An Autumn Evening

Here's a lovely autumn poem by a favorite childhood author, Lucy Maud Montgomery, mostly known for her "Anne of Green Gables" series.  I have read her books countless times, even know parts of them by heart.  I recently discovered her poetry.  Anne would be pleased.  (The pictures are autumn in Phoenix, from my back patio this week.)

Dark Hills against a hollow crocus sky
Scarfed with its crimson pennons, and below
The dome of sunset long, hushed valleys lie
Cradling the twilight, where the lone winds blow
And wake among the harps of leafless trees
Fantastic runes and mournful melodies.

The chilly purple air is threaded through
With silver from the rising moon afar,
And from a gulf of clear, unfathomed blue
In the southwest glimmers a great gold star
Above the darkening druid glens of fir
Where beckoning boughs and elfin voices stir.

And so I wander through the shadows still,
And look and listen with a rapt delight,
Pausing again and yet again at will
To drink the elusive beauty of the night,
Until my soul is filled, as some deep cup,
That with divine enchantment is brimmed up.

A Psalm of Life

It's Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's birthday today. Perhaps best known for his story-poems about American history, Longfellow was once a household name, known as one of the Fireside Poets (people used to read his poems by the fireside) as well as one of the Schoolroom Poets (his picture was hung in every schoolroom and school children memorized his poetry). Oliver Wendell Holmes, James Russell Lowell, and John Greenleaf Whittier fall into those categories as well. I think I first read this poem in one of the Little House books when Carrie recited it for one of the famous School Exhibitions. I especially love the message of the last verse and have my American Lit. students memorize it each year.

Tell me not in mournful numbers,
Life is but an empty dream!
For the soul is dead that slumbers,
And things are not what they seem.

Life is real! Life is earnest!
And the grave is not its goal;
Dust thou are, to dust thou returnest,
Was not spoken of the soul.

Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,
Is our destined end or way;
But to act, that each tomorrow
Find us farther than today.

Art is long, and Time is fleeting,
And our hearts, though stout and brave,
Still, like muffled drums, are beating
Funeral marches to the grave.

In the world's broad field of battle,
In the bivouac of Life,
Be not like dumb, driven cattle!
Be a hero in the strife!

Trust no Future, howe'er pleasant!
Let the dead Past bury its dead!
Act, - act in the living Present!
Heart within, and God o'erhead!

Lives of great men all remind us
We can make our lives sublime,
And, departing, leave behind us
Footprints on the sand of time;

Footprints, that perhaps another,
Sailing o'er life's solenm main,
A forlorn and shipwrecked brother,
Seeing, shall take heart again.

Let us then be up and doing,
With a heart for any fate;
Still achieving, still pursuing,
Learn to labor and to wait.

What Sweeter Music Can We Bring

For journal writing this week, I've had my students writing about and around Christmas. One day I asked them to write about their favorite Christmas carol. Today, I played some Christmas music (Chris Botti's Christmas album) and asked them to write where the music took them. At school, I don't play music with words because I want the students to use their own words and not be influenced by those of others. But at home, and in the car, it's a different story. Nothing says Christmas to me like Christmas music. And nothing says Christmas music to me like John Rutter's Christmas carols (unless it's the Carpenters Christmas albums...).

One of my favorite John Rutter carols is actually a setting of a poem by 17th century English pastor and poet Robert Herrick. His "What Sweeter Music" describes exactly the power and purpose of music to express our love and gratitude for the gift of the Christ child. (I wrote about this carol a couple of years ago, too, and you can go here to read more about the poem and hear a nice setting of it.)


A Christmas Carol, Sung to the King in the Presence at White-Hall

Chorus:
What sweeter music can we bring,
Than a Carol, for to sing
The Birth of this our heavenly King?
Awake the Voice! Awake the String!
Heart, Ear, and Eye, and every thing
Awake! the while the active Finger
Runs division with the Singer.

From the Flourish they came to the Song.

Voice 1:
Dark and dull night, fly hence away,
And give the honor to this Day,
That sees December turn'd to May.

Voice 2:
If we may ask the reason, say:
The why, and wherefore all things here
Seem like the Spring-time fo the year?

Voice 3:
Why does the chilling Winter's morn
Smile, like a field beset with corn?
Or smell, like to a mead new-shorn,
Thus, on the sudden?

Voice 4:
Come and see
The cause, why things thus fragrant be:
'Tis He is born, whose quick'ning Birth
Gives life and luster, public mirth,
To Heaven and the under-Earth.

Chorus:
We see Him come, and know Him ours,
Who, with His Sun-shine, and His Showers,
Turns all the patient ground to flowers.

Voice 1:
The Darling of the World is come,
And fit it is, we find a room
To welcome Him.

Voice 2:
The nobler part
Of all the house here, is the Heart,

Chorus:
Which we will give Him; and bequeath
This Holly and this Ivy Wreath,
To do Him honor; who's our King,
And Lord of all this Revelling.

Robert Herrick (1596-1674)

An Island Garden

The days have been flying by. Even though summer work, for me, is much more relaxed and far less stressful, I've still be very busy. And now, it's almost August, which essentially means summer is over. Well, not quite, but it always feels that way. Last week, though, I took some time to really savor what New England is all about in the summer.

Thursday, my mother, sisters and I spent the day together exploring Appledore Island,

one of several islands that make up the Isles of Shoals 11 miles off the coast of Porstmouth, NH. In the late 1800s, Celia Thaxter, whose family operated a resort hotel on the island, was famous for hosting all the major writers, artists, and musicians of the time. She was also famous for her beautiful flower garden that spanned the breadth of her front porch. This garden has been recreated based on her book An Island Garden and is still a draw.

It was a misty, foggy morning for the 4

5 minute boat ride out to the island, but it warmed up and burned off the fogy as the day wore on. We had two guides who took us all over the island sharing details of Celia's life on the island interspersed with what is being done there now (Cornell University runs a marine biology center there for both grads and undergrads). It was a fascinating and beautiful day. And the fact that the four of us were together only made it all the better.

Seagulls and their fledglings were sometimes overpowering with their noise, but I was also

interested in the two varieties: Great black-backed gull and Herring gull. The mothers were very protective of their quite large babies =)

What we were most interested in, though, was the garden, all 97 varieties of annuals! Simply beautiful!

Patriot Day Trilogy

Listen my children and you shall hear

of the midnight ride of Paul Revere,

on the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-five;

Hardly a man is now alive

Who remembers that famous day and year.

~Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Paul Revere's Ride

By the rude bridge that arched the flood

Here once th'embattled farmers stood.

Their flags to April's breeze unfurled

And fired the shot heard 'round the world.

~ Ralph Waldo Emerson, Concord Hymn

If you're a patriotic sports fan living in New England, there is almost nothing better than Patriots Day, a day, celebrated mostly in New England states, that honors the bravery of the colonial soldiers during the battles of Concord and Lexinton on April 18, 1775.  On any givenyear, if you do it right, you can go to the 11 a.m. Red Sox game, catch the end of the Boston Marathon(it's the 113th running today) sometime between 1:30 and 2 (depending on who's pitching), take a leisurely stroll across town, grab something tasty to eat in Quincy Market, and then catch either a Bruins or a Celtics play-off game that evening.

Crazy as it sounds, I actually did that once, a number of years ago now.  Then, it was a Bruins game.  Today, it will be a Celtics game vs. the Bulls if you're so inclined.  Several times, I've done the 1-2, Red Sox and Marathon.  On top of all this, if you're a real early bird, you can witness the re-enactment of the famous battles and then go downtown for the atletic events.  The re-enactment starts before dawn when "Paul" and his friend "Samuel Dawes" ride "sound the alarm to every Middlesex village and farm."  As the sun rises, the British march on the two towns and the patriots rise to the challenge while hundreds, perhaps even thousands, stand along the way to gawk and marvel at the antiquated warfare tactics that set this country on the road to the democracy we now enjoy and flourish in.  And yes, I've done that, too.  More than once

No matter the weather (and it's often cloudy, overcast and/or rainy), there's nothing like this day for community warmth and friendliness.  It's one of my favorite holidays.

Love is Not All

Today is the birthday of one of my all-time favorite American poets, Edna St. Vincent Millay. She was born in 1892 in a lovely town on the Maine coast, Rockland, and grew up in a rather liberated household of women (her mother and two sisters). She came to notice as a poet at 20 when she entered a poetry contest and wrote what was generally considered the best poem, even though it only received 4th place. The poem, Renascance, has in its closing lines these beautiful lines:

I know the path that tells Thy way
Through the cool eve of every day;
God, I can push the grass apart
And lay my finger on Thy heart!

The world stands out on either side
No wider than the heart is wide;
Above the world is stretched the sky,
-- No higher than the soul is high.
The heart can push the sea and land
Farther away on either hand;
The soul can split the sky in two,
And let the face of God shine through.

Vincent, as she liked to be called, was considered a free spirit. In her 20s she left rural Maine and went to live in Greenwich Village, New York City. You couldn't get farther away in lifestyle than these two places! Her independence, and her openness about relationships, made her a favorite for many years. Her skill as a writer brought her both popular and critical recognition, including the Pulitzer Prize and the Frost Award for her lifetime contribution to American poetry. Her best known poem is probably First Fig:

My candle burns at both ends;

It will not last the night;

But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends--

It gives a lovely light!

Perhaps my favorite of her poems is The Philosopher:

And what are you that, wanting you, I should be kept awake As many nights as there are days With weeping for your sake? And what are you that, missing you, As many days as crawl I should be listening to the wind And looking at the wall? I know a man that's a braver man And twenty men as kind, And what are you, that you should be The one man in my mind? Yet women's ways are witless ways, As any sage will tell,— And what am I, that I should love So wisely and so well?

My favorite sonnet is a little cynical at first, but comes 'round in the end:

Love is not all: it is not meat nor drink
Nor slumber nor a roof against the rain;
Nor yet a floating spar to men that sink
And rise and sink and rise and sink again;
Love can not fill the thickened lung with breath,
Nor clean the blood, nor set the fractured bone;
Yet many a man is making friends with death
Even as I speak, for lack of love alone.
It well may be that in a difficult hour,
Pinned down by pain and moaning for release,
Or nagged by want past resolution's power,
I might be driven to sell your love for peace,
Or trade the memory of this night for food.
It well may be. I do not think I would.

Long for this World, Longing for the Next

GATHER ye rosebuds while ye may,

Old Time is still a-flying:

And this same flower that smiles to-day

To-morrow will be dying.

~Robert Herrick (1591-1674)

Longevity runs in my family. Both sets of grandparents lived into their 90’s; my mother’s mother until she was 96, my father’s father until he was nearly 100. Several greats lived into their 90s; one was 100. Both my parents are 80 (or soon to be); my mother has three siblings approaching 90 and my father’s brother is in his mid-70s. Barring accident, it would be logical to assume that my sisters and I have every reason to expect to live that long as well.

Part of me likes this idea, especially if I still have all my faculties in my 90s the way the majority of my long-lived relatives did. But there’s no guarantee on any of this. No guarantee that I will live that long, no guarantee that I will not sink into my dotage without a coherent thought in my head, no guarantee that I will even see tomorrow, never mind another 40+ years.

And then there’s the issue of the quality of life on earth, even now. As I get older, things seem to be getting worse in general, but even more so morally and spiritually. Maybe it’s just that I am becoming more and more aware, maybe it’s because things actually are getting worse. But that’s why there’s another part of me that kind of shrinks from nearly doubling the years I’ve already lived. I’m not so sure I want to hang around and see life as we know it deteriorate even more.

As a Christian, though, I know there is something more for us, sooner rather than later. As a Christians, I have a hope, an assurance, a very concrete and specific plan of escape. Robert Herrick’s Carpe Diem poem (“Seize the Day”) embraces the philosophy that we should make the most of our time now because time passes quickly and we don’t know how much time we’ll have. But he stops short of saying what happens next. He doesn’t say what Christians know, that there will come a day when we no longer have to worry about the quality or quantity of life.

The seniors wrote Carpe Diem poems this week. I was impressed with their clear realization that they are just passing through this world, and that there is something more and better for them if they put their lives in God’s hands. “God has a plan! Seize the day. Put it in His hands!” wrote one young man. And a young lady wrote, in part,

Let new ideas begin to sprout.

Try new approaches, do not doubt.

The world is falling at this pace.

We should live merry, filled with grace.

Live today as it was your last.

Don’t rely too much on the past.

Ayer is gone. Today resides.

The world will soon have to decide.

The world, indeed, is falling at a fast pace. And while it may be in my genes to last a long time, I am longing for the next world already. I am longing for Jesus to come right now. I love that I work in a place (a Christian school) where I can, as another young lady wrote, “Get to know the Lord Whom us adores.” Let us each “Hold fast to the Lord, come what may. Seize the day, young souls, seize the day!”

New England poet and daffodils

Thou yellow trumpeter of laggard Spring!
Thou herald of rich Summer's myriad flowers!
The climbing sun with new recovered powers
Does warm thee into being, through the ring
Of rich, brown earth he woos thee, makes thee fling
Thy green shoots up, inheriting the dowers
Of bending sky and sudden, sweeping showers,
Till ripe and blossoming thou art a thing
To make all nature glad, thou art so gay;
To fill the lonely with a joy untold;
Nodding at every gust of wind to-day,
To-morrow jewelled with raindrops.  Always bold
To stand erect, full in the dazzling play
Of April's sun, for thou hast caught his gold.

Amy Lowell, who wrote this poem, was born 134 years ago in
Brookline, MA, some 15 miles south of where I teach.  She's
one of my favorite American poets because she writes with
such passion and color.  She comes from old New England
stock with one of the early cities named for it (Lowell, MA,
one of the major mill towns at one time).  Even though this
poem is about April's sun, it describes I'm longing to see
right now.  I love winter, I think snow is beautiful, and I
don't mind the cold weather.  But I am more than ready for
more sun, for flowers, for spring!

Take Time to be Holy

I read an interesting article this afternoon in the Leadership Journal, an on-line service of Christianity Today. In it, editor Gordon MacDonald share his thoughts on the old hymn "Take Time to Be Holy." Here is what he says in part:

In the early 1880s, William D. Longstaff wrote a poem that later became a hymn called "Take Time to Be Holy." In my branch of church tradition, we often sang this hymn. As a kid I considered it uninspiring (sorry, Mr. Longstaff), and I groaned whenever the song leader announced it. Today, decades later, I have taken a fresh look at the song and reconsidered my earlier appraisal. There's substance here.

Take time to be holy,
Speak oft with thy Lord,
Abide in him always,
And feed on his word.
Make friends of God's children;
Help those who are weak,
Forgetting in nothing his blessing to seek.

There are three more verses to Longstaff's hymn, and the second verse is also worth quoting:

Take time to be holy,
The world rushes on;
Spend much time in secret
With Jesus alone;
By looking to Jesus
Like him thou shalt be;
Thy friends in thy conduct his likeness shall see.

Each line of that second verse prompts an objection from somewhere within and helps me to understand why holy people tend to be scarce.

"Take time …" But I don't have time.

"The world rushes on …" And I am busy rushing with it.

"Spend much time in secret …" Secret? I like to brag about anything I do with and for Jesus.

"With Jesus alone …" Huh? And turn off my iPod and text messaging?

"Like [Jesus] thou shalt be …" I'd rather imitate Bill or Rick or Andy.

"Thy friends in thy conduct his likeness shall see …" Don't expect me to be that kind of example.

Despite its Victorian English, Longstaff's hymn does a pretty good job of describing the essentials of what it takes to become holy.

Becoming a holy person is intentional; you have to work at it. When God says to Israel, "Consecrate yourselves," he is putting the ball in our court. In other words, pursue whatever it takes to be a holy man, a holy woman, a holy nation.

MacDonald goes on for a few pages, discussing what it means to be holy and why holiness is such a rarity. I found the article so interesting that I will share some of it with the staff tomorrow at our morning worship. If you're interested in reading the rest of this discourse, you will find it here. Meanwhile, enjoy the beauty of natural holiness in this morning's sunrise (the first outside of my condo, the rest at school about 8 minutes later).

I Heard the Bells of Harvard Yard

Back on December 19th, Inland Empire Girl wrote about the background to one of her (and my) favorite Christmas Carols, "I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day." She told how Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote the words to this carol during the Civil War in 1964 while he was reeling from the death of his wife and injuries to his son who was wounded while serving in the war. In the weeks that have followed, I thought about her post every time I heard the song (which was fairly often during the holidays). The words meant so much more to me knowing the story behind them.

Today, I had to go into Harvard Square to take my niece's cello bow to be repaired. I figured since I was there, and since I'd paid for an hour of parking, I might as well take advantage of being in one of the most storied places in this most storied city I live near (Boston...although technically today I was across the river in Cambridge). The bowmaker's shop was two stories above the Curious George book store (you can read the fascinating story of the authors here). It didn't take me long to drop the bow off, giving me some time to explore before I had to be back to my car.

Of course I had to stop in the book store and browse through the thousands of wonderful children's books there tempting me. I only bought one, though, and that was the beautiful Beatrix Potter: A Journal which Amazon. com describes this way: "This lavish, illustrated journal describes Beatrix Potter’s life as a young woman in Victorian England as she struggles to achieve independence and to find artistic success and romantic love. Using witty, observant commentary taken from Beatrix’s own diaries, the journal features a wealth of watercolor paintings, sketches, photographs, letters and period memorabilia to recreate the world in which she lived."

From there, I crossed over to Harvard itself and wandered through the famous Harvard Yard (pro- nounced "Hahvahd Yahd" if you are a true Bostonian). It was bitter cold, and the sky had a gray overcast to it, but it was still awe-inspiring to walk through the campus thinking about all the amazing people who have walked those same walkways. Sometimes I have to pinch myself to think that I've been one of them, albeit only for one class. It's inspiring and daunting at the same time to sit at the feet (in my case the bare feet) of the one who wrote the book you are learning from!

On my way back towards Boston and home, I passed by the home of Henry W. Longfellow on Brattle Street (hence the connection to the opening to this post). (Longfellow, by the way, started the first Modern Language Department at Harvard after doing the same for his alma mater, Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine.)

While I stood there contemplating the words and melody of that beautiful carol all over again, the bells of Harvard began to ring out the 12 noon hour. Can't get more serendipitous than that!

"Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:

"God is not dead; nor doth he sleep!

The Wrong shall fail,

The Right prevail,

With peace on earth, good-will to men!"