Showing posts with label Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Show all posts

Sunday, March 22, 2020

As Seasons Toss Their Manes...


 This poem's rhyme-scheme was inspired by this poem
(full copy below)
the old poems are as relevant today as they were over a century ago



The world groans in its strife
Like Woman giving birth
The tides of time run rife
Where ways and woes of life
Claw at the face of earth
As seasons toss their manes
Gold sun and gloss of rains
Glint on the brow of Day
That cleaves with Twilight’s knife
Both black and shining hour
The green leaf and full flow’r
Falls prey to Curtain Closed
Lack and glut juxtaposed
The truth of us disclosed
By what we give and keep
Where human-nature’s bent
Time cannot circumvent
The beast beneath exposed
By trouble’s test imposed
Baring the inner deep
And proving by reply
The heart of you and I
Tossed on turbulent sweep

The rebel riles the meek
That will inherit earth
That which we seek and speak
Pelf or eternal worth
Where grave is not the berth
Of That Which transcends Time
As dust to dust returns
Beneath a wreath of ferns
Delicate filigree
And fretwork of the tree
That spreads its leafy chime
Above death’s chilling clime
And life’s Great Mystery

While bulrush turns to froth
As Winter doffs its cloth
And warm winds woo to wake
The dormant copse and brake
Where ways and means of Want
Emboldens its pursuit
Drawn to forbidden fruit
Or deepens the defense
That keens the soul’s sixth sense
And braves the tempter’s taunt
And glitter of the loot
That soon reveals the truth
How the lean of the tree
And its stability
Begins in tender youth

Winter, spring, summer, fall
Is not nature’s roulette
On earth’s little blue ball
One God is over all
Aha, lest we forget
And fall prey to the dart
That petrifies the heart
And uproots the weak tree
Not upheld by faith’s pledge
Where by the water’s edge
The roots hold firm and deep
Though tempests wail and weep
Like a wolf among sheep
Scattering the flock
Not gathered in the fold
But ignorantly bold
Prefer pride’s haughty leap
(What we sow we will reap)
Pray we take somber stock
Of Soul’s immortal law
While Time’s moments still claw
At the face of the clock

The framework of thin air
Leaves nothing to sheer chance
We have time to prepare
By what its window grants
Before a loved one plants
A posy on our grave
And breath of man returns
Beyond earth’s wreath of ferns
Delicate filigree
And fretwork of the tree
As Soul alone will brave
That last cold tidal wave
Into eternity

© Janet Martin

Listening to Hank snow this afternoon:)



 Psalm 1

 Blessed is the man

who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked,
or set foot on the path of sinners,
or sit in the seat of mockers.
2But his delight is in the Law of the LORD,
and on His law he meditates day and night.
3He is like a tree planted by streams of water,
yielding its fruit in season,
whose leaf does not wither,
and who prospers in all he does.
4Not so the wicked!
For they are like chaff driven off by the wind.
5Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment,
nor sinners in the assembly of the righteous.
6For the LORD guards the path of the righteous,
but the way of the wicked will perish.


SAINT JOHN
by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

The Ages come and go,
The Centuries pass as Years;
My hair is white as the snow,
My feet are weary and slow,
The earth is wet with my tears!
The kingdoms crumble, and fall
Apart, like a ruined wall,
Or a bank that is undermined
By a river's ceaseless flow,
And leave no trace behind!
The world itself is old;
The portals of Time unfold
On hinges of iron, that grate
And groan with the rust and the weight,
Like the hinges of a gate
That hath fallen to decay;
But the evil doth not cease;
There is war instead of peace,
Instead of Love there is hate;
And still I must wander and wait,
Still I must watch and pray,
Not forgetting in whose sight,
A thousand years in their flight
Are as a single day

The life of man is a gleam
Of light, that comes and goes
Like the course of the Holy Stream,
The cityless river, that flows
From fountains no one knows,
Through the Lake of Galilee,
Through forests and level lands,
Over rocks, and shallows, and sands
Of a wilderness wild and vast,
Till it findeth its rest at last
In the desolate Dead Sea!
But alas! alas for me
Not yet this rest shall be!

What, then! doth Charity fail?
Is Faith of no avail?
Is Hope blown out like a light
By a gust of wind in the night?
The clashing of creeds, and the strife
Of the many beliefs, that in vain
Perplex man's heart and brain,
Are naught but the rustle of leaves.
When the breath of God upheaves
The boughs of the Tree of Life,
And they subside again!
And I remember still
The words, and from whom they came,
Not he that repeateth the name,
But he that doeth the will!

And Him evermore I behold
Walking in Galilee,
Through the cornfield's waving gold
In hamlet, in wood, and in wold,
By the shores of the Beautiful Sea
He toucheth the sightless eyes;
Before him the demons flee;
To the dead He sayeth: Arise!
To the living: Follow me!
And that voice still soundeth on
From the centuries that are gone,
To the centuries that shall be!

From all vain pomps and shows,
From the pride that overflows,
And the false conceits of men;
From all the narrow rules
And subtleties of Schools,
And the craft of tongue and pen,
Bewildered in its search,
Bewildered with the cry:
Lo, here! lo, there, the Church!
Poor, sad Humanity
Through all the dust and heat
Turns back with bleeding feet,
By the weary road it came,
Unto the simple thought
By the great Master taught,
And that remaineth still:
Not he that repeateth the name,
But he that doeth the will!