At the top of the house the apples are laid in rows, And the skylight lets the moonlight in, and those Apples are deep-sea apples of green. There goes A cloud on the moon in the autumn night.
A mouse in the wainscot scratches, and scratches, and then There is no sound at the top of the house of men Or mice; and the cloud is blown, and the moon again Dapples the apples with deep-sea light.
They are lying in rows there, under the gloomy beams; On the sagging floor; they gather the silver streams Out of the moon, those moonlit apples of dreams, And quiet is the steep stair under.
In the corridors under there is nothing but sleep. And stiller than ever on orchard boughs they keep Tryst with the moon, and deep is the silence, deep On moon-washed apples of wonder.
Lord, O Lord, who hast delivered us from every arrow that flieth by day, deliver us also from everything that walketh in darkness. Receive the lifting up of our hands as an evening sacrifice. Make us worthy to pass without blame through the course of the night, untempted by evil. And deliver us from all anxiety and cowardice that come to us from the devil. Grant compunction to our souls, and make our thoughts mindful of the trial at thy dread and righteous Judgment.
Nail down our flesh with the fear of thee, and mortify our earthly members, that in the stillness of sleep we may be enlightened by the vision of thy judgments. Take from us every unseemly fantasy and pernicious carnal desire. Raise us up at the hour of prayer, established in faith and advancing in thy commandments: through the grace and goodness of thine Only-begotten Son, with whom thou art blessed, together with thine all-holy, good, and life-giving Spirit, now and ever and unto ages of ages. Amen.
-St. Basil the Great
This is the last of the three sample prayers of St Basil that I’d planned to share,
from the book Orthodox Christian Prayers. Previous: First Hour and Sixth Hour.
The moon is risen, beaming,
The golden stars are gleaming
So brightly in the skies;
The hushed, black woods are dreaming,
The mists, like phantoms seeming,
From meadows magically rise.
How still the world reposes,
While twilight round it closes,
So peaceful and so fair!
A quiet room for sleeping,
Into oblivion steeping
The day’s distress and sober care.
Look at the moon so lonely!
One half is shining only,
Yet she is round and bright;
Thus oft we laugh unknowing
At things that are not showing,
That still are hidden from our sight.
We, with our proud endeavour,
Are poor vain sinners ever,
There’s little that we know.
Frail cobwebs we are spinning,
Our goal we are not winning,
But straying farther as we go.
God, make us see Thy glory,
Distrust things transitory,
Delight in nothing vain!
Lord, here on earth stand by us,
To make us glad and pious,
And artless children once again!
Grant that, without much grieving,
This world we may be leaving
In gentle death at last.
And then do not forsake us,
But into heaven take us,
Lord God, oh, hold us fast!
Lie down, my friends, reposing,
Your eyes in God’s name closing.
How cold the night-wind blew!
Oh God, Thine anger keeping,
Now grant us peaceful sleeping,
And our sick neighbour too.
This week so far I have seen patches of the starry sky through the window from my bed, and through narrow gaps in the tree canopy as I walked along the gravel road coming back from a campfire.
Those glimpses are lovely, but not as powerful as what I experienced a few years ago when I was alone here in the High Sierra, standing on the deck at night, looking up: I was aware of the stars as somehow sentient beings that were intently and personably crowding and pressing down on me. The poem below expresses the thrill of such a meeting as I had, with added feelings that I didn’t experience.
The composer Tchaikovsky, in a letter to the Grand Duke Konstantin Konstantinovich, wrote: “I place some of his poems up there with the very highest that there is in art. In this respect there is one which I am determined to illustrate musically some day.” This is the poem he copied in:
UPON A HAYSTACK ON A SOUTHERN NIGHT
Upon a haystack in lands of South, I lay, while facing skies of night, The choir of stars, alive and couth, Was trembling, spread at every side.
The earth, mute as a dream half-hidden, Was fast receding into space, And I, as if the first in Eden, Alone met the black night’s face.
Did I race to the depth profound, Or did the stars race straight to me? In mighty hands, it seemed me how, I hanged above abysmal sea.
With heart, so sinking and bewildered, I measured with my look a depth, Into which, every moment sighted, I sink, and nobody helps.
-Afanasy Afanasevich Fet, (1820-1892)
One odd thing is, the way Luis Sundkvist translated the letter from Russian, the second line of the poem reads, “I lay with my face towards the ground…” How this happened I can’t imagine, because of course the poem makes no sense like that.
Golgol and Tolstoy also thought Fet’s poetry was stellar. The writer and publisher Nikolay Nekrasov wrote: “Not a single poet since Pushkin has managed to give such delight to those who understand poetry and readily open their soul to it, as Fet does.”
The surname of Fet was assigned by authorities to Afanasy because of some question in Russia about the legitimacy of his birth; his parents’ marriage had been registered in Germany. In his later years he wrote to his wife, “You cannot even imagine how I hate the name Fet. I implore you never to mention it… If someone would ask me to give one single name to all the trials and tribulations of my life, I’d say without hesitation, this name is ‘Fet'”. Later still he was able to get back the name of his father, Shenshin, but as his poems were all published under the name Fet, so he is known. Evidently not much of his work has been translated into English, which makes this one even more special.
This week so far I have seen patches of the starry sky through the window from my bed, and through narrow gaps in the tree canopy as I walked along the gravel road coming back from a campfire.
Gladsome Lights 