National Poetry Month, Day 14

If— Rudyard Kipling If you can keep your head when all about you    Are losing theirs and blaming it on you; If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,    But make allowance for their doubting too; If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,    Or, being lied about, don't deal in lies, Or, being hated, don't give way to hating,    And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise; If you can dream--and not make dreams your master;    If you can think--and not make thoughts your aim; If you can meet with triumph and disaster    And treat those two impostors just the same; If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken    Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools, Or watch the things you gave your life to broken,    And stoop and build 'em up with wornout tools; If you can make one heap of all your winnings    And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss, And lose, and start again at your beginnings    And never breathe a word about your loss; If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew    To serve your turn long after they are gone, And so hold on when there is nothing in you    Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on"; If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,    Or walk with kings--nor lose the common touch; If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;    If all men count with you, but none too much; If you can fill the unforgiving minute With sixty seconds' worth of distance run--    Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it, And--which is more--you'll be a Man, my son!

National Poetry Month, Day 13

Love (III)

George Herbert

Love bade me welcome: yet my soul drew back,

        Guilty of dust and sin.

But quick-eyed Love, observing me grow slack

        From my first entrance in,

Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning

        If I lacked anything.

"A guest," I answered, "worthy to be here":

        Love said, "You shall be he."

"I, the unkind, ungrateful? Ah, my dear,

        I cannot look on thee."

Love took my hand, and smiling did reply,

        "Who made the eyes but I?"

"Truth, Lord; but I have marred them; let my shame

        Go where it doth deserve."

"And know you not," says Love, "who bore the blame?"

        "My dear, then I will serve."

"You must sit down," says Love, "and taste my meat."

        So I did sit and eat.

National Poetry Month, Day 12

The Road Not Taken

Robert Frost

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,

And having perhaps the better claim

Because it was grassy and wanted wear,

Though as for that the passing there

Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden black.

Oh, I marked the first for another day!

Yet knowing how way leads on to way

I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I,

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference. 

National Poetry Month, Day 11

If I can stop one heart from breaking

Emily Dickinson

If I can stop one heart from breaking,

I shall not live in vain;

If I can ease one life the aching,

Or cool one pain,

Or help one fainting robin

Unto his nest again,

I shall not live in vain.

National Poetry Month, Day 10

Composed Upon Westminster Bridge, September 3, 1802 William Wordsworth Earth has not anything to show more fair: Dull would he be of soul who could pass by A sight so touching in its majesty: This City now doth, like a garment, wear The beauty of the morning; silent, bare, Ships, towers, domes, theatres, and temples lie Open unto the fields, and to the sky; All bright and glittering in the smokeless air. Never did sun more beautifully steep In his first splendour, valley, rock, or hill; Ne'er saw I, never felt, a calm so deep! The river glideth at his own sweet will: Dear God! the very houses seem asleep; And all that mighty heart is lying still!

National Poetry Month, Day 9

Tears, Idle Tears
Alfred, Lord Tennyson
Tears, idle tears, I know not what they mean, Tears from the depth of some divine despair Rise in the heart, and gather to the eyes, In looking on the happy autumn-fields, And thinking of the days that are no more.     Fresh as the first beam glittering on a sail, That brings our friends up from the underworld, Sad as the last which reddens over one That sinks with all we love below the verge; So sad, so fresh, the days that are no more.     Ah, sad and strange as in dark summer dawns The earliest pipe of half-awakened birds To dying ears, when unto dying eyes The casement slowly grows a glimmering square; So sad, so strange, the days that are no more.

National Poetry Month, Day 8

Far From Love The Heavenly Father

Emily Dickinson

 Far from love the Heavenly Father

    Leads the chosen child;

 Oftener through realm of briar

    Than the meadow mild,

  

 Oftener by the claw of dragon

    Than the hand of friend,

 Guides the little one predestined

    To the native land.

“I know that my Redeemer liveth”

The Christian's great hope in the promise of the resurrection, celebrated in Handel's exalting oratorio, makes this my favorite aria from The Messiah (this month commemorates The Messiah's first performance 270 years ago).

“I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that He shall stand at the latter day upon the earth. And though worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God” (Job 19:25).
“For now is Christ risen from the dead, the first-fruits of them that sleep” (I Corinthians 15:20).

Also memorable to me... it was a year ago, that my wife, Pat, was privileged to accompany opera star, Susan Graham, who sang this aria at our little congregation's Easter celebration.

National Poetry Month, Day 7

Henry V’s Speech at Agincourt William Shakespeare What’s he that wishes so? My cousin Westmoreland? No, my fair cousin; If we are mark’d to die, we are enow To do our country loss; and if to live, The fewer men, the greater share of honour. God’s will! I pray thee, wish not one man more. By Jove, I am not covetous for gold, Nor care I who doth feed upon my cost; It yearns me not if men my garments wear; Such outward things dwell not in my desires. But if it be a sin to covet honour, I am the most offending soul alive. No, faith, my coz, wish not a man from England. God’s peace! I would not lose so great an honour As one man more methinks would share from me For the best hope I have. O, do not wish one more! Rather proclaim it, Westmoreland, through my host, That he which hath no stomach to this fight, Let him depart; his passport shall be made, And crowns for convoy put into his purse; We would not die in that man’s company That fears his fellowship to die with us. This day is call’d the feast of Crispian. He that outlives this day, and comes safe home, Will stand a tip-toe when this day is nam’d, And rouse him at the name of Crispian. He that shall live this day, and see old age, Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbours, And say “To-morrow is Saint Crispian.” Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars, And say “These wounds I had on Crispian’s day.” Old men forget; yet all shall be forgot, But he’ll remember, with advantages, What feats he did that day. Then shall our names, Familiar in his mouth as household words- Harry the King, Bedford and Exeter, Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloucester- Be in their flowing cups freshly rememb’red. This story shall the good man teach his son; And Crispin Crispian shall ne’er go by, From this day to the ending of the world, But we in it shall be remembered- We few, we happy few, we band of brothers; For he to-day that sheds his blood with me Shall be my brother; be he ne’er so vile, This day shall gentle his condition; And gentlemen in England now-a-bed Shall think themselves accurs’d they were not here, And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks That fought with us upon Saint Crispin’s day.

National Poetry Month, Day 6

Shiloh: A Requiem (April, 1862)

Herman Melville

Skimming lightly, wheeling still,

  The swallows fly low

Over the field in clouded days,

  The forest-field of Shiloh—

Over the field where April rain

Solaced the parched ones stretched in pain

Through the pause of night

That followed the Sunday fight

  Around the church of Shiloh—

The church so lone, the log-built one,

That echoed to many a parting groan

    And natural prayer

Of dying foemen mingled there—

Foemen at morn, but friends at eve—

  Fame or country least their care:

(What like a bullet can undeceive!)

  But now they lie low,

While over them the swallows skim,

  And all is hushed at Shiloh.