you till we both grow old.


*


My love's no fever, but a clear fresh spring
Sustaining me through all my wandering.


*


Yes, Dante's Beatrice would bend the knee
Before my sovereign lady's majesty.


*


These April blossoms seem so weak
Compared to my love's sun-kissed cheek.


*


This woman on the bus -- young, dark, and slender --
Outshines the summer sun in her fierce splendour.


*


If any man is not profoundly pleased
By her bright smile, well, then, his heart's diseased!


*


O pious soul, so proper and so rigid,
How did your blood become so tame and frigid?


*


Very few poets' rhymes can quite compare
To the proud song of her unstraightened hair.


*


The tuneful songbirds and the rumbling trucks
Signal the sun will soon come up -- aw, shucks!

Song of Songs