Category Archives: poetry

A merry chime from India.

Christmas, poetry

CHRISTMAS

The sky is dark, the snow descends:
Ring, bells, ring out your merriest chime!
Jesus is born; the Virgin bends
Above him. Oh, the happy time!
No curtains bright-festooned are hung,
To shield the Infant from the cold;
The spider-webs alone are slung
Upon the rafters bare and old.
On fresh straw lies the little One,
Not in a palace, but a farm,
And kindly oxen breathe upon
His manger-bed to keep it warm.
White wreaths of snow the roofs attire,
And o’er them stars the blue adorn,
And hark! In white the angel-quire
Sings to the Shepherds, ‘Christ is born.’

-Toru Dutt (1856 – 1877) India

Gold in the grey of morning.

nature, poetry, , ,

GETTING UP EARLY

Just as the night was fading
Into the dusk of morning
When the air was cool as water
When the town was quiet
And I could hear the sea

I caught sight of the moon
No higher than the rooftops
Our neighbor the moon

An hour before the sunrise
She glowed with her own sunrise
Gold in the grey of morning

World without town or forest
Without wars or sorrows
She paused between two trees

And it was as if in secret
Not wanting to be seen
She chose to visit us
So early in the morning.

-Anne Porter

Asgrimur Jonsson, Moonlight Reykjavík, 1909

 

Be still, sad heart!

poetry, weather, , ,

THE RAINY DAY

The day is cold, and dark, and dreary;
It rains, and the wind is never weary;
The vine still clings to the mouldering wall,
But at every gust the dead leaves fall,
And the day is dark and dreary.

My life is cold, and dark, and dreary;
It rains, and the wind is never weary;
My thoughts still cling to the mouldering Past,
But the hopes of youth fall thick in the blast,
And the days are dark and dreary.

Be still, sad heart! and cease repining;
Behind the clouds is the sun still shining;
Thy fate is the common fate of all,
Into each life some rain must fall,
Some days must be dark and dreary.

-Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

A mind like snow.

poetry, , , , , ,

This lighthearted (or sardonic – see the comments below) poem by Philip Larkin reminds me of a short conversation I had with a Christian friend about the possibility of my developing dementia in my old age, to the point where I would forget God. She gently rebuked me for not remembering that it is in my spirit, my nous, that I know God most truly, and I would never forget him, no matter what happened to my fragile intellect.

One aspect of the mind that I notice in the poem is its coldness, as it’s likened to snow. By contrast, we might think of those whose hearts are warmed by the love of God. If you have people like that around, radiating into your life, it doesn’t really matter what facts they have forgotten.

THE WINTER PALACE

Most people know more as they get older:
I give all that the cold shoulder.

I spent my second quarter-century
Losing what I had learnt at university.

And refusing to take in what had happened since.
Now I know none of the names in the public prints,

And am starting to give offence by forgetting faces
And swearing I’ve never been in certain places.

It will be worth it, if in the end I manage
To blank out whatever it is that is doing the damage.

Then there will be nothing I know.
My mind will fold into itself, like fields, like snow.

-Philip Larkin