--- DICTIONARIES (in Dictionaries, in Quotes, in Chapters)

shrine ::: n. 1. Any structure or place consecrated or devoted to some saint, holy person, or deity, as an alter, chapel, church, or temple. shrines. v. 2. To enshrine. shrines, shrined.

shrine ::: n. --> A case, box, or receptacle, especially one in which are deposited sacred relics, as the bones of a saint.
Any sacred place, as an altar, tromb, or the like.
A place or object hallowed from its history or associations; as, a shrine of art. ::: v. t.

--- QUOTES [18 / 3000 - 8000 / 8000] (in Dictionaries, in Quotes, in Chapters)

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   11 Sri Aurobindo
   1 Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel
   1 Plotinus
   1 Nik Douglas and Penny Slinger
   1 Hermann Hesse
   1 Guru Nanak
   1 Alice Duer Miller
   1 Aleister Crowley

NEW FULL DB (2.4M)

   18 Anonymous
   15 Alfred Austin
   14 Dante Gabriel Rossetti
   11 Edith Nesbit
   10 Brian Godawa
   10 Anna Laetitia Barbauld
   9 Ella Wheeler Wilcox
   8 Emma Lazarus
   8 Charles Sangster
   7 Morihei Ueshiba
   7 Eugene Field
   7 Edgar Allan Poe
   6 Duncan Campbell Scott
   6 Aleister Crowley
   5 William Shakespeare
   5 Kakuz Okakura
   5 Esther M Friesner
   5 Charlotte Smith
   5 Charlotte Bront
   5 Alan Seeger
   4 Sathya Sai Baba
   4 Rick Riordan
   4 John Keats
   4 Fyodor Dostoyevsky
   4 Euripides
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   4 Edgar Albert Guest
   4 Barack Obama
   4 A W Tozer
   4 Amy Lowell
   4 Ada Cambridge
   3 Virgil
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   3 Robert Spencer
   3 Paramahansa Yogananda
   3 Neil Gaiman
   3 Natasha Pulley
   3 Marilynne Robinson
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   3 Lucretius
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   3 Jennifer Senior
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   3 Hafez
   3 Ernest Christopher Dowson
   3 Emily Jane Brontë
   3 Edwin Arlington Robinson
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   3 Don DeLillo
   3 David Mamet
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   3 Charles Dickens
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   3 Bliss William Carman
   3 Bill Clinton
   3 Barry Eisler
   3 Anonymous Americas
   3 Anacreon
   3 Amelia Opie
   3 Alfred Lord Tennyson
   3 Alexander Pope
   3 Abraham Joshua Heschel
   2 Zadie Smith
   2 William H Gass
   2 Will Durant
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   2 Thomas Cahill
   2 Steven Levitsky
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   2 Rabindranath Tagore
   2 Plotinus
   2 Philip Jenkins
   2 Percy Bysshe Shelley
   2 Nicholson Baker
   2 Miriam Toews
   2 Merrie Haskell
   2 Mata Amritanandamayi
   2 Martial
   2 Mark Tully
   2 Manly P Hall
   2 Lewis Mumford
   2 Krystal Sutherland
   2 Kabir
   2 Jung Chang
   2 Joseph Murphy
   2 Jo Nesb
   2 Jack Kerouac
   2 Ibrahim Ibrahim
   2 H P Lovecraft
   2 H G Wells
   2 Helen Macdonald
   2 Guru Nanak
   2 G K Chesterton
   2 George H W Bush
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   2 Gary Snyder
   2 Emily Dickinson
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   2 Dorothy L Sayers
   2 Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
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   2 Charles Haddon Spurgeon
   2 Bryan Fischer
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   2 Basharat Peer
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   2 Arun Kolatkar
   2 Arundhati Roy
   2 Arthur Henry Adams
   2 Anne Rice
   2 Anne Kingsmill Finch
   2 Andrew Marvell
   2 Ambrose Bierce
   2 Allen Ginsberg

1:Faith is not the clinging to a shrine but an endless pilgrimage of the heart. ~ Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel,

2:A figure in the ineffable Witness' shrine ~ Sri Aurobindo, Savitri The Yoga of the King The Yoga of the Spirits Freedom and Greatness,

3:At last the soul turns to eternal things, In every shrine it cries for the clasp of God ~ Sri Aurobindo, Savitri 10.03 - The Debate of Love and Death,

4:At last the soul turns to eternal things,In every shrine it cries for the clasp of God. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Savitri 10.03 - The Debate of Love and Death,

5:A lonely soul passions for the Alone,The heart that loved man thrills to the love of God,A body is his chamber and his shrine. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Savitri 10.03 - The Debate of Love and Death,

6:The word is the Guru, The Guru is the Word, For all nectar is enshrined in the world Blessed is the word which reveal the Lord's name But more is the one who knows by the Guru's grace. ~ Guru Nanak,

7:A mystic Form that could contain the worlds,Yet make one human breast its passionate shrine, ~ Sri Aurobindo, Savitri The Yoga of the King,

8:The Truth-light in the cavern heartThat burns unwitnessed in the altar cryptBehind the still velamen’s secrecyCompanioning the Godhead of the shrine. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Savitri The World of Falsehood,

9:Always the dark Adventurers seem to win;Nature they fill with evil’s institutes,Turn into defeats the victories of Truth,Proclaim as falsehoods the eternal laws,And load the dice of Doom with wizard lies;The world’s shrines they have occupi ~ Sri Aurobindo, Savitri The World of Falsehood,

10:Always the dark Adventurers seem to win;Nature they fill with evil’s institutes,Turn into defeats the victories of Truth,Proclaim as falsehoods the eternal laws,And load the dice of Doom with wizard lies;The world’s shrines they have occupied, usurpe ~ Sri Aurobindo, Savitri The World of Falsehood,

11:Invocation NIGHT after night within the grove The night wind spares the sacred fire -­ The breath made visible of love, Of worship and desire. I set the tripod at thy shrine; The silver bowl, the amber flame, And in the dark where no stars shine I speak thy name. By the high name I call on thee Which only I, thy priestess, know. I tread thy dance in ecstasy, Sweet steps and slow. O God, the hour has come. Appear! I have performed the appointed rite -­ The dance, the fire; I long to hear Wings in the night. ~ Alice Duer Miller,

12:Withdraw into yourself and look. And if you do not find yourself beautiful yet, act as does the creator of a statue that is to be made beautiful: he cuts away here, he smoothes there, he makes this line lighter, this other purer, until a lovely face has grown upon his work. So do you also: cut away all that is excessive, straighten all that is crooked, bring light to all that is overcast, labour to make all one glow of beauty and never cease chiselling your statue, until there shall shine out on you from it the godlike splendour of virtue, until you shall see the perfect goodness surely established in the stainless shrine. ~ Plotinus, The Enneads ,

13:[invocation] Let us describe the magical method of identification. The symbolic form of the god is first studied with as much care as an artist would bestow upon his model, so that a perfectly clear and unshakeable mental picture of the god is presented to the mind. Similarly, the attributes of the god are enshrined in speech, and such speeches are committed perfectly to memory. The invocation will then begin with a prayer to the god, commemorating his physical attributes, always with profound understanding of their real meaning. In the second part of the invocation, the voice of the god is heard, and His characteristic utterance is recited. In the third portion of the invocation the Magician asserts the identity of himself with the god. In the fourth portion the god is again invoked, but as if by Himself, as if it were the utterance of the will of the god that He should manifest in the Magician. At the conclusion of this, the original object of the invocation is stated. ~ Aleister Crowley, Liber ABA Book 4,

14:Adoration, before it turns into an element of the deeper Yoga of devotion, a petal of the flower of love, its homage and self-uplifting to its sun, must bring with it, if it is profound, an increasing consecration of the being to the Divine who is adored. And one element of this consecration must be a self-purifying so as to become fit for the divine contact, or for the entrance of the Divine into the temple of our inner being, or for his self-revelation in the shrine of the heart. This purifying may be ethical in its character, but it will not be merely the moralists seeking for the right and blameless action or even, when once we reach the stage of Yoga, an obedience to the law of God as revealed in formal religion; but it will be a throwing away, katharsis, of all that conflicts whether with the idea of the Divine in himself or of the Divine in ourselves. In the former case it becomes in habit of feeling and outer act an imitation of the Divine, in the latter a growing into his likeness in our nature. What inner adoration is to ceremonial worship, this growing into the divine likeness is to the outward ethical life. It culminates in a sort of liberation by likeness to the Divine, a liberation from our lower nature and a change into the divine nature. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga 3.04 - The Way of Devotion,

15:And the mighty wildness of the primitive earthAnd the brooding multitude of patient treesAnd the musing sapphire leisure of the skyAnd the solemn weight of the slowly-passing monthsHad left in her deep room for thought and God.There was her drama's radiant prologue lived.A spot for the eternal's tread on earthSet in the cloistral yearning of the woodsAnd watched by the aspiration of the peaksAppeared through an aureate opening in Time,Where stillness listening felt the unspoken wordAnd the hours forgot to pass towards grief and change.Here with the suddenness divine advents have,Repeating the marvel of the first descent,Changing to rapture the dull earthly round,Love came to her hiding the shadow, Death.Well might he find in her his perfect shrine.Since first the earth-being's heavenward growth began,Through all the long ordeal of the race,Never a rarer creature bore his shaft,That burning test of the godhead in our parts,A lightning from the heights on our abyss.All in her pointed to a nobler kind.Near to earth's wideness, intimate with heaven,Exalted and swift her young large-visioned spiritVoyaging through worlds of splendour and of calmOverflew the ways of Thought to unborn things. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Savitri 01.02 - The Issue,

16:On that spring day in the park I saw a young woman who attracted me. She was tall and slender, elegantly dressed, and had an intelligent and boyish face. I liked her at once. She was my type and began to fill my imagination. She probably was not much older than I but seemed far more mature, well-defined, a full-grown woman, but with a touch of exuberance and boyishness in her face, and this was what I liked above all . I had never managed to approach a girl with whom I had fallen in love, nor did I manage in this case. But the impression she made on me was deeper than any previous one had been and the infatuation had a profound influence on my life. Suddenly a new image had risen up before me, a lofty and cherished image. And no need, no urge was as deep or as fervent within me as the craving to worship and admire. I gave her the name Beatrice, for, even though I had not read Dante, I knew about Beatrice from an English painting of which I owned a reproduction. It showed a young pre-Raphaelite woman, long-limbed and slender, with long head and etherealized hands and features. My beautiful young woman did not quite resemble her, even though she, too, revealed that slender and boyish figure which I loved, and something of the ethereal, soulful quality of her face. Although I never addressed a single word to Beatrice, she exerted a profound influence on me at that time. She raised her image before me, she gave me access to a holy shrine, she transformed me into a worshiper in a temple. From one day to the next I stayed clear of all bars and nocturnal exploits. I could be alone with myself again and enjoyed reading and going for long walks. My sudden conversion drew a good deal of mockery in its wake. But now I had something I loved and venerated, I had an ideal again, life was rich with intimations of mystery and a feeling of dawn that made me immune to all taunts. I had come home again to myself, even if only as the slave and servant of a cherished image. I find it difficult to think back to that time without a certain fondness. Once more I was trying most strenuously to construct an intimate "world of light" for myself out of the shambles of a period of devastation; once more I sacrificed everything within me to the aim of banishing darkness and evil from myself. And, furthermore, this present "world of light" was to some extent my own creation; it was no longer an escape, no crawling back to -nether and the safety of irresponsibility; it was a new duty, one I had invented and desired on my own, with responsibility and self-control. My sexuality, a torment from which I was in constant flight, was to be transfigured nto spirituality and devotion by this holy fire. Everything :brk and hateful was to be banished, there were to be no more tortured nights, no excitement before lascivious picures, no eavesdropping at forbidden doors, no lust. In place of all this I raised my altar to the image of Beatrice, :.. and by consecrating myself to her I consecrated myself to the spirit and to the gods, sacrificing that part of life which I withdrew from the forces of darkness to those of light. My goal was not joy but purity, not happiness but beauty, and spirituality. This cult of Beatrice completely changed my life. ~ Hermann Hesse, Demian ,

17:All Yoga is a turning of the human mind and the human soul, not yet divine in realisation, but feeling the divine impulse and attraction in it, towards that by which it finds its greater being. Emotionally, the first form which this turning takes must be that of adoration. In ordinary religion this adoration wears the form of external worship and that again develops a most external form of ceremonial worship. This element is ordinarily necessary because the mass of men live in their physical minds, cannot realise anything except by the force of a physical symbol and cannot feel that they are living anything except by the force of a physical action. We might apply here the Tantric gradation of sadhana, which makes the way of the pasu, the herd, the animal or physical being, the lowest stage of its discipline, and say that the purely or predominantly ceremonial adoration is the first step of this lowest part of the way. It is evident that even real religion, - and Yoga is something more than religion, - only begins when this quite outward worship corresponds to something really felt within the mind, some genuine submission, awe or spiritual aspiration, to which it becomes an aid, an outward expression and also a sort of periodical or constant reminder helping to draw back the mind to it from the preoccupations of ordinary life. But so long as it is only an idea of the Godhead to which one renders reverence or homage, we have not yet got to the beginning of Yoga. The aim of Yoga being union, its beginning must always be a seeking after the Divine, a longing after some kind of touch, closeness or possession. When this comes on us, the adoration becomes always primarily an inner worship; we begin to make ourselves a temple of the Divine, our thoughts and feelings a constant prayer of aspiration and seeking, our whole life an external service and worship. It is as this change, this new soul-tendency grows, that the religion of the devotee becomes a Yoga, a growing contact and union. It does not follow that the outward worship will necessarily be dispensed with, but it will increasingly become only a physical expression or outflowing of the inner devotion and adoration, the wave of the soul throwing itself out in speech and symbolic act. Adoration, before it turns into an element of the deeper Yoga of devotion, a petal of the flower of love, its homage and self-uplifting to its sun, must bring with it, if it is profound, an increasing consecration of the being to the Divine who is adored. And one element of this consecration must be a self-purifying so as to become fit for the divine contact, or for the entrance of the Divine into the temple of our inner being, or for his selfrevelation in the shrine of the heart. This purifying may be ethical in its character, but it will not be merely the moralist's seeking for the right and blameless action or even, when once we reach the stage of Yoga, an obedience to the law of God as revealed in formal religion; but it will be a throwing away, katharsis, of all that conflicts whether with the idea of the Divine in himself or of the Divine in ourselves. In the former case it becomes in habit of feeling and outer act an imitation of the Divine, in the latter a growing into his likeness in our nature. What inner adoration is to ceremonial worship, this growing into the divine likeness is to the outward ethical life. It culminates in a sort of liberation by likeness to the Divine,1 a liberation from our lower nature and a change into the divine nature. Consecration becomes in its fullness a devoting of all our being to the Divine; therefore also of all our thoughts and our works. Here the Yoga takes into itself the essential elements of the Yoga of works and the Yoga of knowledge, but in its own manner and with its own peculiar spirit. It is a sacrifice of life and works to the Divine, but a sacrifice of love more than a tuning of the will to the divine Will. The bhakta offers up his life and all that he is and all that he has and all that he does to the Divine. This surrender may take the ascetic form, as when he leaves the ordinary life of men and devotes his days solely to prayer ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga 3.04 - The Way of Devotion,

18:64 Arts 1. Geet vidya: art of singing. 2. Vadya vidya: art of playing on musical instruments. 3. Nritya vidya: art of dancing. 4. Natya vidya: art of theatricals. 5. Alekhya vidya: art of painting. 6. Viseshakacchedya vidya: art of painting the face and body with color 7. Tandula­kusuma­bali­vikara: art of preparing offerings from rice and flowers. 8. Pushpastarana: art of making a covering of flowers for a bed. 9. Dasana­vasananga­raga: art of applying preparations for cleansing the teeth, cloths and painting the body. 10. Mani­bhumika­karma: art of making the groundwork of jewels. 11. Aayya­racana: art of covering the bed. 12. Udaka­vadya: art of playing on music in water. 13. Udaka­ghata: art of splashing with water. 14. Citra­yoga: art of practically applying an admixture of colors. 15. Malya­grathana­vikalpa: art of designing a preparation of wreaths. 16. Sekharapida­yojana: art of practically setting the coronet on the head. 17. Nepathya­yoga: art of practically dressing in the tiring room. 18. Karnapatra­bhanga: art of decorating the tragus of the ear. 19. Sugandha­yukti: art of practical application of aromatics. 20. Bhushana­yojana: art of applying or setting ornaments. 21. Aindra­jala: art of juggling. 22. Kaucumara: a kind of art. 23. Hasta­laghava: art of sleight of hand. 24. Citra­sakapupa­bhakshya­vikara­kriya: art of preparing varieties of delicious food. 25. Panaka­rasa­ragasava­yojana: art of practically preparing palatable drinks and tinging draughts with red color. 26. Suci­vaya­karma: art of needleworks and weaving. 27. Sutra­krida: art of playing with thread. 28. Vina­damuraka­vadya: art of playing on lute and small drum. 29. Prahelika: art of making and solving riddles. 30. Durvacaka­yoga: art of practicing language difficult to be answered by others. 31. Pustaka­vacana: art of reciting books. 32. Natikakhyayika­darsana: art of enacting short plays and anecdotes. 33. Kavya­samasya­purana: art of solving enigmatic verses. 34. Pattika­vetra­bana­vikalpa: art of designing preparation of shield, cane and arrows. 35. Tarku­karma: art of spinning by spindle. 36. Takshana: art of carpentry. 37. Vastu­vidya: art of engineering. 38. Raupya­ratna­pariksha: art of testing silver and jewels. 39. Dhatu­vada: art of metallurgy. 40. Mani­raga jnana: art of tinging jewels. 41. Akara jnana: art of mineralogy. 42. Vrikshayur­veda­yoga: art of practicing medicine or medical treatment, by herbs. 43. Mesha­kukkuta­lavaka­yuddha­vidhi: art of knowing the mode of fighting of lambs, cocks and birds. 44. Suka­sarika­pralapana: art of maintaining or knowing conversation between male and female cockatoos. 45. Utsadana: art of healing or cleaning a person with perfumes. 46. Kesa­marjana­kausala: art of combing hair. 47. Akshara­mushtika­kathana: art of talking with fingers. 48. Dharana­matrika: art of the use of amulets. 49. Desa­bhasha­jnana: art of knowing provincial dialects. 50. Nirmiti­jnana: art of knowing prediction by heavenly voice. 51. Yantra­matrika: art of mechanics. 52. Mlecchita­kutarka­vikalpa: art of fabricating barbarous or foreign sophistry. 53. Samvacya: art of conversation. 54. Manasi kavya­kriya: art of composing verse 55. Kriya­vikalpa: art of designing a literary work or a medical remedy. 56. Chalitaka­yoga: art of practicing as a builder of shrines called after him. 57. Abhidhana­kosha­cchando­jnana: art of the use of lexicography and meters. 58. Vastra­gopana: art of concealment of cloths. 59. Dyuta­visesha: art of knowing specific gambling. 60. Akarsha­krida: art of playing with dice or magnet. 61. Balaka­kridanaka: art of using children's toys. 62. Vainayiki vidya: art of enforcing discipline. 63. Vaijayiki vidya: art of gaining victory. 64. Vaitaliki vidya: art of awakening master with music at dawn. ~ Nik Douglas and Penny Slinger, Sexual Secrets ,

*** NEWFULLDB 2.4M ***

1:Art is a profession, not a shrine. ~ Elizabeth Hardwick,

2:A little saint best fits a little shrine, ~ Robert Herrick,

3:Veiled melancholy has her sovereign shrine ~ Stephanie Danler,

4:Sleep undisturbed within this peaceful shrine, ~ Samuel Johnson,

5:Shrines are fascinating, especially when rarely opened. ~ E M Forster,

6:What good are prayers and shrines to a person mad with love? ~ Virgil,

7:What a society deems important is enshrined in its art ~ Harry S Broudy,

8:Those are shrines. Some people believe spirits live in them. ~ Hayao Miyazaki,

9:she hugged the moment to her heart and enshrined it in her memory. ~ D L Carter,

10:...the collective wisdom of humanity [is] enshrined in its poetry. ~ Robyn Donald,

11:Wikipedia flourished partly because it was a shrine to altruism. ~ Nicholson Baker,

12:The heart that once has been your shrine for other loves is too divine ~ Alfred de Musset,

13:Ay, in the very temple of Delight Veil’d Melancholy has her sovran shrine, ~ John Keats,

14:There were no temples or shrines among us save those of nature. ~ Charles Alexander Eastman,

15:The Fujiyama of Architecture?at once a lofty mountain and a national shrine. ~ Lewis Mumford,

16:God created all living things to bring forth seed, not reproduce shrines. ~ Amy Layne Litzelman,

17:I fear the vermin that shall undermineSenate and citadel and school and shrine. ~ Edwin Markham,

18:At the shrine of friendship never say die, let the wine of friendship never run dry ~ Victor Hugo,

19:Death sanctifies. It's solemn enough to make its own shrine, where it happens. ~ Charlotte Armstrong,

20:Every language is a temple, in which the soul of those who speak it is enshrined. ~ Christina Sunley,

21:Faith is not the clinging to a shrine but an endless pilgrimage of the heart. ~ Abraham Joshua Heschel,

22:Already it has done me good: my heart was a sort of charnel; it will now be a shrine. ~ Charlotte Bront,

23:Like the Jews before them, the Irish enshrined literacy as their central religious act. ~ Thomas Cahill,

24:In this part of the world all shrines are built to honor the great spirit of mediocrity. ~ Damien Echols,

25:We enshrine things in memory very differently from how we experience them in real time. ~ Jennifer Senior,

26:The bee is enclosed, and shines preserved in amber, so that it seems enshrined in its own nectar. ~ Martial,

27:Old women’s houses feel like the safest place on earth. A shrine to functional femininity. ~ Nicole J Georges,

28:To be a fine wayfarer, one who travels light, reflective and alert to the shrines and holy places. ~ Anonymous,

29:You must enshrine in your hearts the spiritual urge towards light and love, Wisdom and Bliss! ~ Sathya Sai Baba,

30:Shrines! Shrines! Surely you don't believe in the gods. What's your argument? Where's your proof? ~ Aristophanes,

31:Yes, my works... are enshrined in museums, but I don't care if the pieces fall apart in 20 years. ~ Sigmar Polke,

32:He who lowers his mind to the dust of all men’s feet, Sees the Name of God enshrined in every heart. ~ Guru Arjan,

33:Memory, the priestess, kills the present and offers its heart to the shrine of the dead past. ~ Rabindranath Tagore,

34:... the twin pillars that guard the entrance to the shrine of religion are storytelling and cruelty. ~ Miriam Toews,

35:...when I chose you, I didn't want the commonplace - I didn't want a 'partner' - I wanted a shrine... ~ John Geddes,

36:It is possible for any man, by good deeds, to enshrine himself as a Saint in the hearts of the people. ~ L Frank Baum,

37:Vice takes up her abode in many temples; and who can say that a fair outside shall not enshrine her? ~ Charles Dickens,

38:All old building become crypts the moment they're finished, A shrine to a time that's already dead. ~ Krystal Sutherland,

39:We are culturally predisposed to sheltering criticism from criticism; we have enshrined the iconoclast ~ Marilynne Robinson,

40:Our constitution enshrines the rule of law, freedom of worship and expression, we cherish these values too. ~ Hillary Clinton,

41:And the forest perfume — trees and earth — it's like incense in a shrine. You fall into a state of... prayer. ~ Keiichi Sigsawa,

42:The dream of democracy has long been enshrined in the hearts of the Egyptian people. It only needed awakening. ~ Mohamed ElBaradei,

43:We Virginians do not go to the storied shrines of the past to do worship but rather to gain inspiration. ~ Douglas Southall Freeman,

44:She made room for the discarded foot on the table, setting it up like a shrine amid the wrenches and lug nuts, before ~ Marissa Meyer,

45:If you go out for a drink, you go out for a drink. You don't think, 'I'll have a few pints. I'll piss up this shrine.' ~ Ozzy Osbourne,

46:Sathya, Dharma, Shanghai and prema are the hall-marks of a purified heart, a heart where God is enshrined and is manifest. ~ Sathya Sai Baba,

47:Be kind to all beings, this is more meritorious than bathing at the sixty-eight sacred shrines of pilgrimage and donating money. ~ Guru Nanak,

48:That speech (Daniel Webster's) “raised the idea of Union above contract or expediency and enshrined it in the American heart. ~ Robert A Caro,

49:In this temple As in the hearts of the people For whom he saved the Union The memory of Abraham Lincoln Is enshrined forever ~ Royal Cortissoz,

50:I felt honored to witness the shrine in which the peerless master had condescended to play the human drama of matrimony. ~ Paramahansa Yogananda,

51:she keeps a shrine to Sol Invictus in her room, performs the pratahsamdhya ceremony, the salute to the sun, every morning ~ Kim Stanley Robinson,

52:To bear the country's disgrace is to rule the shrines of soil and grain. To bear the country's misfortunes is to be the king of the world. ~ Laozi,

53:A world compelled to good alone is as much a shrine to compulsion as a world compelled to evil only. The Twenty-first Voyage ~ Stanis aw Lem,

54:There is more truth and sacredness in a blade of grass than in all the shrines, scriptures and stories created to honor an idea of God. ~ Adyashanti,

55:The rich will make temples for Shiva. What shall I, a poor man, do? My legs are pillars, the body the shrine, the head a cupola of gold. ~ Anonymous,

56:35 “I will put an end to Moab,” says the LORD, “for the people offer sacrifices at the pagan shrines and burn incense to their false gods. ~ Anonymous,

57:I never will, by any word or act, bow to the shrine of intolerance or admit a right of inquiry into the religious opinions of others. ~ Thomas Jefferson,

58:We have a need to be religious, we need to worship, we need to build totems and shrines and icons, but nobody's sure in honor of what. ~ Robyn Hitchcock,

59:It seems that the right of freedom of speech that was enshrined in numerous constitutions is now under attack by religious institutions. ~ Salman Rushdie,

60:I'd seen too many shrines in South Central and thought it was worth asking where the first bullet came from that started all this violence. ~ Antoine Fuqua,

61:There is a shrine in the temple of age, where lie forever embalmed the memories of such as have deserved well of their country and their race. ~ John Brown,

62:...[O]ur Founding Fathers enshrined a constitutional separation of powers for the ages undeluded by the fantasy that angels would win elections. ~ Bruce Fein,

63:I found eternal peace in a Shinto shrine. I've been to Shinto shrines and God is everywhere. Christ is one of the ways! God is everywhere. ~ Norman Vincent Peale,

64:We can hug our hurts and make a shrine out of our sorrows or we can offer them to God as a sacrifice of praise. The choice is ours. —RICHARD EXLEY ~ Carol J Kent,

65:Shrine after shrine has crumbled before our eyes; but one altar if forever preserved, that whereon we burn incense to the supreme idol,-ourselves. ~ Kakuz Okakura,

66:Chutzpa is that quality enshrined in a man who, having killed his mother and father, throws himself on the mercy of the court because he is an orphan. ~ Leo Rosten,

67:The objects I chose were designed to hold something, but I didn't fill them up. They remained empty. They were little symbolic shrines to thirst. ~ Margaret Atwood,

68:It’s only a house, she thought. But it was more, too. It was Tibby’s elaborate, respectable shrine to a family life that had long ago ebbed out of it. ~ Rosie Thomas,

69:Mind is a door that leads you outside in the world; meditation is the door that leads you to your interiority - to the very innermost shrine of your being. ~ Rajneesh,

70:Everyone, whether he is self-denying or self-indulgent, is seeking after the Beloved. Every place may be the shrine of love, whether it be mosque or synagogue. ~ Hafez,

71:If we can boondoggle ourselves out of this depression, that word is going to be enshrined in the hearts of the American people for years to come. ~ Franklin D Roosevelt,

72:It's enshrined in our Constitution that an individual has a right to release information and disseminate information that makes the powers that be uncomfortable. ~ Moby,

73:The ancient gods of man’s invention have mostly disappeared, but the shrines of pride are not forsaken, and the golden calf still stands. Self ~ Charles Haddon Spurgeon,

74:Well, it is a crypt. In the philosophical sense. All old buildings become crypts the moment they're finished. A shrine to a time that's already dead. ~ Krystal Sutherland,

75:I’m the idiot box. I’m the TV. I’m the all-seeing eye and the world of the cathode ray. I’m the boob tube. I’m the little shrine the family gathers to adore. ~ Neil Gaiman,

76:It was Aomame’s firm belief that the human body was a temple, to be kept as strong and beautiful and clean as possible, whatever one might enshrine there. ~ Haruki Murakami,

77:We have now just enshrined, as soon as I sign this bill, the core principle that everybody should have some basic security when it comes to their healthcare. ~ Barack Obama,

78:He saw himself and his fathers crowding round their ancestral shrine waiting in vain for worship and sacrifice and finding nothing but ashes of bygone days.. ~ Chinua Achebe,

79:We are a representative democracy. But how did we get there? We got there through direct action. And that's enshrined in our Constitution and in our values. ~ Edward Snowden,

80:None who has known the charity of wine, Its pity, the cool logic of its spell Will waver in his loyalty, or dwell In any heaven where the grape lacks a shrine. ~ Donald Evans,

81:below. After the war had been won by Germany, it was supposed to become a shrine. There is a central circle with provision for an "eternal flame" in the center, ~ Alex Lukeman,

82:Lady Dedlock is always the same exhausted deity, surrounded by worshippers, and terribly liable to be bored to death, even while presiding at her own shrine. ~ Charles Dickens,

83:Libraries are as the shrine where all the relics of the ancient saints, full of true virtue, and that without delusion or imposture, are preserved and reposed. ~ Francis Bacon,

84:I feel like a tableau at a roadside shrine. But I’m not sure what the shrine is for. I’m a roadside phenomenon. I am death to community. I am missing the point. ~ Helen Macdonald,

85:We are committed to free access and free practice, to the members of the other two religions, to the holy shrines in Jerusalem. To the Muslims, to the Christians. ~ Yitzhak Rabin,

86:cyber shrines to Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold. People are seriously crazy. She is clicking through articles on the Virginia Tech shooter, now: Cho Seung Hui, ~ Alexandra Sokoloff,

87:The Good Friday Agreement and the basic rights and entitlements of citizens that are enshrined within it must be defended and actively promoted by London and Dublin. ~ Gerry Adams,

88:The turf shall be my fragrant shrine; My temple, Lord! that arch of thine; My censer's breath the mountain airs, And silent thoughts my only prayers. MOORE ~ James Fenimore Cooper,

89:What good are prayers and shrines to a person mad with love? The flame keeps gnawing into her tender marrow hour by hour, and deep in her heart the silent wound lives on. ~ Virgil,

90:The traveler has to knock at every alien door to come to his own, and one has to wander through all the outer worlds to reach the innermost shrine at the end. ~ Rabindranath Tagore,

91:The homosexual agenda represents a clear and present danger to virtually every fundamental right given to us by our Creator and enshrined for us in our Constitution. ~ Bryan Fischer,

92:O Space and Time and stars at strife, How dreadful your infinity! Shrined by your termless trinity, How strange, how terrible, is life! (“The Testimony of the Suns”) ~ George Sterling,

93:At both ends of life man needed nourishment: a breast - a shrine. Something to lay himself beside when no one wanted him further, and shoot a bullet into his head. ~ F Scott Fitzgerald,

94:These instruments can spread lies faster and farther than our forefathers dreamed when they enshrined the freedom of the press in the First Amendment to our Constitution. ~ Mark R Levin,

95:For in their hearts doth Nature stir them so Then people long on pilgrimage to go And palmers to be seeking foreign strands To distant shrines renowned in sundry lands. ~ Geoffrey Chaucer,

96:The era of organized religion controlling every aspect of life is over. No single religion has all the answers. Construction of shrine and temple buildings is not enough ~ Morihei Ueshiba,

97:the sacred reality is not simply transcendent, “out there,” but is enshrined in every single human being, who must, therefore, be treated with absolute honor and respect. ~ Karen Armstrong,

98:I have an apartment in Brooklyn - I guess I call it my shrine. I go there to create and recoup, or hibernate sometimes, but my home is in Dallas where I live with my children. ~ Erykah Badu,

99:How can we expect our students to become bold and fearless in thought and action if we encase them in sentimental shrines feigning a culture which has long since disappeared? ~ Walter Gropius,

100:And if there was no Fall, what then of the need for Redemption? What god was offended and by whom? Some especially touchy cave bear whose skull had been improperly enshrined? ~ Joseph Campbell,

101:Art must not be concentrated in dead shrines called museums. lt must be spread everywhere – on the streets, in the trams, factories, workshops, and in the workers' homes. ~ Vladimir Mayakovsky,

102:If I profane with my unworthiest hand This holy shrine, the gentle sin is this, My lips, two blushing pilgrims, ready stand To smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss. ~ William Shakespeare,

103:The car as we know it is on the way out. To a large extent, I deplore its passing, for as a basically old-fashioned machine, it enshrines a basically old-fashioned idea: freedom. ~ J G Ballard,

104:I learned to cross the threshold of my studio with reverence, as though I were entering a shrine set apart for me to become co-creator with the Universal Thinker of all things. ~ Walter Russell,

105:You grow bored of these shrines, and you abandon them because you know for a fact that you will worship anything you kneel before. Like God. Like cock. Like porcelain. ~ Kris Kidd,

106:God scatters beauty as he scatters flowers O'er the wide earth, and tells us all are ours. A hundred lights in every temple burn, And at each shrine I bend my knee in turn. ~ Walter Savage Landor,

107:The word is the Guru, The Guru is the Word, For all nectar is enshrined in the world Blessed is the word which reveal the Lord's name But more is the one who knows by the Guru's grace. ~ Guru Nanak,

108:At Varanasi, according to Ferishta, Muhammad of Ghor and Qutb-ud-din Aybak demolished the idols in a thousand temples and then rededicated these shrines ‘to the worship of the true God’. ~ John Keay,

109:THE PATH OF PEACE is exceedingly vast, reflecting the grand design of the hidden and manifest worlds. A warrior is a living shrine of the divine, one who serves that grand purpose. ~ Morihei Ueshiba,

110:As a personal matter I don't give a damn where mosques, churches, temples or other religious shrines and symbols are built as long as they don't tear down decent saloons in the process. ~ Bob Higgins,

111:Every American deserves their day in court. Every American is innocent until proven guilty. These are core values enshrined in our founding document - the United States Constitution. ~ John Garamendi,

112:I think it's time for the Army to understand that power should be enshrined in the people if we are to be a genuine democracy and not in any particular institution or organisation. ~ Aung San Suu Kyi,

113:We have enshrined in our founding documents and promoted the fundamental truth, all around the world, that the rights of all men, women and children ,not simply Americans come from God.‎ ~ Marco Rubio,

114:He did not shrug his shoulders; and for want of that muscular outlet he thought the more irritably of beautiful lips kissing holy skulls and other emptinesses ecclesiastically enshrined. ~ George Eliot,

115:The Buddha said, ‘Gripped by fear, men go to the sacred mountains and sacred groves, sacred trees and shrines.’ I am not afraid of death, my lady. I need no god to comfort me in my fear. ~ Conn Iggulden,

116: Tour Near a shrine in Japan he'd swept the path and then placed camellia blossoms there. Or -- we had no way of knowing -- he'd swept the path between fallen camellias. ~ Carol Snow,

117:188 Driven by fear, people run for security to mountains and forests, to sacred spots and shrines. 189 But none of these can be a safe refuge, because they cannot free the mind from fear. 190 ~ Anonymous,

118:The divine does not like to be shut up in a building. The divine likes to be out in the open. It is right here in this very body. Each one of us is a miniature universe, a living shrine ~ Morihei Ueshiba,

119:Epidemic boo-hoo — ‘DON’T TELL MY WIFE!’ Leg-shackle clangs — the prostie vans shook…Panic down below: Shriners bagged en masse. Five men, fez hats flying — a whore grabbed one and pranced. ~ James Ellroy,

120:The Divine does not like to be shut up in a building. The Divine likes to be out in the open. It is right here in this very body. Each one of us is a miniature universe, a living shrine. ~ Morihei Ueshiba,

121:The divine does not like to be shut up in a building. The divine likes to be out in the open. It is right here in this very body. Each one of us is a miniature universe, a living shrine. ~ Morihei Ueshiba,

122:O welcome, twilight soft and sweet, That breathes throughout this hallowed shrine! Sweet pain of love, bind thou with fetters fleet The heart that on the dew of hope must pine! ~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe,

123:The matrix of the heart, lift down the eye That shrines the quiet lake and swells a tower… The commodious, tall decorum of that sky Unseals her earth, and lifts love in its shower. ~ Hart Crane,

124:Portnoy was not Roth and he was not real, but in him is enshrined a genuine Rothian freedom, created by Roth, once impossible, now fully realized, a freedom which anyone can now easily access. ~ Zadie Smith,

125:would give away all this super-stellar life, all the ranks and honors, simply to be transformed into the soul of a merchant's wife weighing eighteen stone and set candles at God's shrine. ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky,

126:I would give away all this superstellar life, all the ranks and honours, simply to be transformed into the soul of a merchant’s wife weighing eighteen stone and set candles at God’s shrine ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky,

127:Marina Warner's Monuments and Maidens explains how it comes about that individual men's names and faces are enshrined in monuments, supported by identical, anonymous (and "beautiful") stone women. ~ Naomi Wolf,

128:In the Western Hemisphere we have only the tiniest number of buildings that can be called temples or shrines. The temples of our hemisphere will be some of the planet's remaining wilderness areas. ~ Gary Snyder,

129:Laws will not eliminate prejudice from the hearts of human beings. But that is no reason to allow prejudice to continue to be enshrined in our laws - to perpetuate injustice through inaction. ~ Shirley Chisholm,

130:At least Ozymandias had a statue erected in his name. If I were to have died at that moment, the only thing I had managed to erect in my honor was a shrine to China’s manufacturing capabilities. ~ Michael Gurnow,

131:Proverbs 14:32-33 32 The wicked are crushed by disaster,        but the godly have a refuge when they die. 33 Wisdom is enshrined in an understanding heart;        wisdom is not[*] found among fools. ~ Anonymous,

132:America is America. It's a capitalist system. They [leaders] have enshrined that belief that profit matters more than anything else. The polarization of the society is just the resurfacing of that. ~ Alice Walker,

133:On Easter or Christmas Day, my mother might drag me to church, just as she dragged me to the Buddhist temple, the Chinese New Year celebration, the Shinto shrine, and ancient Hawaiian burial sites. ~ Barack Obama,

134:I was staring at the end result. The Holy Grail of bookshelves, the ultimate shrine, the sanctum sanctorum, the point where every booklover and hoarder’s pilgrimage ends: an empty shelf. Two of them. ~ Nilanjana Roy,

135:Karl Marx made a great contribution to the liberation cause of mankind, and because of his immortal exploits his name is still enshrined in the hearts of the working class and peoples of all countries. ~ Kim Jong Il,

136:The Salafi teacher and his cohorts didn’t seem to understand that a shrine wasn’t merely a spiritual centre, but a club, a space for social gatherings and festivities, and a site of business as well. ~ Basharat Peer,

137:Pygmalion formed an ivory maid, and longed for an informing soul. She, on the contrary, combined all the qualities of a hero's mind, and fate presented a statue in which she might enshrine them. ~ Mary Wollstonecraft,

138:There is no use in merely making a noise if you want to establish the Deity in the shrine of your heart, if you want to realize God, First of all purify the mind. In the pure heart God takes His seat. ~ Sri Ramakrishna,

139:Are you apathetic toward the saccharine goodness evangelized by sentimental, superstitious fanatics, but equally bored by the intellectuals who worship at the empty-headed shrine of scientific materialism? ~ Rob Brezsny,

140:Our hearts are the shrine; that is where God should be installed. Our good thoughts are the flowers to worship Him. Good deeds form the worship, good words form the hymns and love forms the offering. ~ Mata Amritanandamayi,

141:What Do sad people have in Common? It seems They have all built a shrine To the past And often go there And do a strange wail and Worship. What is the beginning of Happiness? It is to stop being So religious Like That. ~ Hafez,

142:What do sad people have in common? It seems they have all built a shrine to the past and often go there and do a strange wail and worship. What is the beginning of Happiness? It is to stop being so religious like that. ~ Hafez,

143:A clear enunciation of these rights needs to be enshrined in the constitution to guarantee that this basic right of law-abiding gun owners and sportsmen shall not be infringed upon by anti-gun public officials. ~ Charlton Heston,

144:a radical departure from what has been settled First Amendment law.” In a lengthy dissent, he argued that the Constitution’s framers had enshrined the right of free speech for “individual Americans, not corporations, ~ Jane Mayer,

145:A small portion of Mahatma Gandhi’s ashes are enshrined at the Self Realization Fellowship Lake Shrine Temple in Pacific Palisades. They are the only portion of Gandhi’s remains that are kept anywhere outside of India. ~ James Frey,

146:Another part of the rejection I mention was the realisation that Buddhism quite simply ignores or dismisses a whole hemisphere of human experience that finds expression in and is enshrined by the mystery religions. ~ Quentin S Crisp,

147:The world may not like to see these ideas dissevered, for it has been accustomed to blend them; finding it convenient to make external show pass for sterling worth—to let white-washed walls vouch for clean shrines. ~ Charlotte Bront,

148:Faith builds in the dungeon and lazarhouse its sublimest shrines; and up, through roofs of stone, that shut out the eye of heaven, ascends the ladder where the angels glide to and fro,--prayer. ~ Edward Bulwer Lytton 1st Baron Lytton,

149:The Negro and all things negroid had become a fad, and Harlem had become a shrine to which feverish pilgrimages were in order . . . Seventh Avenue was the gorge into which Harlem cliff dwellers crowded to promenade. ~ Wallace Thurman,

150:The shrine I prayed at not to go to university,” Sand said. “I guess your prayer was answered,” Perrotte said. Sand strongly considered throwing something at her—but there was nothing to hand that wasn’t sacred. ~ Merrie Haskell,

151:Age cannot Love destroy, But perfidy can blast the flower, Even when in most unwary hour It blooms in Fancy's bower. Age cannot Love destroy, But perfidy can rend the shrine In which its vermeil splendours shine. ~ Percy Bysshe Shelley,

152:So not every female human being is necessarily a woman; she must take part in this mysterious and endangered reality known as femininity. Is femininity secreted by the ovaries? Is it enshrined in a Platonic heaven? ~ Simone de Beauvoir,

153:What sustains a couple through ice-enshrined winters and through sultry summers, through the parched deserts and the stormy seas, is an absolute trust in each other, and a friendship which backs each other up without question. ~ Lisa Shea,

154:When Christians faced oppression at the hands of Roman imperialists, they did what Jews had done when they faced oppression at the hands of Babylonian imperialists: dreamed of vengeance and enshrined the dream in theology. ~ Robert Wright,

155:If you sing alone in your shrine, the vibrations return to you as a reaction. But in community singing, what you have is not a reaction but a wave of vibrations. They enter into the atmosphere and purify the polluted air. ~ Sathya Sai Baba,

156:I volunteer as tribute. Or born again virgin sacrifice. Does Zeus like virgins? What about younger men who are ready, willing and able to worship at his shrine? Or bend over and call him daddy. Whatever he’s into. I’m easy. ~ R G Alexander,

157:And it was this: raze to the ground the mausoleum you have just started building for the bones of your ancestors and your descendants and those who come in-between. Make that land a holy shrine for pilgrims from everywhere. ~ Kamila Shamsie,

158:What has since happened in Tibet is hardly to be believed. More than 1.2 million Tibetans lost their lives and of about six thousand monasteries, temples, and shrines, 99 percent were either looted or totally destroyed. In ~ Heinrich Harrer,

159:It was the logic of retaliation that created the constitutional state. The enshrined promise of an eye for an eye, the sinner burning in hell or at least dangling for the gallows. Revenge is basically the foundation of civilization ~ Jo Nesb,

160:Deputy Inspector-General Atwal's body, riddled with bullets, lay in the main entrance to the Sikhs' most sacred shrine for more than two hours before the District Commissioner could persuade the Temple authorities to hand it over. ~ Mark Tully,

161:If it were not somewhat fanciful to suppose that every human excellence is presented, as it were, in one kind of being, we might believe that the whole treasure of morality and order is enshrined in the female character. ~ Wilhelm von Humboldt,

162:The mother must set the example in holding out the shrine as the heart of the house hold! She must enforce discipline over the children in personal cleanliness in humility and hospitality, in good manners and acts of service. ~ Sathya Sai Baba,

163:Sometimes at pagan shrines they vowed offerings to idols, swore oaths that the killer of souls might come to their aid and save the people. That was their way, their heathenish hope; deep in their hearts they remembered hell. ~ Seamus Heaney,

164:The guy needed to loosen up. Life was too short to waste it all on responsibilities. Heaven knew, she’d done more than her share of time at that particular shrine. “You need winter tires on that piece of… metal,” he warned her. ~ Jacquie Biggar,

165:Somewhere within the concept of justice, the worst of the guilty must always be removed. I cannot divorce this, not completely. The people must have justice and so I want to reinstate and enshrine the blessed and holy guillotine! ~ Roseanne Barr,

166:There is not one single social or economic principle or concept in the philosophy of the Russian Bolshevik which has not been realized, carried into action, and enshrined in immutable laws a million years ago by the white ant. ~ Winston Churchill,

167:We are a people of faith. We have been so secure in that faith that we have enshrined in our Constitution protection for people who profess no faith. And good for us for doing so. That is what the First Amendment is all about. ~ William J Clinton,

168:Any method or process that alleviates human misery, pain, and distress is good. Many churches practice the laying on of hands; others make novenas and visit shrines; all are benefitted according to their mental acceptance or belief. ~ Joseph Murphy,

169:Disney World has acquired by now something of the air of a national shrine. American parents who don't take their children there sense obscurely that they have failed in some fundamental way, like Muslims who never made it to Mecca. ~ Simon Hoggart,

170:For heroes have the whole earth for their tomb; and in lands far from their own, where the column with its epitaph declares it, there is enshrined in every breast a record unwritten with no tablet to preserve it, except that of the heart. ~ Pericles,

171:Had it not been for the race problem early thrust upon me and enveloping me, I should have probably been an unquestioning worshipper at the shrine of the established social order and of the economic development into which I was born. ~ W E B Du Bois,

172:I think it is appropriate that we pay tribute to this great constitutional principle which is enshrined in the First Amendment of the Constitution: the principle of religious independence, of religious liberty, of religious freedom. ~ John F Kennedy,

173:The eighty-year-old scholar had openly criticised Bhindranwale for storing arms and ammunition in the Akal Takht, and had said that Bhindranwale's presence in the shrine was sacrilege. The hukmnama against Bhindranwale was never issued. ~ Mark Tully,

174:Once we were on the high Plynlimon pass, we stopped to stretch our legs, change drivers, and make a short devotion to the shrine dedicated to the once-popular but now little-known Saint Aosbczkcs, the Patron Saint of Fading Relevance. ~ Jasper Fforde,

175:Suddenly here was this somewhat roly-poly elderly, northern Italian peasant on the chair of Saint Peter and he was accessible - and he made himself accessible, he went to prisons, he went to hospitals, he went to the shrine of Loreto. ~ George Weigel,

176:I was told that The Chinese said they would bury me by the Western Lake and build a shrine to my memory. I have some slight regret that this did not happen, as I might have become a god, which would have been very chic for an atheist. ~ Bertrand Russell,

177:A giant caterpillar, its segmented body made of severed human heads, their faces screaming, their tongues functioning as legs, rippled up a wall and began tearing out chunks of concrete where a ledge had been worn, destroying another shrine. ~ Jim Butcher,

178:and line of cases. Justice Byron R. "Whizzer" White, a JFK appointee, dissented, calling Doe an act of "raw judicial power," as it took these decisions from the states and enshrined their determination in the Supreme Court's reasoning. ~ William J Bennett,

179:The bee is enclosed, and shines preserved, in a tear of the sisters of Phaeton, so that it seems enshrined in its own nectar. It has obtained a worthy reward for its great toils; we may suppose that the bee itself would have desired such a death. ~ Martial,

180:We enshrine things to memory very differently than we experience them in real time. The psychologist Daniel Kahneman has coined a couple of terms to make the distinction. He talks about the "experiencing self" versus the "remembering self. ~ Jennifer Senior,

181:Pleasure is not the problem, the Buddha taught: Attachment is. While this insight is now enshrined in the practice of mindfulness, it was not an approach that came easily to the Buddha. He had a lot to work out in the process of discovering it. ~ Mark Epstein,

182:He sighed a little regretfully as Ellinor went away. He had obtained the position he had struggled for, and sacrificed for; but now he could not help wishing that the slaughtered creature laid on the shrine of his ambition were alive again. ~ Elizabeth Gaskell,

183:To .. all the dispossessed youth of Africa: for perpetuation of communion with ancestral spirits through the fight for African freedom, and in the firm faith that the dead, the living, and the unborn will unite to rebuild the destroyed shrines. ~ Jomo Kenyatta,

184:And her sweet red lips on these lips of mine Burned like the ruby fire set In the swinging lamp of a crimson shrine, Or the bleeding wounds of the pomegranate, Or the heart of the lotus drenched and wet With the spilt-out blood of the rose-red wine. ~ Oscar Wilde,

185:My dresser and I have the hots for the new rugby ace Danny Cipriani. We have a shrine in my dressing room - press photos of him on the field looking swarthy and fit, and snaps of our boy emerging from Mayfair nightclubs, looking sexy and dishevelled. ~ Julian Clary,

186:To be a Ranger is to sense the sacred trust of upholding all that such a name means in this shrine of football. They must be true in their conception of what the Ibrox tradition seeks from them. No true Ranger has ever failed in the tradition set him. ~ Bill Struth,

187:No militia or political leader is so powerful - his name never so influential - as when he is dead, enshrined on wall posters and gateposts amid naively painted clusters of tulips and roses, the final artistic accolade of every armed martyr in Lebanon. ~ Robert Fisk,

188:She said, the Puritan Milton, on the contrary, makes the moment of the Nativity the moment of the death of Nature—at least, he calls on the old tradition that Greek travellers heard the shrines cry out on that night Weep, Weep, the great god Pan is dead. ~ A S Byatt,

189:Conviction brings a silent, indefinable beauty into faces made of the commonest human clay; the devout worshiper at any shrine reflects something of its golden glow, even as the glory of a noble love shines like a sort of light from a woman's face. ~ Honore de Balzac,

190:In the process Paul laid out a comprehensive theory of poverty, of a world designed by the elites of all nations to serve their own ends, the pieces of the design enshrined in ideologies, which erased the histories of how things came to be as they were. ~ Tracy Kidder,

191:I paid a visit to Yasukuni Shrine to pray for the souls of those who had fought for the country and made ultimate sacrifices. I have made a pledge never to wage war again, that we must build a world that is free from the sufferings of the devastation of war. ~ Shinzo Abe,

192:Other humans believed the same way they breathed: it came natural to them. The world was filled with synagogues and churches, mosques and temples, shrines to Elron and Ogko. New faiths rose and fell like breath. They bred like flies. They died like species. ~ Lavie Tidhar,

193:It is time that India legally respected the rights of LGBT persons. It is very sad that this is not enshrined in Indian law in India so far, but I do believe that soon, we will come on par with respecting the individuality of people with different sexualities. ~ Kabir Bedi,

194:We are all equal children before our mother; and India asks each one of us, in whatsoever role we play in the complex drama of nation-building, to do our duty with integrity, commitment and unflinching loyalty to the values enshrined in our Constitution. ~ Pranab Mukherjee,

195:Again see you not that even stones are conquered by time, that high towers fall and rocks moulder away, that shrines and idols of gods are worn down with decay, and that holy divinity cannot prolong the bounds of fate or struggle against the fixed laws of nature? ~ Lucretius,

196:From the hell of the slave quarters would come some of the Deep South’s great gifts to the continent: blues, jazz, gospel, and rock and roll, as well as the Caribbean-inspired foodways today enshrined in Southern-style barbeque joints from Miami to Anchorage. ~ Colin Woodard,

197:The advent of postmodernism, the enshrinement of Darwinian orthodoxy in the educational systems of Western society, and the rise of blatant humanism as the religion-by-default of large subcultures have brought no end of new challenges to biblical sufficiency. ~ James R White,

198:Orpheus was probably a real man, a singer, prophet, and teacher, who was martyred and whose tomb became a shrine. No wonder the early Christian church saw in Orpheus the prototype of Christ. Both religions brought . . the promise of a future divine life. P. 135 ~ Carl Gustav Jung,

199:You are asking yourself, as all of us must: 'Who am I?' . . . 'Where am I?' . . . 'Whence do I go?' The process of enlightenment is usually slow. But, in the end, our seeking always brings a finding. These great mysteries are, after all, enshrined in complete simplicity. ~ Bill W,

200:Nothing is real to us but hunger, nothing sacred except our own desires. Shrine after shrine has crumbled before our eyes; but one altar is forever preserved, that whereon we burn incense to the supreme idol, - ourselves. Our God is great, and money is his Prophet! ~ Kakuz Okakura,

201:Fashions change, and with the new psychoanalytical perspective of the postwar period [WWII], child rearing became enshrined as thespecial responsibility of mothersany shortcoming in adult life was now seen as rooted in the failure of mothering during childhood. ~ Sylvia Ann Hewlett,

202:Will they cower?' Kym asked. 'Tons of cowering! Plus your name in the summer programme. A custom-designed banner. A cabin at Camp Half-Blood. Two shrines. I'll even throw in a Kymopoleia action figure.' 'No!' Polybotes wailed. 'Not merchandising rights! ~ Rick Riordan,

203:A civilization without retail bookstores is unimaginable. Like shrines and other sacred meeting places, bookstores are essential artifacts of human nature. The feel of a book taken from the shelf and held in the hand is a magical experience, linking writer to reader. ~ Jason Epstein,

204:What fills the psyche with new substance is not what the traditions have taken into account. This is because the archetypes that cause trouble are not ones that have been enshrined in official religions. Perhaps only poets, artists & prophets can deal with this situation. ~ Tacey,

205:It is a grueling position (catching). My knees will tell you that. I've had nine knee surgeries. I've had a couple of broken thumbs, one on each hand. I can look back at it and say it's worth it to be enshrined in Cooperstown. I don't have any pain in my knees right now. ~ Gary Carter,

206:Philips, whose touch harmonious could remove The pangs of guilty power and hapless love! Rest here, distress'd by poverty no more; Here find that calm thou gav'st so oft before; Sleep undisturb'd within this peaceful shrine, Till angels wake thee with a note like thine! ~ Samuel Johnson,

207:When cities were first founded, an old Egyptian scribe tells us, the mission of the founder was to 'put gods in their shrines.' The task of the coming city is not essentially different: its mission is to put the highest concerns of man at the center of all his activities. ~ Lewis Mumford,

208:Another factor that seems to me to be equally important is the great myth and rationale of 'the modern,' that it places dynamite at the foot of old error and levels its shrines and monuments. Contempt for the past surely accounts for a consistent failure to consult it. ~ Marilynne Robinson,

209:Imagine going to the holy land in Israel, whether you're a Christian or a Jew or a Muslim, and start carving up the mountain of Zion. It's an insult to our entire being. It's bad enough getting four white faces carved in up there [on Mount Rushmore], the shrine of hypocrisy. ~ Russell Means,

210:The oracles are dumb, No voice or hideous hum Runs through the arched roof in words deceiving. Apollo from his shrine Can no more divine, With hollow shriek the steep of Delphos leaving. No nightly trance or breathed spell Inspires the pale-eyed priest from the prophetic cell. ~ John Milton,

211:Ay, in the very temple of Delight Veil'd Melancholy has her sovran shrine, Though seen of none save him whose strenuous tongue Can burst Joy's grape against his palate fine; His soul shall taste the sadness of her might, And be among her cloudy trophies hung. ~ John Keats,

212:As I grew older, my love for reading grew stronger. I read with studious interest everything I could find relating to colored men who had gained prominence. My heroes had been King David, then Robert the Bruce; now Frederick Douglass was enshrined in the place of honor. ~ James Weldon Johnson,

213:Faith is not the clinging to a shrine but an endless pilgrimage of the heart. Audacious longing, burning songs, daring thoughts, an impulse overwhelming the heart, usurping the mind—these are all a drive toward [loving the One] who rings our heart like a bell. —ABRAHAM HESCHEL ~ Philip Yancey,

214:A wholesome regard for the memory of the great men of long ago is the best assurance to a people of a continuation of great men to come, who shall be able to instruct, to lead, and to inspire. A people who worship at the shrine of true greatness will themselves be truly great. ~ Calvin Coolidge,

215:The visits Prime Minister Koizumi made to the Yasukuni Shrine, I believe, had nothing to do with approval ratings. He paid respects at the Yasukuni Shrine to pay respects to the people of Japan who fought and lost their lives for the country and to pray for the peace of their souls. ~ Shinzo Abe,

216:The person on the shrine is myself. I listen to my own music constantly. I made a whole other record already. I look at myself on the internet constantly, so much so that I actually physically hate my face. It's like I've become apart from myself. I can't even live up to myself. ~ Willis Earl Beal,

217:Instead of sacking cities and wrecking temples he showed a courteous respect for the deities of the conquered, and contributed to maintain their shrines; even the Babylonians, who had resisted him so long, warmed towards him when they found him preserving their sanctuaries and honoring ~ Will Durant,

218:Many a morning and evening found Mother and me meditating before an improvised shrine, offering flowers dipped in fragrant sandalwood paste. With frankincense and myrrh as well as our united devotions, we honored the divinity which had found full expression in Lahiri Mahasaya. ~ Paramahansa Yogananda,

219:...Take the leap, they said. Live the billionaire's myth of immortality. And why not now, I thought. What else was there for Ross to acquire? Give the futurists their blood money and they will make it possible for you to live forever. The pod would be his final shrine of entitlement. ~ Don DeLillo,

220:Those who find ecstasy do so not by visiting the shrines of civilization but by trudging in the swamps of human destitution and misery. Our literature of ecstasy recounts the dark nights of the soul and encounters with mystics in the slums and in the refugee camps of genocidal wars. ~ Alphonso Lingis,

221:Arabia would not exert political power again for more than a thousand years, until the fundamentalist Wahhabi sect emerged from the central highlands in the eighteenth century to carry out violent raids against Shia shrines in Iraq and even against the holy places of Mecca and Medina. ~ Lesley Hazleton,

222:The Constitution was a reaffirmation of faith in the principles painfully evolved over the centuries by the English-speaking peoples. It enshrined long-standing English ideas of justice and liberty, henceforth to be regarded on the other side of the Atlantic as basically American. ~ Winston S Churchill,

223:Oh, he understood very well that for the meek soul of a simple Russian, exhausted by grief and hardship and, above all, by constant injustice and sin, his own or the world's, there was no stronger need than to find a holy shrine or a saint to prostrate himself before and to worship. ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky,

224:The United Nations cannot do anything, and never could; it is not an animate entity or agent. It is a place, a stage, a forum and a shrine... a place to which powerful people can repair when they are fearful about the course on which their own rhetoric seems to be propelling them. ~ Conor Cruise O Brien,

225:To prosper, a zoo needs parliamentary government, democratic elections, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of association, rule of law and everything else enshrined in India's Constitution. Impossible to enjoy the animals otherwise. Long-term, bad politics is bad for business. ~ Yann Martel,

226:I remember many years ago, I asked [Dalai Lama] about exile and he said: "Well, exile is good because it's brought me and my people closer to reality," and reality is almost a shrine before which he sits. Exile brings us up against the wall and forces us to rise to the challenge of the moment. ~ Pico Iyer,

227:The world also remains a hopeful place. Calls for democracy and human rights are being reborn everywhere, and these calls are an expression of support for the values enshrined in the United Nations Charter. They encourage our hopes for a more stable, more peaceful, more prosperous world. ~ George H W Bush,

228:In the countryside he heard horns and drums and followed the sound to a temple of granite and marble set in a compound that included shrines and incense stalls, people squatting against the walls, beggars, touts, flower-sellers, those who watch over your shoes for a couple of weightless coins. ~ Don DeLillo,

229:The physicality enshrined by the neuroscientists as the measure of all things is not objectivity but instead a pure artifact of the scale at which and the means by which we and our devices perceive. So to invoke it as the test and standard of reality is quintessentially anthropocentric. ~ Marilynne Robinson,

230:a dream half-waking, broken and uneasy, of the small gods of small places; gods of hills and woods and streams and crossways; the gods who still haunt their broken shrines, waiting in the dusk beyond the lights of the busy Christian churches, and the dogged rituals of the greater gods of Rome. ~ Mary Stewart,

231:The Igbo used to say that they built their own gods. They would come together as a community, and they would express a wish. And their wish would then be brought to a priest, who would find a ritual object, and the appropriate sacrifices would be made, and the shrine would be built for the god. ~ Chris Abani,

232:Ken Dryden, writing in “The Game” (1983), his celebrated rumination on hockey and on the particular experience of playing for Le Bleu-Blanc-Rouge, as Francophones call the Canadiens, described the old Montreal Forum as “hockey’s shrine, a glorious melting pot of team, city, and sporting tradition. ~ Anonymous,

233:Proposition 8 fails to advance any rational basis in singling out gay men and lesbians for denial of a marriage license. Indeed, the evidence shows Proposition 8 does nothing more than enshrine in the California Constitution the notion that opposite-sex couples are superior to same-sex couples. ~ Vaughn Walker,

234:For Isaac’s protection he had a blue Turkish evil eye and a painted tin hand of Fatima hanging from the bedpost; a candle was always lit on his chest of drawers, next to Hebrew and Christian Bibles and a jar of holy water that one of the domestic staff had brought from the Shrine of Saint Jude. ~ Isabel Allende,

235:Honour forbid! at whose unrivall'd shrine 105   Ease, pleasure, virtue, all our sex resign.   Methinks already I your tears survey,   Already hear the horrid things they say,   Already see you a degraded toast,   And all your honour in a whisper lost! 110   How shall I, then, your helpless fame ~ Alexander Pope,

236:Portnoy was not Roth and he was not real, but in him is enshrined a genuine Rothian freedom, created by Roth, once impossible, now fully realized, a freedom which anyone can now easily access. You don’t even have to read the book: you are already living in the world that Portnoy touched and changed. ~ Zadie Smith,

237:We started in the basement, and the first thing I noticed was the strange lack of personal items on employees’ desks. At Pixar, people’s work areas are virtual shrines to individuality—decorated, adorned, modified in ways that express the quirks and passions of the person who occupies that space. But ~ Ed Catmull,

238:It’s a stark change from the dialogue that erupted when Georgia and other states enshrined a constitutional ban on gay marriages after Massachusetts became the first state to legalize same-sex marriage. The ban was a political winner, going 11-for-11, including taking 76 percent of the vote in Georgia. ~ Anonymous,

239:Consider—to give up a heathen is to lose nothing for your ancestors, whereas with the gold you get in exchange you can ornament the shrines of their holy spirits. And surely, were gold evil in itself, if such a thing could be, the evil would depart of necessity once the metal were put to such pious use. ~ Isaac Asimov,

240:Go, little book, to our unfathomed friend, Above his silvered head to build a shrine, Retreat of Wisdom, Ignorance to mend. Full oft there shall you comfort and entwine His long limbs in bookish fetters benign. Thou shalt preserve those aquamarine gems, Or Gower’s friend shall cast you in the Thames. ~ Bruce Holsinger,

241:Andy Wiliams' smooth voice and casual style turned the songs he sang into timeless classics and made him one of America's top pop singers. ... The entertainment industry has lost a giant piece of its living history today, but Williams' legacy will forever be enshrined in the annals of music and television. ~ Neil Portnow,

242:Besides Jewish and Christian traditions, Islam also contains some traces of pagan traditions. In fact, the Ka’aba, the Meccan shrine to which every Muslim, if able, is obligated to make at least one pilgrimage, was a pagan Arab shrine and a center of pilgrimage long before Muhammad began preaching Islam. ~ Robert Spencer,

243:Every man worships the dollar, and is down before his shrine from morning to night... Other men, the world over, worship regularly at the shrine with matins and vespers, nones and complines, and whatever other daily services may be known to the religious houses; but the New Yorker is always on his knees. ~ Anthony Trollope,

244:I have been given many teachings by Sarutahiko-no-O-Kami. OKami told me, 'By the work of Takehaya Susanowo no Mikoto, you will worship the Ame no Murakumo KuKamisamuhara Ryu O (Kami of Takemusu) and build an Aiki shrine and dojo.' Then I built the Aiki shrine and dojo in Iwama, Ibaragi prefecture in 1940. ~ Morihei Ueshiba,

245:The Constitution of India seeks to guarantee respect for the rule of law, the independence of the judiciary, and the integrity of the electoral process. But time and again, provisions of the Constitution of India have been flagrantly violated in Kashmir, and the ideals that it enshrines have been forgotten. ~ Nyla Ali Khan,

246:As Americans, we can take enormous pride in the fact that courage has been inspired by our own struggle for freedom, by the tradition of democratic law secured by our forefathers and enshrined in our Constitution. It is a tradition that says all men are created equal under the law and that no one is above it. ~ Barack Obama,

247:In distinguishing between Islamic teachings and social taboos, we must remember that Islam forbids injustice; Injustice against people, against nations, against women. It shuns race, color, and gender as a basis of distinction amongst fellowmen. It enshrines piety as the sole criteria for judging humankind. ~ Benazir Bhutto,

248:Havana is like a woman who was grand once and has fallen on hard times, and yet hints of her former brilliance remain, traces of an era since passed, a photograph faded by time and circumstance, its edges crumbling to dust. If I close my eyes I can see Havana as she was, enshrined in my grandmother’s memory. ~ Chanel Cleeton,

249:Ultimately, these acts of abuse and aggression offer evidence of a new reality emerging in the United States that enshrines a politics of disposability, in which growing numbers of people are considered to be a dispensable drain on the economy and thus an affront to the sensibilities of the rich and powerful. ~ Henry A Giroux,

250:Paracelsus, the Cabalist, says that man's spirit comes from the stars, his soul from the planets, his body from the elements. This is the arrangement set forth in the structure of the Tabernacle, and is an important key to the interpretation of all sacred places, shrines, and temples. ~ Manly P Hall, How to Understand Your Bible,

251:The wise Sekiso (Shih-shuang) said, 'Stop all your hankerings; let the mildew grow on your lips; make yourself like unto a perfect piece of immaculate silk; let your one thought be eternity; let yourself be like the dead ashes, cold and lifeless; again let yourself be like an old censer in a deserted village shrine! ~ D T Suzuki,

252:=Lost Hope= You cast to ground the hope which once was mine, But did the while your harsh decree deplore, Embalming with sweet tears the vacant shrine, My heart, where Hope had been and was no more. So on an oaken sprout A goodly acorn grew; But winds from heaven shook the acorn out, And filled the cup with dew. ~ Alfred Tennyson,

253:Working men’s Paris, with its Commune, will be forever celebrated as the glorious harbinger of a new society. Its martyrs are enshrined in the great heart of the working class. Its exterminators history has already nailed to that eternal pillory from which all the prayers of their priest will not avail to redeem them. ~ Karl Marx,

254:You do not need to go to any temple or church to worship God. The whole existence is God’s temple. Your own body is the temple of God. Your own heart is the shrine. You do not need to subscribe to any religion to experience God. The only religion you need to experience God is love, kindness and respect to all beings. ~ Banani Ray,

255:In Alexandria were parks and gardens, palaces, shrines and a zoo. The city was rich in sights to please even the most jaded traveller, and its architecture laid out its cultural and intellectual claims to pre-eminence. The pharaoh-emperor’s arrival was the most extraordinary occasion most Egyptians would ever see. ~ Elizabeth Speller,

256:The shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe is the most visited religious site in the Christian world, surpassing Lourdes, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, and St. Peter’s itself. People still go there by the millions every year in order to commune with La Virgen Morena, many journeying to her over many miles on their knees. ~ Robert E Barron,

257:Good became identified with anything that redounded to the benefit of Muslims, regardless of whether it violated moral or other laws. The moral absolutes enshrined in the Ten Commandments, and other teachings of the great religions that preceded Islam, were swept aside in favor of an overarching principle of expediency. ~ Robert Spencer,

258:In reality, Republicans have long been at war with clean energy. They have ridiculed investments in solar and wind power, bashed energy-efficiency standards, attacked state moves to promote renewable energy and championed laws that would enshrine taxpayer subsidies for fossil fuels while stripping them from wind and solar. ~ Jeff Goodell,

259:The entire area - some 300 square kilometers - is sacred. There are shrines and temples dotted about the slopes, but they merely confirm the sanctity of the land. It is not in the shrines and temples that the gods live, but in the mountains themselves. [about the Three Holy Mountains of Dewa - Haguro, Gassam, and Yodono] ~ Alan Booth,

260:The war vindicated their conviction, itself a product of the slavery controversy, that freedom stood in greater danger of abridgment from local than national authority (a startling reversal of the founding fathers’ belief, enshrined in the Bill of Rights, that centralized power posed the major threat to individual liberties). ~ Eric Foner,

261:When we combine very real workplace inequalities with these romantic opt-out stories, the idea that "having it all" is a laughable goal becomes enshrined as immutable truth. And when we portray opting out as a simple matter of "choice," we ignore the systematic problems that make combining work and motherhood so difficult. ~ Emily Matchar,

262:He cannot lock us all up.” “He has prisons enough.” “For bodies, yes. But what are bodies? He can take our goods, but God will prosper us. He can close the booksellers, but still there will be books. They have their old bones, their glass saints in windows, their candles and shrines, but God has given us the printing press. ~ Hilary Mantel,

263:The library is not a shrine for the worship of books. It is not a temple where literary incense must be burned or where one's one devotion to the bound book is expressed in ritual. A library, to modify the famous metaphor of Socrates, should be the delivery room for the birth of ideas - a place where history comes to life. ~ Norman Cousins,

264:I think at the moment we did not even want to break the seal [on the inner chamber of the tomb of Tutankhamen], for a feeling of intrusion had descended heavily upon us... We felt that we were in the presence of the dead King and must do him reverence, and in imagination could see the doors of the successive shrines open one. ~ Howard Carter,

265:I remember getting this scrapbook that this girl made, that I actually gave to my mom to hold onto because she has a 'Twilight' shrine in their house in Florida. It was just this scrapbook of me, starting with 'Twilight,' and the whole progression of me and my career throughout that, and other stuff that I had done in between. ~ Ashley Greene,

266:Twisting through the thorn-thick underbrush, scratched and exhausted, one turns suddenly to find an unexpected waterfall, not half a mile from the nearest road, a spot so hard to reach that no one comes a hiding place, a shrine for dragonflies and nesting jays, a sign that there is still one piece of property that won't be owned. ~ Dana Gioia,

267:India’s rape law, enshrined in the colonial-era Indian Penal Code, placed the burden of the victim to establish her ‘good character’ and prove that a rape had occurred, which left her open to discredit by opposing counsel. Many rapes were never reported as a result of the humiliation to which this system subjected the victims. ~ Shashi Tharoor,

268:Lord, we flail. Forgive the lies we tell from purple thrones on TBN. Forgive the lies we tell in shrines. Forgive every attempt at self-redemption, the holy efforts we call our own, all the clawing we call resurrection. Bury us. Take us to helpless dust. Then roll away the stone and call us by our names. Make us all Lazarus. (125) ~ N D Wilson,

269:Fair torch, burn out thy light, and lend it not To darken her whose light excelleth thine: And die, unhallow'd thoughts, before you blot With your uncleanness that which is divine; Offer pure incense to so pure a shrine: Let fair humanity abhor the deed That spots and stains love's modest snow-white weed. ~ William Shakespeare,

270:Soon a whole guild of low-priced shrine keepers around Europe named their own pope - Boldface the Relatively Shameless, Discount Pope of Prague. The price war was on [...] The Retail Pope would offer cheesy bacon toppings on the Host with communion and the Discount Pope would counter with topless nun night for midnight mass. ~ Christopher Moore,

271:The United Nations' founders understood that decisions affecting war and peace should happen only by consensus, and with America's consent, the veto by Security Council permanent members was enshrined in the United Nations Charter. The profound wisdom of this has underpinned the stability of international relations for decades. ~ Vladimir Putin,

272:Faith is not the clinging to a shrine but an endless pilgrimage of the heart. Audacious longing, burning songs, daring thoughts, an impulse overwhelming the heart, usurping the mind--these are all a drive towards serving Him who rings our hearts like a bell. It is as if He were waiting to enter our empty, perishing lives. ~ Abraham Joshua Heschel,

273:Cut away all that is excessive, straighten all that is crooked, bring light to all that is overcast, labour to make all one glow of beauty and never cease chiselling your statue, until there shall shine out on you from it the godlike splendour of virtue, until you shall see the perfect goodness surely established in the stainless shrine. ~ Plotinus,

274:In a strange city lying alone Far down within the dim West, Where the good and the bad and the worst and the best Have gone to their eternal rest. There shrines and palaces and towers (Time-eaten towers and tremble not!) Resemble nothing that is ours. Around, by lifting winds forgot, Resignedly beneath the sky The melancholy waters lie. ~ Anonymous,

275:The sentences which Plato says were inscribed in the shrine at Delphi are singularly unlike those to be found in holy places outside of Greece. Know thyself was the first, and Nothing in excess the second, both marked by a total absence of the idiom of priestly formulas all the world over. Something new was moving in the world, the ~ Edith Hamilton,

276: A Heine Love Song The image of the moon at night All trembling in the ocean lies, But she, with calm and steadfast light, Moves proudly through the radiant skies, How like the tranquil moon thou art-Thou fairest flower of womankind! And, look, within my fluttering heart Thy image trembling is enshrined! ~ Eugene Field,

277:A noble inner shrine waits for you too in our kingdom. There, gracious one, I will place your oracles, and mystic utterances spoken to my people, and consecrate picked men. Only do not write your verses on the leaves, lest they fly, disordered playthings of the rushing winds: chant them from your own mouth. ~ Virgil,

278:the roof of Pluto’s shrine, which was covered with bones and diamonds. As far as Hazel knew, the bones had always been there. The diamonds were her fault. If she sat anywhere too long, or just got anxious, they started popping up all around her like mushrooms after a rain. Several million dollars’ worth of stones glittered on the roof, ~ Rick Riordan,

279:Philosophy dwells aloft in the Temple of Science, the divinity of its inmost shrine; her dictates descend among men, but she herself descends not : whoso would behold her must climb with long and laborious effort, nay, still linger in the forecourt, till manifold trial have proved him worthy of admission into the interior solemnities. ~ Thomas Carlyle,

280:About this time he had the sarcophagus and body of Alexander the Great brought forth from its shrine, and after gazing on it, showed his respect by placing upon it a golden crown and strewing it with flowers; and being then asked whether he wished to see the tomb of the Ptolemies as well, he replied, "My wish was to see a king, not corpses. ~ Suetonius,

281:We admire Sufism in the West for its tolerance, mysticism, and poetry, its ecstatic rituals, its music, even. But it’s also, especially in rural parts, a religion that bears more than a casual resemblance to late medieval Catholicism. It encourages the veneration of saint-like figures at special shrines and their celebration at festivities. ~ Dan Eaton,

282:For official record, if become bankrupt old retail distribution centers-labeled supermega, so-enlarged foodstuff market- later reincarnate to become worship shrine. First sell food-stuff, next then same structure sell battered furnitures, next now born as gymnasium club, next broker flea markets, only at final end of life...sell religions. ~ Chuck Palahniuk,

283:In fact, it's the greatest threat to liberty of all kinds, whether it is freedom of religion, whether it is freedom of speech, whether it is freedom of the press, whether it is freedom of association, all of the rights that are enshrined in the First Amendment are threatened by the active, aggressive homosexual lobby and the homosexual agenda. ~ Bryan Fischer,

284:Our woes began when God was forced out of His central shrine and "things" were allowed to enter. Within the human heart "things" have taken over. Men have now by nature no peace within their hearts, for God is crowned there no longer, but there in the moral dusk stubborn and aggressive usurpers fight among themselves for first place on the throne. ~ A W Tozer,

285:Before Santa and presents and shopping and all the attendant Christmas (stuff) got involved, this holiday was enshrined to commemorate a guy who got nailed to a tree for daring to tell people to be kind to one another. If you have two cloaks, He said, give one away. Remember those who have less than you, be charitable, be good, be merciful. ~ William Rivers Pitt,

286:In memorizing the prayer, it may be helpful to remind yourself that you are not addressing some extraterrestrial being outside you. The kingdom of heaven is within us, and the Lord is enshrined in the depths of our own consciousness. In this prayer we are calling deep into ourselves, appealing to the spark of the divine that is our real nature. ~ Eknath Easwaran,

287:On the morning of the wedding-day, Lord Peter emerged from Bunter's hands a marvel of sleek brilliance. His primrose-coloured hair was so exquisite a work of art that to eclipse it with his glossy hat was like shutting up the sun in a shrine of jet; his spats, light trousers, and exquisitely polished shoes formed a tone-symphony in monochrome. ~ Dorothy L Sayers,

288:The Muslim veil, the different sorts of masks and beaks and "burkas", are all gradations of mental slavery. (...) The veil deliberately marks women as private and restricted property, nonpersons. (...) I felt anger that this subjugation is silently tolerated (...) by so many Western societies where the equality of sexes is legally enshrined. ~ Ayaan Hirsi Ali,

289:The unique personality which is the real life in me, I can not gain unless I search for the real life, the spiritual quality, in others. I am myself spiritually dead unless I reach out to the fine quality dormant in others. For it is only with the god enthroned in the innermost shrine of the other, that the god hidden in me, will consent to appear. ~ Felix Adler,

290:England did not become a democracy after the Glorious Revolution of 1688. Far from it. Only a small fraction of the population had formal representation, but crucially, she was pluralistic. Once pluralism was enshrined, there was a tendency for the institutions to become more inclusive over time, even if this was a rocky and uncertain process. In ~ Daron Acemo lu,

291: After An Epigram Of Clement Marot The lad I was I longer now Nor am nor shall be evermore. Spring's lovely blossoms from my brow Have shed their petals on the floor. Thou, Love, hast been my lord, thy shrine Above all gods' best served by me. Dear Love, could life again be mine How bettered should that service be! ~ Alan Seeger,

292:Many think that the mark of a great champion is the nature and margin of their victories and the peaks they scale and reach. That’s only part of it. The mark of the greatest of champions is how they react and respond to defeat. That is when they become enshrined in our hearts and minds – as they rise again and into the immortal pages of history. ~ Rasheed Ogunlaru,

293:My father finally performed the ritual thathe owed to the Earth Shrine, but the questions remain: Why do the innocent suffer from the negligence of others? Why is it that social responsibilities are inseparable from rituals? And why is it so important that every individual in a community stay in good rapport with their gods and goddesses? Here ~ Malidoma Patrice Som,

294:The value of dreams, like ... divinations, is not that they give a specific answer, but that they open up new areas of psychic reality, shake us out of our customary ruts, and throw light on a new segment of our lives. Thus the sayings of the shrine, like dreams, were not to be received passively; the recipients had to "live" themselves into the message. ~ Rollo May,

295:By tradition, a teacher was a most revered figure, a mentor for life, who imparted wisdom as well as knowledge, and who must be respected like a parent. (The murder of a teacher was classified as parricide, which, like treason, was punishable by death of a thousand cuts.) Emperors and princes set up shrines in their homes to honour their deceased tutors. ~ Jung Chang,

296:in a modern Western culture, where the main idol is self; and its main doctrine is autonomy; and its central act of worship is being entertained; and its three main shrines are the television, the Internet, and the cinema; and its most sacred genuflection is the uninhibited act of sexual intercourse. ========== This Momentary Marriage A Parable of Permanence ~ Anonymous,

297:You aren’t Jim Morrison, Ty. You don’t get to be some kind of tragic rock star who died young and everyone builds a shrine to. You get to be a stupid-ass kid. The only people who will remember your ‘statement’ are Mom and me, and that’s just because we hurt too much to forget. Yeah, other people are in pain too, dipshit. Everybody feels pain. You asshole. ~ Cynthia Hand,

298:In my Pantheon, Pan still reigns in his pristine glory, with his ruddy face, his flowing beard, and his shaggy body, his pipe and his crook, his nymph Echo, and his chosen daughter Iambe; for the great god Pan is not dead, as was rumored. No god ever dies. Perhaps of all the gods of New England and of ancient Greece, I am most constant at his shrine. ~ Henry David Thoreau,

299:I didn’t know what I wanted. I trained at the Kodokan and reflected at quiet shrines and enjoyed my jazz clubs and coffee houses and whisky bars. I took long, nocturnal walks through the damascene city, and considered what I’d been part of, and what I’d almost caused. I wondered about my son and I missed Delilah. I thought about Horton. I made no decisions. I ~ Barry Eisler,

300:The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien (Tolkien, J.R.R.) - Your Highlight on Location 529-531 | Added on Friday, December 26, 2014 8:28:31 PM Do you think Tom Bombadil, the spirit of the (vanishing) Oxford and Berkshire countryside, could be made into the hero of a story? Or is he, as I suspect, fully enshrined in the enclosed verses?1 Still I could enlarge the portrait. ~ Anonymous,

301:The mystical nature of American consumption accounts for its joylessness. We spend a great deal of time in stores, but if we don't seem to take much pleasure in our buying, it's because we're engaged in the acts of sacrifice and self-definition. Abashed in the presence of expensive merchandise, we recognize ourselves . . . as suppliants admitted to a shrine. ~ Lewis H Lapham,

302:He held her lightly enough and, after the chaste custom of the era, his hands were gloved. But his finger- tips felt a current from her body. He knew that she was the most exquisite child in the world; he knew that he was going to marry her and keep her forever in a shrine; he knew that after years of puzzled wonder about the purpose of life, he had found it. ~ Sinclair Lewis,

303:We have been taught to keep the commandments, and we have kept them all too well. We have enshrined them like religious relics in sealed containers on the altar. Thus, it could be said that one lives by the commandments in much the same way as many persons live by a neighbor, never learning his name, let alone having any understanding communication with him. ~ Eric Butterworth,

304:These “reform” measures effectively killed democracy in the American South. Even though African Americans constituted a majority or near-majority of the population in many states, and even though black suffrage was now enshrined in the Constitution, “legal” or neutral-sounding measures were used to “insure that the Southern electorate…would be almost all white. ~ Steven Levitsky,

305:We disliked the rigours of existence, the unfulfilled longings, the enshrined injustices of the world, the labyrinths of love, the ignorance of parents, the fact of dying, and the amazing indifference of the Living in the midst of the simple beauties of the universe. We feared the heartlessness of human beings, all of whom are born blind, few of whom ever learn to see. ~ Ben Okri,

306:Never did form more fairy thread the dance Than she who scours the hills to find it flowers; Never did sweeter lips chained ears entrance Than hers that move, true to its striking hours; No hands so white e'er decked the warrior's lance, As those which tend its lamp as darkness lours; And never since dear Christ expired for man, Had holy shrine so fair a sacristan. ~ Alfred Austin,

307:patience was not just a manner, it was the very form of seminar teaching. Columbia’s core curriculum had been designed not to enshrine the authority of the lecturing professor (that was something done at Harvard) but to reach understanding through discussion, however clumsy and uncertain. Till this moment, I never knew myself. . . . Vanity, not love has been my folly! ~ David Denby,

308:For all of the creeds are false, and all of the creeds are true; And low at the shrines where my brothers bow, there will I bow too; For no form of a god, and no fashion Man has made in his desperate passion, But is worthy some worship of mine; Not too hot with a gross belief, Nor yet too cold with pride, I will bow me down where my brothers bow, Humble, but open eyed. ~ Don Marquis,

309:For pre-eminently a divine image, resembling God, is the soul of a righteous man; in which, through obedience to the commands, as in a consecrated spot, is enclosed and enshrined the Leader of mortals and of immortals, King and Parent of what is good, who is truly law, and right, and eternal Word, being the one Saviour individually to each, and in common to all. ~ Clement of Alexandria,

310:Many modern democratic constitutions thus enshrine the principle of equal dignity. They are drawing on the Christian tradition that sees dignity rooted in human moral agency. But that agency is no longer seen in a religious sense, as the ability to accept God; rather, it is the ability to share in the exercise of power as a member of a democratic political community. ~ Francis Fukuyama,

311:in a constitutionally ordered state, where laws are derived from broad principles of right and wrong and where those principles are enshrined and protected by agreed upon procedures and practices, it can never be in the long-term interest of the state or its citizens to flout those procedures at home or associate too closely overseas with the enemies of your founding ideals. ~ Tony Judt,

312:Army officers demanded “a piece of al-Qahtani” and “told the FBI to step aside” in October. They questioned him for twenty-hour stretches, leashed him and made him perform dog tricks, stripped him naked and paraded him, froze him to the point of hypothermia, wrapped him from the neck up in duct tape, confronted him with snarling dogs, and ordered him to pray to an idol shrine. By ~ Tim Weiner,

313:Great Love has many attributes, and shrines For varied worshippers, but his force divine Shows most its many-named fulness in the man Whose nature multitudinously mixed-- Each ardent impulse grappling with a thought-- Resists all easy gladness, all content Save mystic rapture, where the questioning soul Flooded with consciousness of good that is Finds life one bounteous answer. ~ George Eliot,

314:Presents are delivered from the sky, in every package a prize, a chance, to choke, to suffocate, to forget, yes to forget every last word ever spoken of man higher in the scale than animal creation, the gorilla and the tiger being mere beasts while man has shrines, altars, lights, books awarding him personal immortality, books not yet banned nor burned. ~ Carl Sandburg,

315:We can no longer rely on the external teachings of Buddha, Confucius, or Christ. The era of organized religion controlling every aspect of life is over. No single religion has all the answers. Construction of shrine and temple buildings is not enough. Establish yourself as a living buddha image. We all should be transformed into goddesses of compassion or victorious buddhas. ~ Morihei Ueshiba,

316:Like so much in Atlanta, Stone Mountain had become a bland and inoffensive consumable: the Confederacy as hood ornament. Not for the first time, though more deeply than ever before, I felt a twinge of affinity for the neo-Confederates I'd met in my travels. Better to remember Dixie and debate its philosophy than to have its largest shrine hijacked for Coca-Cola ads and MTV songs. ~ Tony Horwitz,

317:But there is a beauty every girl has—a gift from God, as pure as the sunlight, and as sacred as life. It is a beauty that all men love, a virtue that wins all men's souls. That beauty is chastity. Chastity without skin beauty may enkindle the soul; skin beauty without chastity can kindle only the eye. Chastity enshrined in the mold of true womanhood will hold true love eternally. ~ David O McKay,

318:Opinions are not to be learned by rote, like the letters of an alphabet, or the words of a dictionary. They are conclusions to be formed, and formed by each individual in the sacred and free citadel of the mind, and there enshrined beyond the arm of law to reach, or force to shake; ay! and beyond the right of impertinent curiosity to violate, or presumptuous arrogance to threaten. ~ Frances Wright,

319:The temple tower would be three hundred feet square, and three hundred feet high, with seven progressively smaller tiers and a blue enameled shrine for the gods at the top. It would contain a golden table and a large altar for mating in the Sacred Marriage rite. A vast courtyard would surround the temple for an assembly of citizens at special events such as the yearly Akitu Festival. ~ Brian Godawa,

320:Dig deep, deep, my soul, to find the heart--the blood, the heat, the shrine and resting place. Dig deep, deep into the moist soil all the way to where they lie, those I love--she, Mother, with her dark hair loose and gone, her bones long since tumbled in the back of the vault, as other coffins came to rest in her spot, but in this dream I range them round me to hold as if she were there... ~ Anne Rice,

321:Dinner that night is a feast of flavor. To celebrate the successful exorcism, Kagura has cooked several more dishes than the shrine's usual, simple fare- fragrant onigiri, balls of rice soaked in green tea, with umeboshi- salty and pickled plums- as filling. There is eggplant simmered in clear soup, green beans in sesame sause, and burdock in sweet-and-sour dressing. The mood is festive. ~ Rin Chupeco,

322:postmodernist arguments deny an objective reality existing independently from human perception, contending that knowledge is filtered through the prisms of class, race, gender, and other variables. In rejecting the possibility of an objective reality and substituting the notions of perspective and positioning for the idea of truth, postmodernism enshrined the principle of subjectivity. ~ Michiko Kakutani,

323:This I have known since first I trod the path—a time comes when there is only despair, when you seek to tear the veil from the shrine, and you cry out to her and know that she will not answer because she is not there, because she was never there, there is no Goddess but only yourself, and you are alone in the mockery of echoes from an empty shrine. . . . There is no one there, there ~ Marion Zimmer Bradley,

324:a county with a unique history of people starving and mortifying themselves for higher causes and principles, a political reflex that has twitched steadily down the years and seems rooted in some aggravated sense of sinfulness because, like no other county it is blistered with shrines and grottoes and prayer houses and hermitages just as it is crossed with pilgrim paths and penitential ways ~ Mike McCormack,

325:Being is not very far away. It is the deepest part of love, a love that is absolutely pure, unconditional. A love that is absolutely alert, aware, conscious, immediately turns into a tremendous revolution; it opens the doors of the innermost shrine of being. And to reach to your very center is to gain all that life can give to you: all the fragrance, all the beauty, all the joy, all the benedictions. ~ Osho,

326:Nations enshrine mediocrity as their modus operandi, and create the fertile ground for the rise of tyrants and other base elements of the society, by silently assenting to the dismantling of systems of excellence because they do not immediately benefit one specific ethnic, racial, political, or special-interest group. That, in my humble opinion, is precisely where Nigeria finds itself today! ~ Chinua Achebe,

327:There was no manifestation of contemporary culture that did not indicate to my grandmother how steadfast was the nation's decline, how merciless our mental and moral deterioration, how swiftly all-embracing our final decadence. I never saw her read a book again; but she referred to books often - as if they were shrines and cathedrals of learning that television had plundered and then abandoned. ~ John Irving,

328:Isn't atheism just another religion?' No, it isn't. Atheism has no creeds, rituals, holy book, absolute moral code, origin myth, sacred spaces or shrines. It has no sin, divine judgment, forbidden words, prayer, worship, prophecy, group privileges, or anointed 'holy' leaders. Atheists don't believe in a transcendent world or supernatural afterlife. Most important, there is no orthodoxy in atheism. ~ Dan Barker,

329:Okay,” she said. “Good question. I’m the idiot box. I’m the TV. I’m the all-seeing eye and the world of the cathode ray. I’m the boob tube. I’m the little shrine the family gathers to adore.” “You’re the television? Or someone in the television?” “The TV’s the altar. I’m what people are sacrificing to.” “What do they sacrifice?” asked Shadow. “Their time, mostly,” said Lucy. “Sometimes each other. ~ Neil Gaiman,

330:Nothing could divert them from the regular and faithful performance of the pieties enjoined by the Church.  More than once I had seen a noble who had gotten his enemy at a disadvantage, stop to pray before cutting his throat; more than once I had seen a noble, after ambushing and despatching his enemy, retire to the nearest wayside shrine and humbly give thanks, without even waiting to rob the body. ~ Mark Twain,

331:Patriotic feelings will surely swell, prompting proud proclamations of the wisdom, foresight, and sense of justice shared by the Framers and reflected in a written document now yellowed with age . . . [F]or many Americans the bicentennial celebration will be little more than a blind pilgrimage to the shrine of the original document now stored in a vault in the National Archives. [Progressive] ~ Thurgood Marshall,

332:Thus, Dr. Seuss's books structurally empower children to participate in the reading process, while the narratives reinforce a child's autonomy and power. Through his avant-garde approach, Dr. Seuss was disseminating the same norms that would be enshrined in the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child, taking children seriously, and empowering them to play an active role in matters that affect them ~ Anonymous,

333:The Sanctuary and its deities were the main source of the city’s income. Visitors paid to enter the city. They had to buy the correct apparel to perform rituals in the Sanctuary. They had to pay again to acquire offerings for the gods. Mecca was not just one of the world’s oldest shrines, it was a citadel for capitalism. The people who oiled the wheels of Meccan religious life were known as Hums. ~ Ziauddin Sardar,

334:Let’s be honest— I think one of you people did this. I think one of your giddy, delusional pals killed Cale and stole my diary. Probably for some obsessive, arcane, and pointless reason. The twisted tosser is most likely building a shrine to the thing right now, praying to it like a dusty Ganesha. I’m going to need someone who is—how shall I put this?–similarly disposed in order to get the diary back. ~ Graham Moore,

335:Chess never has been and never can be aught but a recreation. It should not be indulged in to the detriment of other and more serious avocations - should not absorb or engross the thoughts of those who worship at its shrine, but should be kept in the background, and restrained within its proper province. As a mere game, a relaxation from the severe pursuits of life, it is deserving of high commendation. ~ Paul Morphy,

336:You know how the story ends. He escaped and went on to become the greatest chief Suntown ever had. He never built a shrine or a temple or even a shack in the name of Tia. In the Great Book, her name is never mentioned again. He never mused about her or even asked where she was buried. Tia was a virgin. She was beautiful. She was poor. And she was a girl. It was her duty to sacrifice her life for his. ~ Nnedi Okorafor,

337:In 1922 everything changed again. The Eskimo pie was invented; James Joyce's Ulysses was printed in Paris; snow fell on Mauna Loa, Hawaii; Babe Ruth signed a three-year contract with the New York Yankees; Eugene O'Neill was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Drama; Frederick Douglass's home was dedicated as a national shrine; former heavyweight champion of the world Jack Johnson invented the wrench... ~ Bernice L McFadden,

338:It is a good practice to write at least on page of mantra daily. Many people get better concentration by writing than by chanting. Try also to inculcate in children the habit of chanting and neatly writing the mantra. This will help to improve their handwriting, too. The book in which the mantra is written should not be thrown around; it should be carefully kept in our meditation or shrine room. ~ Mata Amritanandamayi,

339: To -The bowers whereat, in dreams, I see The wantonest singing birds, Are lips- and all thy melody Of lip-begotten wordsThine eyes, in Heaven of heart enshrined, Then desolately fall, O God! on my funereal mind Like starlight on a pallThy heart- thy heart!- I wake and sigh, And sleep to dream till day Of the truth that gold can never buyOf the baubles that it may. ~ Edgar Allan Poe,

340:Our woes began when God was forced out of His central shrine and “things” were allowed to enter. Within the human heart, “things” have taken over. Men have now, by nature, no peace within their hearts, for God is crowned there no longer, but there in the moral dusk, stubborn and aggressive usurpers fight among themselves for first place on the throne. This is not a mere metaphor, but an accurate analysis of ~ A W Tozer,

341:What is involved in such issues, in the end, is learning to respect the freedom of the dead to be dead; honoring the dead in their status as dead people, and refraining from harassment of the dead by refusing to mythologize the dead or enshrine them. What is at stake is recognition by those in grief of the right of the dead to be regarded mortally, which is to say, to be treated humanly in death. ~ William Stringfellow,

342:The car as we know it is on the way out. To a large extent, I deplore its passing, for as a basically old-fashioned machine, it enshrines a basically old-fashioned idea: freedom. In terms of pollution, noise and human life, the price of that freedom may be high, but perhaps the car, by the very muddle and confusion it causes, may be holding back the remorseless spread of the regimented, electronic society. ~ J G Ballard,

343:I believe Sharia law, however it comes, is the future for America. I believe, one day, that the people will adopt it anyway. A lot of issues we're looking at now are already enshrined within the Sharia. For instance, the gold standard for when dealing with inflation and a lack of confidence with the stocks and shares, which has been prevalent for the last many decades. All of that is prohibited in Islam. ~ Anjem Choudary,

344:The law in Russia bans "propaganda of homosexuality," which is defined as dissemination of information that can cause harm to the spiritual or physical development of children, including forming in them the erroneous impression of the social equality of traditional and nontraditional sexual relations. It's a law that actually enshrines second-class citizenship - it makes it a crime to claim social equality. ~ Masha Gessen,

345:Look, I don't know what you are, but you're more than a geologist, if you are one at all. I've met lots of geologists on different projects like this, and they're all tiny sunburned men with fetishes for geodes. They wear floppy hats and carry baggies for soil samples around with them. ... And geologists don't make rocks disappear like you did the other night. They keep them and build little shrines to them. ~ Kevin Hearne,

346:It is by far the most elegant worship, hardly excepting the Greek mythology. What with incense, pictures, statues, altars, shrines, relics, and the real presence, confession, absolution, - there is something sensible to grasp at. Besides, it leaves no possibility of doubt; for those who swallow their Deity, really and truly, in transubstantiation, can hardly find any thing else otherwise than easy of digestion. ~ Lord Byron,

347:Of everything that man erects and builds in his urge for living nothing is in my eyes better and more valuable than bridges. They are more important than houses, more sacred than shrines. Belonging to everyone and being equal to everyone, useful, always built with a sense, on the spot where most human needs are crossing, they are more durable than other buildings and they do not serve for anything secret or bad. ~ Ivo Andri,

348: Trail All Your Pikes... Trail all your pikes, dispirit every drum, March in a slow procession from afar, Ye silent, ye dejected men of war! Be still the hautboys, and the flute be dumb! Display no more, in vain, the loftly banner. For see! where on the bier before ye lies The pale, the fall`n th`untimely sacrifice To your mistaken shrine, to your false idol Honour! ~ Anne Kingsmill Finch,

349:Of everything that man erects and builds in his urge for living nothing is in my eyes better and more valuable than bridges. They are more important than houses, more sacred than shrines. Belonging to everyone and being equal to everyone, useful, always built with a sense, on the spot where most human needs are crossing, they are more durable than other buildings and they do not serve for anything secret or bad. ~ Ivo Andric,

350:The absolute authority of market forces would be enshrined as the ultimate source of imperative control, displacing democratic contest and deliberation with an ideology of atomized individuals sentenced to perpetual competition for scarce resources. The disciplines of competitive markets promised to quiet unruly individuals and even transform them back into subjects too preoccupied with survival to complain. ~ Shoshana Zuboff,

351:I can think of no greater privilege than being a child bearer of the gods! And that privilege begins today. All those women who desire the Sacred Marriage say your goodbyes to your fathers, your husbands, your siblings and your lords, and come to the holy shrine of Enlil this evening. We will perform a mass marriage ceremony and celebrate your newly exalted status!” Inanna was smugly satisfied with her delivery. ~ Brian Godawa,

352:The poetical impression of any object is that uneasy, exquisite sense of beauty or power that cannot be contained within itself; that is impatient of all limit; that (as flame bends to flame) strives to link itself to some other image of kindred beauty or grandeur; to enshrine itself, as it were, in the highest forms of fancy, and to relieve the aching sense of pleasure by expressing it in the boldest manner. ~ William Hazlitt,

353:Then President [Barack] Obama went on to argue that a citizen`s Second Amendment rights can be restricted without being infringed, just like any other rights. There are limits on your free speech and on your right to privacy. But he also made another nuanced Constitutional argument, that the rights enshrined in the Second Amendment must be balanced alongside the others rights guaranteed by the Constitution. ~ Melissa Harris Perry,

354:There is a kind of laughter that sickens the soul. Laughter when it is out of control: when it screams and stamps its feet, and sets the bells jangling in the next town. Laughter in all its ignorance and its cruelty. Laughter with the seed of Satan in it. It tramples upon shrines; the belly-roarer. It roars, it yells, it is delirious: and yet it is as cold as ice. It has no humour. It is naked noise and naked malice. ~ Mervyn Peake,

355:I applaud the Supreme Court’s decision to strike down the Defense of Marriage Act. This was discrimination enshrined in law. It treated loving, committed gay and lesbian couples as a separate and lesser class of people. The Supreme Court has righted that wrong, and our country is better off for it. We are a people who declared that we are all created equal - and the love we commit to one another must be equal as well. ~ Barack Obama,

356: Jadis Erewhile, before the world was old, When violets grew and celandine, In Cupid's train we were enrolled: Erewhile! Your little hands were clasped in mine, Your head all ruddy and sun-gold Lay on my breast which was your shrine, And all the tale of love was told: Ah, God, that sweet things should decline, And fires fade out which were not cold, Erewhile. ~ Ernest Christopher Dowson,

357:Our situation is truly delicate & critical. On the one hand we are in need of a strong federal government founded on principles that will support the prosperity & union of the colonies. On the other we have struggled for liberty & made costly sacrifices at her shrine and there are still many among us who revere her name to much to relinquish (beyond a certain medium) the rights of man for the dignity of government. ~ Mercy Otis Warren,

358: Beauty Say not of beauty she is good, Or aught but beautiful, Or sleek to doves' wings of the wood Her wild wings of a gull. Call her not wicked; that word's touch Consumes her like a curse; But love her not too much, too much, For that is even worse. O, she is neither good nor bad, But innocent and wild! Enshrine her and she dies, who had The hard heart of a child. ~ Elinor Morton Wylie,

359: The Horseshoe Shrine That nick in the rock is really a kick in the side of the hill. It's where a hoof struck like a thunderbolt when Khandoba with the bride sidesaddle behind him on the blue horse jumped across the valley and the three went on from there like one spark fleeing from flint. To a home that waited on the other side of the hill like a hay stack. ~ Arun Kolatkar,

360:What I really think is that our current model of copyright is fundamentally broken. We badly need to replace it with a different system for remunerating creators, which gets it the hell out of the face of the public (who were never aware of it to begin with in the pre-internet dead tree era). Unfortunately, the current copyright model is enshrined in international trade treaty law, making it almost impossible to work around. ~ Charles Stross,

361:Since we are not yet fully comfortable with the idea that people from the next village are as human as ourselves, it is presumptuous in the extreme to suppose we could ever look at sociable, tool-making creatures who are from other evolutionary paths and see not beasts, but brothers, not rivals, but fellow pilgrims journeying to the shrine of intelligence...The difference... is not in the creature judged, but in the creature judging. ~ Demosthenes,

362:The chances of a small country on Assyria’s periphery in the eighth and seventh centuries BCE not hosting a single shrine to an Assyrian god are about the same as the chances of a small modern country in America’s sphere of influence having no McDonald’s and no Starbucks. 96 (And the chances of no Israelites resenting those shrines are roughly the chances of no one resenting the cultural intrusion of a globally hegemonic America.) On ~ Robert Wright,

363:Your life has been made up of chambers, a series of chambers, so the interlocutor said, his hand on my arm — and in each chamber it is difficult to remember exactly what it was like to be in the previous room. You can remember that certain things happened when you were a child. But, what it was like to be there, to be a child, it really is lost to you. Our world is a difficult succession of losses, vaguely remembered, vaguely enshrined. ~ Jesse Ball,

364:even when a political truth is enshrined in written documents, it is seldom that these have any more value than a radiographic plate on which the layman imagines that the patient’s disease is inscribed in so many words, whereas in fact the plate furnishes simply one piece of material for study, to be combined with a number of others on which the doctor’s reasoning powers will be brought to bear and on which he will base his diagnosis. ~ Marcel Proust,

365:the fatal privilege”. It enshrined the right to recover one’s property by force, and in practice to deal with the thieves out of hand. A trod might lawfully be made at any time within six days after the offence; if it was followed immediately it was a hot trod, otherwise it was known as a cold trod. In either case it was governed by strict rules; a careful line was drawn, under Border law, between a trod and a reprisal raid. ~ George MacDonald Fraser,

366:This essay was originally going to be nothing but a series of photos of me kneeling before a Solange Knowles shrine I built for her (which is just images of all her various hairstyles, Lawry’s seasoning salt, shea butter lotion, a piece of weave I found off the street because Solange likes “found art,” and flakes from my ashy kneecap as a sacrifice), but then my editor was like, “That’s ignorant.” To which I responded, “Good. Point. ~ Phoebe Robinson,

367:We are rarely conscious of all these things that are killing our faith because they become so enshrined in our belief system. And when we enter into an unexpected process of shedding off those things that we have grown comfortable with... Well, that moment feels like a crisis. It feels like our faith is falling apart. It feels like everything has gone wrong. But I'm convinced it's not a crisis at all, but the birth of a true faith. ~ Benjamin L Corey,

368:From that awful encounter of the soul with the outer world, enunciation, wisdom, and charity are born; and with their birth a new life begins. To take into the inmost shrine of the soul the irresistible forces whose puppets we seem to be - Death and change, the irrevocableness of the past, and the powerlessness of Man before the blind hurry of the universe from vanity to vanity - to feel these things and know them is to conquer them. ~ Bertrand Russell,

369:Evolutionary speaking, the practice of taking revenge has shown itself to be so effective that only the most vengeful of us have survived. Vengeance or death. It sounds like the title of a western, right, but remember it was the logic of retaliation that created the constitutional state. The enshrined promise of an eye for an eye, the sinner burning in hell or at least dangling from the gallows. Revenge is basically the foundation of civilisation. ~ Jo Nesb,

370:The saintly soul of Elizabeth shone like a shrine-dedicated lamp in our peaceful home. Her sympathy was ours; her smile, her soft voice, the sweet glance of her celestial eyes, were ever there to bless and animate us. She was the living spirit of love to soften and attract: I might have become sullen in my study, rough through the ardour of my nature, but that she was there to subdue me to a semblance of her own gentleness. And ~ Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley,

371:ABDOMEN, n. [1.] The temple of the god Stomach, in whose worship, with sacrificial rights, all true men engage. From women this ancient faith commands but a stammering assent. They sometimes minister at the altar in a half-hearted and ineffective way, but true reverence for the one deity that men really adore they know not. If woman had a free hand in the world's marketing the race would become graminivorous. [2.] A shrine enclosing the object. ~ Ambrose Bierce,

372:These “reform” measures effectively killed democracy in the American South. Even though African Americans constituted a majority or near-majority of the population in many states, and even though black suffrage was now enshrined in the Constitution, “legal” or neutral-sounding measures were used to “insure that the Southern electorate…would be almost all white.” Black turnout in the South fell from 61 percent in 1880 to just 2 percent in 1912. ~ Steven Levitsky,

373:What good was this place, this college? What good was Anglo-Saxon, when one only learned it in order to answer examination questions, in order that one should have a higher commercial value later on? She was sick with this long service at the inner commercial shrine. Yet what else was there? Was life all this, and this only? Everywhere, everything was debased to the same service. Everything went to produce vulgar things, to encumber material life. ~ D H Lawrence,

374:I pray Aphrodite will help him find someone who loves him as much as he loves her.” “That’s a good prayer.” Father gave me a hug and stood up. “Now let’s find her shrine, and make sure she hears it.” I smiled sadly. “Don’t the gods hear our prayers wherever we are?” “Yes, but I think it’s best to speak with them in their own houses and bring them a little gift when you really want them to pay attention to what you’ve got to say. ~ Esther M Friesner,

375:Think of admitting the details of a single case of the criminal court into our thoughts, to stalk profanely through their very sanctum sanctorum for an hour, ay, for many hours! to make a very barroom of the mind's inmost apartment, as if for so long the dust of the street had occupied us,--the very street itself, with all its travel, its bustle, and filth, had passed through our thoughts' shrine! Would it not be an intellectual and moral suicide? ~ Henry David Thoreau,

376:Briefly, the nymphaeum glowed with a softer light, like a full moon. Piper smelled exotic spices and blooming roses. She heard distant music and happy voices talking and laughing. She guessed she was hearing hundreds of years of parties and celebrations that had been held at this shrine in ancient times, as if the memories had been freed along with the spirits. 'What is that?' Jason asked nervously. Piper slipped her hand into his. 'The ghosts are dancing. ~ Rick Riordan,

377:Are you looking for me? I am in the next seat. My shoulder is against yours. you will not find me in the stupas, not in Indian shrine rooms, nor in synagogues, nor in cathedrals: not in masses, nor kirtans, not in legs winding around your own neck, nor in eating nothing but vegetables. When you really look for me, you will see me instantly - you will find me in the tiniest house of time. Kabir says: Student, tell me, what is God? He is the breath inside the breath. ~ Kabir,

378:he had bought a ticket for the High Holy Day services being held in the Shrine Auditorium. He walked in expecting to find a welcoming communal atmosphere; instead, the first thing they did was raise funds for some cause. He was shocked—and stood up and walked out. His experience had been that a shul was a place for a community of people to come together to celebrate meaningful rituals. This was more like the department-store version of religious observance. ~ William Shatner,

379:I see, and sing by my own eyes inspired. O let me be thy Choir and make a moan Upon the midnight hours; Thy voice, thy lute, thy pipe, thy incense sweet From swinged Censer teeming; Thy Shrine, thy Grove, thy Oracle, thy heat Of pale-mouthe'd Prophet dreaming! Yes, I will be thy Priest and build a fane In some untrodden region of my Mind, Where branched thoughts, new grown with pleasant pain Instead of pies shall murmer in the wind ~ John Keats,

380:There are portraits of me and Barack now hanging in the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, a fact that humbles us both. I doubt that anyone looking at our two childhoods, our circumstances, would ever have predicted we'd land in those halls. The paintings are lovely, but what matters most is that they're there for young people to see - that our faces help dismantle the perception that in order to be enshrined in history, you have to look a certain way. ~ Michelle Obama,

381:The God who made the world and everything in it, this Master of sky and land, doesn’t live in custom-made shrines or need the human race to run errands for him, as if he couldn’t take care of himself. He makes the creatures; the creatures don’t make him. Starting from scratch, he made the entire human race and made the earth hospitable, with plenty of time and space for living so we could seek after God, and not just grope around in the dark but actually find him. ~ Anonymous,

382:Tourists see invisible things. Sometimes their point of view eluded him. By now, he was often the first in the group to raise his camera: to a roadside shrine or a sunset, to a buffalo plowing a paddy, ribs curved like a boat. But why were the others laughing at a billboard advertising Perlwite soap? What was fascinating about two village women grinding chilies on a stone? The dust of familiarity still lay in patches on the scenes through which he moved. ~ Michelle de Kretser,

383:Briefly, the nymphaeum glowed with a softer light, like a full moon. Piper smelled exotic spices and blooming roses. She heard distant music and happy voices talking and laughing. She guessed she was hearing hundreds of years of parties and celebrations that had been held at this shrine in ancient times, as if the memories had been freed along with the spirits. 'What is that?' Jason asked nervously. Piper slipped her hand into his. 'The ghosts are dancing. ~ Rick Riordan,

384:Gradually our surroundings became more residential. We passed wide, open doorways. These I checked automatically, but they offered no danger, only miscellaneous domestic scenes: four elderly women absorbed in a game of mahjong; a group of boys surrounding a television; a family at the supper table. We passed an old shrine, its red paint peeling in the tropical moisture. Incense from the brazier within pervaded my senses with the recollected emotions of childhood. ~ Barry Eisler,

385:I have never conceived that having been in public life required me to belie my sentiments, or to conceal them. Opinion and the just maintenance of it shall never be a crime in my view, nor bring injury on the individual. I never will by any word or act, bow to the shrine of intolerance. I never had an opinion in politics or religion which I was afraid to own; a reserve on these subjects might have procured me more esteem from some people, but less from myself. ~ Thomas Jefferson,

386:In one form or the other, the quest for human dignity has proved to be one of the most propulsive elements for wars, civil strife and willing sacrifice. Yet the entitlement to dignity, enshrined among the 'human rights', does not aspire to being the most self-evident, essential need for human survival, such as food, or physical health. Compared to that other candidate for the basic impulse of human existence - self-preservation - it may even be deemed self-indulgent. ~ Wole Soyinka,

387:Numa forbade the Romans to revere an image of God which had the form of man or beast. Nor was there among them in this earlier time any painted or graven likeness of Deity, 8 but while for the first hundred and seventy years they were continually building temples and establishing sacred shrines, they made no statues in bodily form for them, convinced that it was impious to liken higher things to lower, and that it was impossible to apprehend Deity except by the intellect. ~ Plutarch,

388:On Tolstoy vs. Dostoyevsky: Tolstoy depicted the life “which existed in the stable Moscow landowners’ family of the middle-upper stratum.” Such a life was the life of the exceptions. The life of the majority on the other hand, was one of confusion and moral chaos. Dostoevsky’s work was an attempt to grapple with the chaos of the present, while Tolstoy’s were pious efforts to enshrine for posterity the beauty of a gentry life already vanishing and doomed to extinction. ~ Joseph Frank,

389:We [with Shindzo Abe] should understand that the results of that terrible tragedy of the 20th century, namely World War II, are enshrined in corresponding international documents, and finding a way to settle all disputes without destroying the entire foundation of international law that evolved as a result of World War II is a highly delicate task. Therefore, I would like to reiterate that we cannot second-guess the course, let alone the outcome of our negotiations. ~ Vladimir Putin,

390:Raphael looked like he might have laughed if he'd been younger and more cheerful. 'Why are you using the Jesuit dictionary?' 'How do you know what I'm using? A d it's the only Quechua dictionary.' 'It's probably shrine,'I said, and then when Clem frowned, not understanding, 'not idol.' Raphael nodded to me and I smiled, because he was taking it so gently. I would have burst out laughing if someone had translated Christchurch as Heathen God Temple in front of me. ~ Natasha Pulley,

391: Only A Shrine, But Mine 918 Only a Shrine, but Mine— I made the Taper shine— Madonna dim, to whom all Feet may come, Regard a Nun— Thou knowest every Woe— Needless to tell thee—so— But can'st thou do The Grace next to it—heal? That looks a harder skill to us— Still—just as easy, if it be thy Will To thee—Grant me— Thou knowest, though, so Why tell thee? ~ Emily Dickinson,

392:St. Fidgeta is the patroness of nervous and unmanageable children. Her shrine is the church of Santa Fidgeta in Tormento, near Fobbio in southern Italy. There one may see the miraculous statues of St. Fidgeta, attributed to the Catholic Casting Company of Chicago, Illinois. The statue has been seen to squirm noticeably on her feast day, and so on that day restless children from all over Europe have been dragged to the shrine by equally nervous, worn-out, and half-mad parents. ~ John Bellairs,

393:How did you get into the castle, Alexandre, son of Gilles Smith?” Sand shrugged. “A saint kidnapped me from his shrine and put me into a fireplace here. So I guess the answer is, a miracle of Saint Melor. Or so I think. He has not told me.” “If you are trying to antagonize him, you are doing a good job,” Perrotte whispered. Sand scuffed his shoe at her. “I’m just telling the truth!” “You’re very good at telling it in the most maddening way possible.” “Thank you? ~ Merrie Haskell,

394:Morality did not begin by one man saying to another, "I will not hit you if you do not hit me"; there is no trace of such a transaction. There IS a trace of both men having said, We must not hit each other in the holy place. They gained their morality by guarding their religion. They did not cultivate courage. They fought for the shrine, and found they had become courageous. They did not cultivate cleanliness. They purified themselves for the altar, and found that they were clean. ~ G K Chesterton,

395:I was only worried about what might happen if she left the shrine.” “Why would she want to do that?” the priest asked. He had begun to talk about me as if I weren’t there, or worse, as if I were just another traveler’s chest to be stowed in one room or another. “If you tell her to stay on the temple grounds, you have no problem.” Castor’s mouth twisted into a wry smile. “That’s our sister, all right--just as tame and obedient as every other girl.” I jabbed him with my elbow. ~ Esther M Friesner,

396:It is to a dramatist, which is to say, to an unfrocked psychoanalyst, stunning that that which has sustained the Left in my generation, its avatar, its prime issue, has been abortion. For, whether or not it is regarded as a woman's right, an unfortunate necessity, or murder, which is to say, irrespective of differing and legitimate political views, to enshrine it as the most important test of the Liberal, is, mythologically, an assertion to the ultimate right of a postreligious Paganism. ~ David Mamet,

397:On December 9, 1531, the Blessed Virgin Mary appeared to an Indian named Juan Diego. A carpet of roses blossoming in the dead of winter and a Madonna with a coffee-colored face appearing on Juan Diego’s robe were enough further evidence to convince the local bishop to erect a shrine to Our Lady of Guadalupe. There are those who say Guadalupe is Tonantzin, an Aztec goddess who existed years before Juan Diego came along. The Spanish missionaries, knowing that she had quite a local following, ~ Jodi Picoult,

398:This is a great country, in no small part because it is the best country ever devised in which to be a public crank. Never has a nation so dedicated itself to the proposition that not only should people hold nutty ideas, but they should cultivate them, treasure them, shine them up, and put them right up there on the mantelpiece. This is still the best country ever in which to peddle complete public lunacy. In fact, it’s the only country to enshrine that right in its founding documents. ~ Charles P Pierce,

399:It is to a dramatist, which is to say, to an unfrocked psychoanalyst, stunning that that which has sustained the Left in my generation, its avatar, its prime issue, has been abortion. For, whether or not it is regarded as a woman’s right, an unfortunate necessity, or murder, which is to say, irrespective of differing and legitimate political views, to enshrine it as the most important test of the Liberal, is, mythologically, an assertion to the ultimate right of a postreligious Paganism. ~ David Mamet,

400:To love! To surrender absolutely, to prostrate oneself before the divine image, to die a thousand imaginary deaths, to annihilate every trace of self, to find the whole universe embodied and enshrined in the living image of another! Adolescent, we say. Rot! This is the germ of the future life, the seed which we hide away, which we bury deep within us, which we smother and stifle and do our utmost to destroy as we advance from one experience to another and flutter and flounder and lose our way. ~ Henry Miller,

401:The great religious ages were notable for their indifference to human rights... not only for acquiescence in poverty, inequality, exploitation and oppression, but also for enthusiastic justifications for slavery, persecution, abandonment of small children, torture, and genocide... Moreover, religion enshrined hierarchy, authority, and inequality... It was the age of equality that brought about the disappearance of such religious appurtenances as the auto-da-fe and burning at the stake. ~ Arthur M Schlesinger Jr,

402:The Riemann zeta function was a simple enough looking infinite series expressed in terms of a complex variable. Here, “complex” means not difficult or complicated, but refers to a variable of two distinct components, “real” and “imaginary,” which together could be thought to range over a two-dimensional plane. In 1860, Georg Friedrich Bernhard Riemann made six conjectures concerning the zeta function. By Ramanujan’s time, five had been proven. One, enshrined today as the Riemann hypothesis, had not ~ Robert Kanigel,

403:Does it really look like Japan?" Thaniel asked as they went by a shrine housing a painted figure that might have been a god, or something that ate gods. A little boy put a coin in its bowl and rang the bell inside. The watchmaker nodded. "Near enough. The weather is better in Japan, and it would be difficult to find English food. But I think they do draw the line here at brown tea." Thaniel could smell the bitterness of green tea now. "What's wrong with brown?" "Don't be stupid. ~ Natasha Pulley,

404:And at that very moment ladies in black garments, scores of them, are scattered throughout St. Louis de France church, kneeling or sitting or some standing at the various special shrines, their lips muttering prayers for similar requests for similar troubles in their own poor lives and if indeed the Lord seeth all and saw all that is going on and all the beseechment in His name in dark earth-churches throughout the kingdom of consciousness, it would be with pain He'd attend and bend His thoughts to it. ~ Jack Kerouac,

405:I recall that in planning my first European journey I had soberly hoped in two years to trace the entire pattern of human excellence as we passed from one country to another, in the shrines popular affection had consecrated to the saints, in the frequented statues erected to heroes, and in the "worn blasonry of funeral brasses" - an illustration that when we are young we all long for those mountaintops upon which we may soberly stand and dream of our own ephemeral and uncertain attempts at righteousness. ~ Jane Addams,

406:I feel like I’m going to get in a fight one day about the validity of falling in love so fast. Not a heated one because why would I give a shit if some other person gets it or not? Right now, it’s no longer the big flooding rush like when I saw her naked shoulder. It’s just this honest, frank truth. I love Evelyn Shriner. Love doesn’t start with need. Love meets love and just fucking recognizes itself. I’m supposed to be scared to death. Modern man isn’t built for these kinds of things. But I feel good. ~ Gregory Sherl,

407:As the Roman Empire came to its close, all the old gods of the pagan world were seen as demons by the Christians who rose. It was useless to tell them as the centuries passed that their Christ was but another God of the Wood, dying and rising, as Dionysus or Osiris had done before him, and that the Virgin Mary was in fact the Good Mother again enshrined. Theirs was a new age of belief and conviction, and in it we became devils, detached from what they believed, as old knowledge was forgotten or misunderstood. ~ Anne Rice,

408:But when we watch the ants round their ruined heap, the tenacity, energy, and immense number of the delving insects prove that despite the destruction of the heap, something indestructible, which though intangible is the real strength of the colony, still exists; and similarly, though in Moscow in the month of October there was no government and no churches, shrines, riches, or houses—it was still the Moscow it had been in August. All was destroyed, except something intangible yet powerful and indestructible. ~ Leo Tolstoy,

409:There is a beautiful expression of this in the Chandogya Upanishad: 'There is this City of Brahman, (that is the body), and in this city there is a shrine, and in that shrine there is a small lotus, and in that lotus there is a small space, (akasa). Now what exists within that small space, that is to be sought, that is to be understood.' This is the great discovery of the Upanishads, this inner shrine, this guha, or cave of the heart, where the inner meaning of life, of all human existence, is to be found. ~ Bede Griffiths,

410:What is a tremendous, unspeakable honor may feel insufficient for those who are used to being god of their own blogs and Twitter accounts. It feels insignificant to those who have erected their own shrines on Facebook and Instagram, filled with beautiful pictures of themselves. Herein lies the danger of clamoring for attention: we don’t realize that true joy comes from the opposite. Joy comes as we stand among those Jesus has redeemed and get lost in a sea of worship, becoming fully a part of something sacred. ~ Francis Chan,

411:Are you looking for me? I am in the next seat. My shoulder is against yours. you will not find me in the stupas, not in Indian shrine rooms, nor in synagogues, nor in cathedrals: not in masses, nor kirtans, not in legs winding around your own neck, nor in eating nothing but vegetables. When you really look for me, you will see me instantly — you will find me in the tiniest house of time. Kabir says: Student, tell me, what is God? He is the breath inside the breath. ~ Kabir,

412:Shall a man make gods unto himself, and they are no gods." Jeremiah 16:20 One great besetting sin of ancient Israel was idolatry, and the spiritual Israel are vexed with a tendency to the same folly. Remphan's star shines no longer, and the women weep no more for Tammuz, but Mammon still intrudes his golden calf, and the shrines of pride are not forsaken. Self in various forms struggles to subdue the chosen ones under its dominion, and the flesh sets up its altars wherever it can find space for them. ~ Charles Haddon Spurgeon,

413:But instead of the portal opening up for more Watchers to come down, the assembly of the gods felt the horrifying pull of the whirlwind upward. This was not the plan.   Abram saw all the gods in the shrine sucked up into the whirlwind. He looked at Mikael, who laughed heartily. It was the opposite of what the gods had expected. Before Abram could grasp what he had seen, the earth rumbled beneath their feet. The land before them rose up like a rug being shaken. The ripple of earth traveled speedily toward Babylon. ~ Brian Godawa,

414:Ode to Psyche - Excerpt I see, and sing, by my own eyes inspir'd. So let me be thy choir, and make a moan Upon the midnight hours; Thy voice, thy lute, thy pipe, thy incense sweet From swinged censer teeming; Thy shrine, thy grove, thy oracle, thy heat Of pale-mouth'd prophet dreaming. Yes, I will be thy priest, and build a fane In some untrodden region of my mind, Where branched thoughts, new grown with pleasant pain, Instead of pines shall murmur in the wind: ~ John Keats,

415:Poor humanity, to saddle the gods with such a responsibility and throw in a vindictive temper. What griefs they hatch for themselves, what festering sores for us, what tears for our prosperity! This is not piety, this oft-repeated show of bowing a veiled head before a graven image; this bustling to every altar; this kow-towing and prostration on the ground with palms outspread before the shrines of the gods; this deluging of vow on vow. True piety lies rather in the power to contemplate the universe with a quiet mind. ~ Lucretius,

416:It was just one year ago that the world saw this new, invigorated United Nations in action as this Council stood fast against aggression and stood for the sacred principles enshrined in the U.N. Charter. And now it's time to step forward again, make the internal reforms, accelerate the revitalization, accept the responsibilities necessary for a vigorous and effective United Nations. I want to assure the members of this Council and the Secretary-General, the United Nations can count on our full support in this task. ~ George H W Bush,

417:The pursuit of happiness is enshrined in the Declaration of Independence as a right of all Americans, as well as on the self-improvement shelves of every American bookstore. Yet the scientific evidence makes it seem unlikely that you can change your level of happiness in any sustainable way. It suggests that we each have a fixed range for happiness just as we do for weight. And just as dieters almost always regain the weight they lose, sad people don't become lastingly happy, and happy people don't become lastingly sad. ~ Martin Seligman,

418:Even the most powerful of Dark Side Adepts believed that shrines of that sort existed only on Sith worlds remote from Coruscant, and even the most powerful of the Jedi believed that the power inherent in the shrine had been neutralized and successfully capped. In truth, that power had seeped upward and outward since its entombment, infiltrating the hallways and rooms above, and weakening the Jedi Order much as the Sith Masters themselves had secretly infiltrated the corridors of political power and toppled the Republic. ~ John Jackson Miller,

419:All these relics gave... Thornfield Hall the aspect of a home of the past: a shrine to memory. I liked the hush, the gloom, the quaintness of these retreats in the day; but I by no means coveted a night's repose on one of those wide and heavy beds: shut in, some of them, with doors of oak; shaded, others, with wrought old-English hangings crusted with thick work, portraying effigies of strange flowers, and stranger birds, and strangest human beings, all which would have looked strange, indeed, by the pallid gleam of moonlight. ~ Charlotte Bronte,

420:After twenty-two years of marriage, we had outgrown the challenge of making something out of nothing. The nesting instincts just weren't there anymore. I no longer hyperventilated over a melon keeper that I bought at a Tupperware party. I now worshipped at the shrine of convenience and Sara Lee. Bill no longer rushed home to make bird houses in the basement. He wanted to sleep in his BarcaLounger so he wouldn't be so tired when he went to bed. It was as if we were closing the door on the years of struggle. It wasn't fun anymore. ~ Erma Bombeck,

421:But what about me? I suffer, but still, I don’t live. I am x in an indeterminate equation. I am a sort of phantom in life who has lost all beginning and end, and who has even forgotten his own name. You are laughing- no, you are not laughing, you are angry again. You are forever angry, all you care about is intelligence, but I repeat again that I would give away all this superstellar life, all the ranks and honours, simply to be transformed into the soul of a merchant’s wife weighing eighteen stone and set candles at God’s shrine ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky,

422:Her theory of endosymbiosis, controversial at first and now enshrined in biology textbooks, showed that in evolution, radical cooperation is just as potent a force as deathly competition. One great example involves mitochondria, the tiny micron-size power plants inside our cells. According to endosymbiotic theory, these used to be freely living bacteria that joined our ancestral cells in a mutually beneficial, symbiotic, relationship. The association became so tight that eventually the partners joined together to form a new kind of organism. ~ David Grinspoon,

423:Now, as in Tullia’s tomb one lamp burnt clear        Unchanged for fifteen hundred year,        May these love-lamps we here enshrine In warmth, light, lasting, equal the divine.        Fire ever doth aspire, And makes all like itself, turns all to fire, But ends in ashes; which these cannot do, For none of these is fuel, but fire too. This is joy’s bonfire, then, where love’s strong arts Make of so noble individual parts One fire of four inflaming eyes, and of two loving hearts. JOHN DONNE: Eclogue for the Marriage of the Earl of Somerset. ~ Dorothy L Sayers,

424:Across the river, Abram and Mikael watched the spout of the funnel cloud reach down to touch the shrine. A flurry of winds surrounded the entire complex. Loose animals around them brayed, barked, and bleated as if to warn everyone of something terrifying.   The spout came closer and closer to the congregation of the gods. The transformation of the ages was about to begin. The voices of the gods grew louder. Their arms reached high toward the consummation of the opening. The spout touched down on the shrine. Contact was made between heaven and earth. ~ Brian Godawa,

425:Indeed Christianity passes. Passes—it has gone! It has littered the beaches of life with churches, cathedrals, shrines and crucifixes, prejudices and intolerances, like the sea urchin and starfish and empty shells and lumps of stinging jelly upon the sands here after a tide. A tidal wave out of Egypt. And it has left a multitude of little wriggling theologians and confessors and apologists hopping and burrowing in the warm nutritious sand. But in the hearts of living men, what remains of it now? Doubtful scraps of Arianism. Phrases. Sentiments. Habits. ~ H G Wells,

426:The daily disappearance and the subsequent rise of the sun appeared to many of the ancients as a true resurrection; thus, while the east came to be regarded as the source of light and warmth, happiness and glory, the west was associated with darkness and chill, decay and death. This led to the custom of burying the dead so as to face the east when they rose again, and of building temples and shrines with an opening toward the east. To effect this, Vitruvius, two thousand years ago, gave precise rules, which are still followed by Christian architects. ~ Isaac Newton,

427:For he was one of those people who can never be ‘doing nothing,’ although there was nothing, for that matter, that he could ever be said to do. And as complete inactivity has the same effect on us, in the end, as prolonged overwork, and on the character as much as on the life of body and muscles, the unimpaired nullity of intellect that was enshrined behind Octave’s meditative brow had ended by giving him, despite his air of unruffled calm, ineffectual longings to think which kept him awake at night, for all the world like an overwrought philosopher. ~ Marcel Proust,

428:Indeed Christianity passes. Passes - it has gone! It has littered the beaches of life with churches, cathedrals, shrines and crucifixes, prejudices and intolerances, like the sea urchin and starfish and empty shells and lumps of stinging jelly upon the sands here after a tide. A tidal wave out of Egypt. And it has left a multitude of little wriggling theologians and confessors and apologists hopping and burrowing in the warm nutritious sand. But in the hearts of living men, what remains of it now? Doubtful scraps of Arianism. Phrases. Sentiments. Habits. ~ H G Wells,

429:In all things I saw the passion of life for growth and greatness, the drama of everlasting creation. I came to think of myself, not as a dance and chaos of molecules, but as a brief and minute portion of that majestic process... I became almost reconciled to mortality, knowing that my spirit would survive me enshrined in a fairer mold... and that my little worth would somehow be preserved in the heritage of men. In a measure the Great Sadness was lifted from me, and, where I had seen omnipresent death, I saw now everywhere the pageant and triumph of life. ~ Will Durant,

430:Step 1: Tenure and other job protections make it harder to fire teachers and therefore effectively work to keep bad ones in the classroom. Step 2: Bad teachers "substantially undermine" a child's education. That, Treu wrote, not only "shocks the conscience" but also violates the students' right to a "basic equality of educational opportunity" as enshrined in California's constitution. It was the first time, in California or anywhere else, that a court had linked the quality of a teacher, as measured by student test scores, to a pupil's right to an education. ~ Anonymous,

431:Whilst America hath been the land of promise to Europeans, and their descendants, it hath been the vale of death to millions of the wretched sons of Africa... Whilst we were offering up vows at the shrine of Liberty... whilst we swore irreconcilable hostility to her enemies... whilst we adjured the God of Hosts to witness our resolution to live free or die... we were imposing on our fellow men, who differ in complexion from us, a slavery, ten thousand times more cruel than the utmost extremity of those grievances and oppressions, of which we complained. ~ St George Tucker,

432: A Desolation Now mind is clear as a cloudless sky. Time then to make a home in wilderness. What have I done but wander with my eyes in the trees? So I will build: wife, family, and seek for neighbors. Or I perish of lonesomeness or want of food or lightning or the bear (must tame the hart and wear the bear) . And maybe make an image of my wandering, a little image—shrine by the roadside to signify to traveler that I live here in the wilderness awake and at home. ~ Allen Ginsberg,

433:The usual struggle squeezing my bloated Citroën, absurdly named “Picasso,” in or out of any old Italian town. I should be taking a year over this and doing it on a donkey. Eventually found the road to the church of the Madonna of San Biagio, a foursquare temple sitting all alone in the plain. Sangallo's fantasy of the Doric order in honey-colored sandstone, with shell-niches, rosettes, oculi under heavy entablatures. Any one ignorant of geometry scarcely dare enter this shrine to number, measure, and weight. So clean and crisp I could eat it for breakfast. ~ Joscelyn Godwin,

434:It's like this when you fall hard for a musician. It's a crush with religious overtones. You listen to the songs and you memorize the words and the notes and this is a form of prayer. You attend the shows and this is the liturgy. You're interested in relics -- guitar picks, set lists, the sweaty napkin applied to His brow. You set up shrines in your room. It's not just about the music. It's about who you are when you listen to the music and who you wish to be and the way a particular song can bridge that gap, can make you feel the abrupt thrill of absolute faith. ~ Steve Almond,

435:Aided and abetted by corrupt analysts, patients who have nothing better to do with their lives often use the psychoanalytic situation to transform insignificant childhood hurts into private shrines at which they worship unceasingly the enormity of the offenses committed against them. This solution is immensely flattering to the patients -- as are all forms of unmerited self-aggrandizement; it is immensely profitable for the analysts -- as are all forms pandering to people's vanity; and it is often immensely unpleasant for nearly everyone else in the patient's life. ~ Thomas Szasz,

436:I believed that books might save him because I knew they had so far, and because I knew the people books had saved. They were college professors and actors and scientists and poets. They got to college and sat on dorm floors drinking coffee, amazed they'd finally found their soul mates. They always dressed a little out of season. Their names were enshrined on the pink cards in the pockets of all the forgotten hardbacks in every library basement in America. If the librarians were lazy enough or nostalgic enough or smart enough, those names would stay there forever. ~ Rebecca Makkai,

437: To His Lady, IMPLORING HER TO BE TRUE MISTRESS of me, mistress of all the arts And charms that sway men's hot ungoverned hearts, Receive their tribute--smile at their defeat; I do not ask that you should spare them, sweet. Only I ask that in the secret shrine No prayers be heard, no offering laid, but mine. Each man who sees your eyes must needs lay down Low at your feet the votive myrtle crown: Let them bring crowns to die beneath your feet; I, only I, must bring the crown you wear Shadowing the sombre glory of your hair. ~ Edith Nesbit,

438: The Easter Flower Far from this foreign Easter damp and chilly My soul steals to a pear-shaped plot of ground, Where gleamed the lilac-tinted Easter lily Soft-scented in the air for yards around; Alone, without a hint of guardian leaf! Just like a fragile bell of silver rime, It burst the tomb for freedom sweet and brief In the young pregnant year at Eastertime; And many thought it was a sacred sign, And some called it the resurrection flower; And I, a pagan, worshiped at its shrine, Yielding my heart unto its perfumed power. ~ Claude McKay,

439: Invocation NIGHT after night within the grove The night wind spares the sacred fire -­ The breath made visible of love, Of worship and desire. I set the tripod at thy shrine; The silver bowl, the amber flame, And in the dark where no stars shine I speak thy name. By the high name I call on thee Which only I, thy priestess, know. I tread thy dance in ecstasy, Sweet steps and slow. O God, the hour has come. Appear! I have performed the appointed rite -­ The dance, the fire; I long to hear Wings in the night. ~ Alice Duer Miller,

440:I never wavered in my certainty that God did not exist. I was simply liberated by the thought that there might be a way to engage with religion without having to subscribe to its supernatural content - a way, to put it in more abstract terms, to think about Fathers without upsetting my respectful memory of my own father. I recognized that my continuing resistance to theories of an afterlife or of heavenly residents was no justification for giving up on the music, buildings, prayers, rituals, feasts, shrines, pilgrimages, communal meals and illustrated manuscripts of the faiths. ~ Alain de Botton,

441:Kemet/Khemit/Khem did not originally mean "the black land" nor was it the name of Letopolis, for that it was linked with the northern kingdom of Horus (in contrast to that of Seth's). That word literally meant "Amount, Quantity" and also "resurrection" in direct reference to the Balance (i.e., Pyramids) of the Giza Plateau, hence, Budge's translation as - 'shrine, destruction' and 'burned' because that's where Osiris had to cross the "sea of fire". In other words, Kemet meant: the Site of Judgement, Account & Resurrection and it originally only referred to the Giza Plateau. ~ Ibrahim Ibrahim,

442:The archaic pantheons—Norse, Egyptian, Greek—all have a god dedicated to the dark art of gossip. The book of Proverbs treats the topic thoroughly; one verse from many cautions that “a man who lacks judgment derides his neighbor, but a man of understanding holds his tongue.” “Judge not lest you be judged” is one of the most famous phrases in the whole Bible. Several sources maintain that the Romans enshrined a goddess named “Rumor”—a winged demon with a hundred eyes and a hundred mouths who spoke only the most hurtful side of the truth. Appropriately enough, I can’t seem to confirm this. ~ Anonymous,

443:Khubilai’s capital in China, Khanbalikh (also known as Ta-tu or Dadu), was symbolic of the way Mongol rulers amalgamated the diverse cultures, beliefs, and skills of their domains. In it were built a shrine for Confucians, an altar with Mongolian soil and grass from the steppes, and buildings of significant Chinese architectural influence. As historian Morris Rossabi points out, Khubilai “sought the assistance of Persian astronomers and physicians, Tibetan Buddhist monks” and “Central Asian [Muslim] soldiers.” One can only imagine it must have been a city of grand cosmopolitan dimensions. ~ Tim Cope,

444:Some friends and I once walked the ancient pilgrimage route of the Ōmine Yamabushi (mountain ascetics) in Nara prefecture from Yoshino to Kumano. In doing so we crossed the traditional center of the “Diamond-Realm Mandala” at the summit of Mt. Ōmine (close to six thousand feet) and four hiking days later descended to the center of the “Womb-Realm Mandala” at the Kumano (“Bear Field”) Shrine, deep in a valley. It was the late-June rainy season, flowery and misty. There were little stone shrines the whole distance — miles of ridges — to which we sincerely bowed each time we came on them. ~ Gary Snyder,

445:My stepfather used to be a clown in The Shrine Circus. He took me backstage when I was 23. I saw three elephants chained to the cement floor in the warehouse of the Michigan State Fairgrounds. Sadness, hopelessness and fear were emanating from their eyes, from their bodies. They were swaying neurotically from side to side. A monkey was screaming in his cage, grabbing the bars of his prison. Two tigers were pacing feverishly in their tiny cages. Cruelty was staring me in the face. I knew something was wrong. If you pay attention to energy, you can tell when a fellow being is in peril. ~ Gary Yourofsky,

446:Dead on time. Not late at all. He was small, white as a sheet, thin as a specter, always moving, even when he was still. The twenty-nine-year-old veteran. He was dressed all in black. He saw Westwood and headed over. He nodded three ways and sat down. He said, “The Valley likes irony, but you got to agree happy hour in a Soviet shrine is the ultimate contradiction in terms. And speaking of the former USSR, my blog alerts tell me a Ukrainian named Merchenko was a mob hit last night. Which is a happy coincidence. But he will be replaced. The market will fill the void. So I’m still not going public. ~ Lee Child,

447:IN THIS MODERN CENTURY ON MOTHER EARTH TIME HAS BEEN ALREADY RIPPED TO CONTEMPLATE ON MYTHOLOGICAL STYLE.TO DEODORIZE ,EXORCISE NANO MICRO LEVEL OF SANCTITY SHRIVE HOMEWORK OF ENTIRE GLOBAL HUMAN SAGACIOUS PENSIVE MENTAL PHILOSOPHY AND HEED STUNT. SO.LIKE OUR VENERABLE ANCIENT ENSHRINE SOULS ALREADY HAD ASCETICISM TO HOBNOB INTO DIVINISM.ALL GLOBAL CITIZENS HAVE TO DO EXECUTE DIFFERENT TYPE OF HOLY SANCROSANCT RELIGIOUS YAGNAS RIGHT NOW.TO CONSECRATED TO HIS EXCELLENCY UNIVERSAL BOSS GOD FOR THE PROSPERITY OF ALL CREATURES OF MEGA AND MACROCOSMOS TILL ELEVENTH HOUR OF ITS EXISTENCE. GOD BLESS YOU ALL. ~ Various,

448:And there was a fourth, “highest grade” of marriage, which included the best features of the others, “home sympathies” and “intellectual communion,” but added to these a “religious” dimension, “expressed as a pilgrimage towards a common shrine.” Margaret was careful to specify that by “religion” she meant “the thirst for truth and good, not the love of sect and dogma.” She also had in mind a particular style of devotion: a “reverent love,” a sense that one’s partner is the “only true” companion, the only other one “of all human beings” who can “understand and interpret . . . my inner and outer being. ~ Megan Marshall,

449:By some miracle the cairn remained untouched by the flames, solid as the day I’d built it, a tiny oasis amid the burn scar. I removed the cap rock. I placed the bone inside. I felt the enormity of his loss once more. The pain of it never does fade entirely, never will—no doubt it disfigured me in ways that will endure for what remains of my life—but at last I found a place to put it where it wouldn’t eat me alive. My devotion to his memory led me there, the place I venerate above all others on earth, my little voodoo shrine to the lost and the damned, as wild and remote as the country of grief itself. ~ Philip Connors,

450:I've come for Emma," Lachlain bellowed, standing in the shadow of Emma's home, Val Hall, which looked to be the face of hell. Though the fog was cloying, lightning fired all around, sometimes corralled by the many copper rods planted all along the roof and the grounds, sometimes by the scorched oaks crowding the yard. Annika stepped out onto the porch, looking otherworldly in her rage, her eyes glittering green, then silver, and back. Wraiths flew about her hair, cackling. At that moment, he couldn't decide whether this bayou shrine to insanity or Helvita was worse. Nïx waved happily from a window. ~ Kresley Cole,

451:We visited Mao's old house, which had been turned into a museum-cum-shrine. It was rather grand––quite different from my idea of a lodging for exploited peasants, as I had expected it to be. A caption underneath an enormous photograph of Mao's mother said that she had been a very kind person and, because her family was relatively well off, had often given food to the poor. So our Great Leader's parents had been rich peasants! But rich peasants were class enemies! Why were Chairman Mao's parents heroes when other class enemies were objects of hate? The question frightened me so much that I immediately suppressed it. ~ Jung Chang,

452: Enshrined SINCE Lois died the tyrant Sun Drags haggard in his orbit bound This puppet Earth, whose seasons run For me an aimless, wasted round. Incessantly I think to die, Nor ever doubt that Death is Peace, And many an hour I ponder why My soul desists from her release. I do not dread the crash of pain For one loud moment at the close, Nor shrink to taste the slow, inane, Pervasive opiate’s repose. But in my saddest trances still Her steadfast soul upholdeth mine To endure till it be Nature’s will My heart shall cease to be her shrine. ~ Edward William Thomson,

453:They were given one candle each and then a monk led them into the Caves of Saint Anthony and the Caves of Theodosius. They saw the relics of the Venerable Anthony and Theodosius. There were many other saints there, too, some of whom Arseny knew about, and occasionally some he did not know about… Arseny drew a candle toward the inscription near one of the shrines. Salutations, O beloved Agapit, Arseny quietly uttered. I had so hoped to meet you. To whom are you wishing health? asked Ambrogio. This is the Venerable Agapit, an unmercenary physician. Arseny dropped to his knees and pressed his lips to Agapit’s hand… ~ Evgenij Vodolazkin,

454:He knew she was there by the rapture and the terror that seized on his heart. She was standing talking to a lady at the opposite end of the ground. There was apparently nothing striking either in her dress or her attitude. But for Levin she was as easy to find in that crowd, as a rose among nettles. Everything was made bright by her... The place where she stood seemed to him a holy shrine, unapproachable, and there was one moment when he was almost retreating, so overwhelmed was he with terror... He walked down, for a long while avoiding looking at her as at the sun, but seeing her, as one does the sun, without looking. ~ Leo Tolstoy,

455:Withdraw into yourself and look. And if you do not find yourself beautiful yet, act as does the creator of a statue that is to be made beautiful: he cuts away here, he smoothes there, he makes this line lighter, this other purer, until a lovely face has grown upon his work. So do you also: cut away all that is excessive, straighten all that is crooked, bring light to all that is overcast, labour to make all one glow of beauty and never cease chiselling your statue, until there shall shine out on you from it the godlike splendour of virtue, until you shall see the perfect goodness surely established in the stainless shrine. ~ Plotinus,

456:The great protagonists are those who fight for their ideas and ideals despite the fact that they receive no recognition at the hands of their contemporaries. They are the men whose memories will be enshrined in the hearts of the future generations. It seems then as if each individual felt it his duty to make retroactive atonement for the wrong which great men have suffered at the hands of their contemporaries. Their lives and their work are then studied with touching and grateful admiration. Especially in dark days of distress, such men have the power of healing broken hearts and elevating the despairing spirit of a people. ~ Adolf Hitler,

457:I'm the idiot box. I'm the TV. I'm the all-seeing eye and the world of the cathode ray. I'm the boob tube. I'm the little shrine the family gathers to adore.' 'You're the television? Or someone in the television?' 'The TV's the altar. I'm what people are sacrificing to.' 'What do they sacrifice?' asked Shadow. 'Their time, mostly,' said Lucy. 'Sometimes each other.' She raised two fingers, blew imaginary gunsmoke from the tips. Then she winked, a big old I Love Lucy wink. 'You're a God?' said Shadow. Lucy smirked, and took a ladylike puff of her cigarette. 'You could say that,' she said. ~ Neil Gaiman,

458: At The Last Where are you--you whose loving breath Alone can stay my soul from death? The world's so wide, I seek it through, Yet--dare I dream to win to you? Perhaps your dear desired feet Pass me in this grey muddy street. Your face, it may be, has its shrine In that dull house that's next to mine. But I believe, O Life, O Fate, That when I call on Death and wait One moment at the unclosing gate I shall turn back for one last gaze Along the trampled, sordid ways, And in the sunset see at last, Just as the barred gate holds me fast, Your face, your face, too late. ~ Edith Nesbit,

459:Jesus was not a godlike man, nor a manlike God. He was God-man. Midwifed by a carpenter. Bathed by a peasant girl. The maker of the world with a bellybutton. The author of the Torah being taught the Torah. Heaven’s human. And because he was, we are left with scratch-your-head, double-blink, what’s-wrong-with-this-picture? moments like these: A cripple sponsoring the town dance. A sack lunch satisfying five thousand tummies. What do we do with such moments? What do we do with such a person? We applaud men for doing good things. We enshrine God for doing great things. But when a man does God things? One thing is certain, we can’t ignore him. ~ Max Lucado,

460:Since we are not yet fully comfortable with the idea that people from the next village are as human as ourselves, it is presumptuous in the extreme to suppose we could ever look at sociable, tool-making creatures who arose from other evolutionary paths and see not beasts but brothers, not rivals by fellow pilgrims journeying to the shrine of intelligence. Yet that is what I see, or yearn to see. The difference between raman and varelse is not in the creature judged but in the creature judging, and when we declare an alien species to be raman, it does not mean that they have passed a threshold of moral maturity. It means that we have. ~ Orson Scott Card,

461: After Parting Farewell has long been said; I have forgone thee; I never name thee even. But how shall I learn virtues and yet shun thee? For thou art so near Heaven That Heavenward meditations pause upon thee. Thou dost beset the path to every shrine; My trembling thoughts discern Thy goodness in the good for which I pine; And, if I turn from but one sin, I turn Unto a smile of thine. How shall I thrust thee apart Since all my growth tends to thee night and day-To thee faith, hope, and art? Swift are the currents setting all one way; They draw my life, my life, out of my heart. ~ Alice Meynell,

462:ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb is associated with being particularly sensitive to justice and fairness. ʿUthmān ibn ʿAffān’s name is derived from the same Arabic root as ʿiffah, which according to al-Qāmūs of al-Fayrūzabādī, refers not only to moderation but also to one who is abstinent and chaste, a meaning that is fitting for ʿUthmān. The Prophet once said that even the angels were shy before ʿUthmān because of his modesty. In ʿAlī ibn AbīṬālib, there is extraordinary wisdom or ḥikmah. It is true that these great heroes of Islamic civilization embodied in a particular way one of the four virtues, but they also kept a balance that enshrined the rest. ~ Hamza Yusuf,

463:History's long rhythm of challenges and response, of solutions that breed new crises, is not to be interrupted. But the Cold War left one shining example of human wisdom as a legacy for the future. Fifty years after the first use of atomic weapons, the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki remain unique and poignant shrines to the inspiring fact that they have no successor. The long confrontation of the Cold War, a struggle to the death between two systems for the mastery of human destiny, was managed and resolved without that nuclear war which lurked in the monstrous imminence in silos and submarines around the globe. That was the real victory. ~ Martin Walker,

464:Get married and have halfbreed babies, manuscripts, home¬spun blankets and mother’s milk on your happy ragged mat floor like this one. Get yourself a hut house not too far from town, live cheap, go ball in the bars once in a while, write and rumble in the hills and learn how to saw boards and talk to grandmas you damn fool, carry loads of wood for them, clap your hands at shrines, get supernatural favors, take flower-arrangement lessons and grow chrysanthemums by the door, and get married for krissakes, get a friendly smart sensitive human-being gal who don’t give a shit for martinis every night and all that dumb white machinery in the kitchen. ~ Jack Kerouac,

465: Sonnet 04 If I was drawn here from a distant place, 'Twas not to pray nor hear our friend's address, But, gazing once more on your winsome face, To worship there Ideal Loveliness. On that pure shrine that has too long ignored The gifts that once I brought so frequently I lay this votive offering, to record How sweet your quiet beauty seemed to me. Enchanting girl, my faith is not a thing By futile prayers and vapid psalm-singing To vent in crowded nave and public pew. My creed is simple: that the world is fair, And beauty the best thing to worship there, And I confess it by adoring you. ~ Alan Seeger,

466:The address of the Tip O'Neill building is 10 Causeway Street. It may be torn down soon, because it is one of the most wonderfully unsightly buildings ever constructed. In the eighties they blew up a grand hotel that had gone seedy, and in its place they built this shrine to Congressman Tip O'Neill. It houses all the federal offices - the office of Social Security, and the Firearms Legitimization Bureau, the Bioshock Informant Management Corps, and the Soy Protein Tax Credit Administration, and the Federal Security Corn Slab Ektachrome Mediocrity Desk, plus another twelve important outposts of American impotence. And it has wireless Internet. ~ Nicholson Baker,

467: Sonnet Vii To me, a pilgrim on that journey bound Whose stations Beauty's bright examples are, As of a silken city famed afar Over the sands for wealth and holy ground, Came the report of one -- a woman crowned With all perfection, blemishless and high, As the full moon amid the moonlit sky, With the world's praise and wonder clad around. And I who held this notion of success: To leave no form of Nature's loveliness Unworshipped, if glad eyes have access there, -Beyond all earthly bounds have made my goal To find where that sweet shrine is and extol The hand that triumphed in a work so fair. ~ Alan Seeger,

468: Horace I, 31. As forth he pours the new made wine, What blessing asks the lyric poet-What boon implores in this fair shrine Of one full likely to bestow it? Not Nor Nor Nor for Sardinia's plenteous store, for Calabrian herds he prayeth, yet for India's wealth galore, meads where voiceless Liris playeth. Let honest riches celebrate The harvest earned--I'd not deny it; Yet am I pleased with my estate, My humble home, my frugal diet. Child of Latonia, this I crave; May peace of mind and health attend me, And down into my very grave May this dear lyre of mine befriend me! ~ Eugene Field,

469:Pagoda are the centre of Burmese spiritual life, and every town and village has one. People visit the pagoda daily or weekly to pay respect to the Buddha relics which are often enshrined there, to meditate, to give alms, or to attend the festivals held on religious holidays. The pagoda is considered a place of spirituality and learning. The stairways leading up to the platform are decorated with educational paintings from Buddhist legend, often depicting the moral lessons in the Jataka tales about the Buddha’s previous incarnations. The peaceful principles of Buddhism, which encourage wisdom and compassion, are instilled through these teachings. The ~ Emma Larkin,

470:What more she said, or what de Crucis answered, he could never afterward recall. He had a confused sense of having cried out a last unavailing protest, faintly, inarticulately, like a man struggling to make himself heard in a dream; then the room grew dark about him, and in its stead he saw the old chapel at Donnaz, with its dimly-gleaming shrine, and heard the voice of the chaplain, harsh and yet strangely shaken:— “My chief prayer for you is that, should you be raised to this eminence, it may be at a moment when such advancement seems to thrust you in the dust.” Odo lifted his head and saw de Crucis standing alone before him. “I am ready,” he said. ~ Edith Wharton,

471:It is a beauteous evening, calm and free,        The holy time is quiet as a Nun        Breathless with adoration; the broad sun        Is sinking down in its tranquility;        The gentleness of heaven broods o’er the Sea:        Listen! the mighty Being is awake,        And doth with his eternal motion make        A sound like thunder—everlastingly.        Dear Child! dear Girl! that walkest with me here,        If thou appear untouched by solemn thought,        Thy nature is not therefore less divine:        Thou liest in Abraham’s bosom all the year;        And worshipp’st at the Temple’s inner shrine,        God being with thee when we know it not. ~ Miriam Toews,

472:A crack of thunder resounded overhead. The funnel cloud swirled above the shrine. Below, in the huge courtyard of Etemenanki, the entire army of ten thousand Stone Ones assembled and stood to attention at the command of Terah. Nimrod, with bandaged throat, stood beside Terah. The king oversaw the complete entourage of every magician, every sorcerer, every astrologer and omen diviner in Babylon surround the ziggurat with ritual incantations. The temple towered over them, standing three hundred feet high. It was a small mountain, a cosmic mountain. Soon it would be the new home of the gods, and an occultic portal through which they might storm heaven. It was time. ~ Brian Godawa,

473:We admire Sufism in the West for its tolerance, mysticism, and poetry, its ecstatic rituals, its music, even. But it’s also, especially in rural parts, a religion that bears more than a casual resemblance to late medieval Catholicism. It encourages the veneration of saint-like figures at special shrines and their celebration at festivities. It’s something the fundamentalist mullahs abhor. Just as the Protestants smashed icons, prohibited carnivals, and defaced cathedrals, the Wahhabists insist on a reformed style of Islam, purged of all that. Remember all the TV footage from 1996. When the Taliban took over in Afghanistan, their first task was stamping that stuff out. ~ Dan Eaton,

474: Sonnet-Xx I sat within the temple of her heart, And watched the living Soul as it passed through, Arrayed in pearly vestments, white and pure. The calm, immortal Presence made me start. It searched through all the chambers of her mind With one mild glance of love, and smiled to view The fastnesses of feeling, strong - secure, And safe from all surprise. It sits enshrined And offers incense in her heart, as on An altar sacred unto God. The dawn Of an imperishable love passed through The lattice of my senses, and I, too, Did offer incense in that solemn place A woman's heart made pure and sanctified by Grace. ~ Charles Sangster,

475: Sonnet I sat within the temple of her heart, And watched the living Soul as it passed through, Arrayed in pearly vestments, white and pure. The calm, immortal presence made me start. It searched through all the chambers of her mind With one mild glance of love, and smiled to view The fastnesses of feeling, strong, secure, And safe from all surprise. It sits enshrined And offers incense in her heart, as on An altar sacred unto God. The dawn Of an imperishable love passed through The lattice of my senses, and I, too, Did offer incense in that solemn place– A woman's heart made pure and sanctified by grace. ~ Charles Sangster,

476:Pilgrimage was a centrally important part of Christian life in the early twelfth century, and had been for nearly one thousand years. People traveled incredible distances to visit saints' shrines and the sites of famous Christian deeds. did it for the good of their souls: sometimes to seek divine relief from illness, sometimes as penance to atone for their sins. Some thought that praying at a certain shrine would ensure the protection of that saint in their passage through the afterlife. All believed that God looked kindly on pilgrims and that a man or woman who ventured humbly and faithfully to the center of the world would improve his or her standing in the eyes of God. ~ Dan Jones,

477: Niagara Thou art a giant altar, where the Earth Must needs send up her thanks to Him above Who did create her. Nature cometh here To lay its offerings upon thy shrine. The morning and the evening shower down Bright jewels, -- changeful opals, em'ralds fair. The burning noon sends floods of molten gold, The calm night crowns thee with its host of stars, The moon enfolds thee with her silver veil, And o'er thee e'er is arched the rainbow's span, -The gorgeous marriage-ring of Earth and Heaven. While ever from the holy altar grand Ascends the incense of the mist and spray, That mounts to God with thy wild roar of praise ~ Emma Lazarus,

478:The prevalent idea that karma is a superstitious or archaic belief probably stems from the simplified versions of the idea that emerged from old-world Asia. In poor conditions, among uneducated people, the Buddha’s teachings were usually delivered very simply. People in such circumstances tend to express their wish to create good karma by making ritual offerings to ordained members of the sangha, or by worshipping Buddha images, or by doing circumambulations of Buddhist shrines and reliquaries, or by feeding the poor, and so on. In a modern context, karma tends to be associated predominantly with this type of generalization, again invoking the primitive, superstitious image. ~ Traleg Kyabgon,

479: The Sage Foreguarded and unfevered and serene, Back to the perilous gates of Truth he went— Back to fierce wisdom and the Orient, To the Dawn that is, that shall be, and has been: Previsioned of the madness and the mean, He stood where Asia, crowned with ravishment, The curtain of Love’s inner shrine had rent, And after had gone scarred by the Unseen. There at his touch there was a treasure chest, And in it was a gleam, but not of gold; And on it, like a flame, these words were scrolled: “I keep the mintage of Eternity. Who comes to take one coin may take the rest, And all may come—but not without the key.” ~ Edwin Arlington Robinson,

480: Over And Done WE might have held back from Love's draught divine For many a wistful sad-and-happy day, Tasting the voluntary sweet delay Of lips that at the cup's edge touch the wine, Yet will not drink, knowing that when the fine Eagerly tasted thirst grows pain, they may Drink deep. We might have missed Love's only way, And thou and I been never mine and thine. Instead, we sprang straight to the hidden shrine, Nor lingered in the temple's outer part; We plucked our rose to die upon our heart, Nor left it on its tree to slowly pine: It dies more quickly, for our heart is hot; But, oh, if we had seen, yet plucked it not! ~ Edith Nesbit,

481: Soul's Beauty Under the arch of Life, where love and death, Terror and mystery, guard her shrine, I saw Beauty enthroned; and though her gaze struck awe, I drew it in as simply as my breath. Hers are the eyes which, over and beneath, The sky and sea bend on thee,—which can draw, By sea or sky or woman, to one law, The allotted bondman of her palm and wreath. This is that Lady Beauty, in whose praise Thy voice and hand shake still,—long known to thee By flying hair and fluttering hem,—the beat Following her daily of thy heart and feet, How passionately and irretrievably, In what fond flight, how many ways and days! ~ Dante Gabriel Rossetti,

482:It will be enough to say here that if one of those medieval wars had really gone on without stopping for a century, it might possibly have come within a remote distance of killing as many people as we kill in a year, in one of our great modern scientific wars between our great modern industrial empires. But the citizens of the medieval republic were certainly under the limitation of only being asked to die for the things with which they had always lived, the house they inhabited, the shrines they venerated and the rulers and representatives they new; and had not the larger vision calling for them to die for the latest rumours about remote colonies as reported in anonymous newspapers. ~ G K Chesterton,

483: Sonnet: Love And The Gentle Love and the gentle heart are one same thing, Even as the wise man in his ditty saith. Each, of itself, would be such life in death As rational soul bereft of reasoning. 'Tis Nature makes them when she loves: a king Love is, whose palace where he sojourneth Is call'd the Heart; there draws he quiet breath At first, with brief or longer slumbering. Then beauty seen in virtuous womankind Will make the eyes desire, and through the heart Send the desiring of the eyes again; Where often it abides so long enshrined That Love at length out of his sleep will start. And women feel the same for worthy men. ~ Dante Alighieri,

484: He Touched Me, So I Live To Know 506 He touched me, so I live to know That such a day, permitted so, I groped upon his breast— It was a boundless place to me And silenced, as the awful sea Puts minor streams to rest. And now, I'm different from before, As if I breathed superior air— Or brushed a Royal Gown— My feet, too, that had wandered so— My Gypsy face—transfigured now— To tenderer Renown— Into this Port, if I might come, Rebecca, to Jerusalem, Would not so ravished turn— Nor Persian, baffled at her shrine Lift such a Crucifixial sign To her imperial Sun. ~ Emily Dickinson,

485: Hymn To Aristogeiton And Harmodius Wreathed in myrtle, my sword I'll conceal Like those champions devoted and brave, When they plunged in the tyrant their steel, And to Athens deliverance gave. Beloved heroes! your deathless souls roam In the joy breathing isles of the blest; Where the mighty of old have their home Where Achilles and Diomed rest. In fresh myrtle my blade I'll entwine, Like Harmodious, the gallant and good, When he made at the tutelar shrine A libation of Tyranny's blood. Ye deliverers of Athens from shame! Ye avengers of Liberty's wrongs! Endless ages shall cherish your fame Embalmed in their echoing songs! ~ Edgar Allan Poe,

486: I Sat Within The Temple Of Her Heart I sat within the temple of her heart, And watched the living Soul as it passed through, Arrayed in pearly vestments, white and pure. The calm, immortal Presence made me start. It searched through all the chambers of her mind With one mild glance of love, and smiled to view The fastnesses of feeling, strong-secure, And safe from all surprise. It sits enshrined And offers incense in her heart, as on An altar sacred unto God. The dawn Of an imperishable love passed through The lattice of my senses, and I, too, Did offer incense in that solemn placeA woman's heart made pure and sanctified by Grace. ~ Charles Sangster,

487:In old pictures, Srinagar is elegant; latticed houses, mosques, and temples admiring each other from the banks of theriver Jhelum; people strolling on the seven wooden bridges spanning it, wandering into old bazaars selling spices, lovingly embroidered shawls and carpets, and samovars with intricate engravings, or stepping with a prayer and an expectation into a medieval shrine flaunting verses from the Quran and poems of mystics on windows and facades, and the gende greens and blues of papier mache interiors. But elegance is granted little space in an age of wars. Those wooden bridges have either collapsed or were murdered. Their skeletons remain, in the shadow of new arcs of concrete. ~ Basharat Peer,

488: Sonnet X: The Portrait O Lord of all compassionate control, O Love! let this my lady's picture glow Under my hand to praise her name, and show Even of her inner self the perfect whole: That he who seeks her beauty's furthest goal, Beyond the light that the sweet glances throw And refluent wave of the sweet smile, may know The very sky and sea-line of her soul. Lo! it is done. Above the enthroning throat The mouth's mould testifies of voice and kiss, The shadowed eyes remember and foresee. Her face is made her shrine. Let all men note That in all years (O Love, thy gift is this!) They that would look on her must come to me. ~ Dante Gabriel Rossetti,

489:It is often advantageous to forget. Forget your wincing humiliations, forget life's blows, and get on. For blocks in every direction, down every street in the city, people not yet old enough to have lines on their foreheads were laughing away memory, warmly ensconced in shrines of forgetfulness. Those who followed the word of God and those who preferred what the priests called "hoodoo" alike. People everywhere forgetting with drink or forgetting with religion or forgetting with the numbing quality of their many heaps of things. They looked forward and imagined rosy tomorrows, and gave up whatever horrors heckled their dreams, and listened to the pretty stories of whomever ruled their pulpit. ~ Anna Godbersen,

490: On Seeing The Diabutsu--At Kamakura, Japan Long have I searched, Cathedral shrine, and hall, To find a symbol, from the hand of art, That gave the full expression (not a part) Of that ecstatic peace which follows all Life's pain and passion. Strange it should befall This outer emblem of the inner heart Was waiting far beyond the great world's martImmortal answer, to the mortal call. Unknown the artist, vaguely known his creed: But the bronze wonder of his work sufficed To lift me to the heights his faith had trod. For one rich moment, opulent indeed, I walked with Krishna, Buddha, and the Christ, And felt the full serenity of God. ~ Ella Wheeler Wilcox,

491:They could not be more different. Enoch received visions from the gods. He sought to raise his son with the same sense of piety and obedience. Unfortunately, Methuselah was too lustful for life and this earth. Enoch loved prayer, Methuselah loved reading cuneiform. Enoch barely noticed women, Methuselah burned with desire for every attractive woman he saw. Enoch loved the holy liturgy of worship, Methuselah loved a feast of food and good drink. Enoch spent hours of silence in the temple shrine, Methuselah spent hours worshipping the beauty of creation (and especially the gods’ most beautiful creation, the female body). Enoch was a holy man of heaven, Methuselah felt he was a profane man of earth. ~ Brian Godawa,

492: Sonnet Xlv. On Leaving A Part Of Sussex FAREWELL, Aruna!--on whose varied shore My early vows were paid to Nature's shrine, When thoughtless joy, and infant hope were mine, And whose lorn stream has heard me since deplore Too many sorrows! Sighing I resign Thy solitary beauties--and no more Or on thy rocks or in thy woods recline, Or on the heath, by moonlight lingering, pore On air-drawn phantoms--while in Fancy's ear, As in the evening wind thy murmurs swell, The Enthusiast of the Lyre who wander'd here, Seems yet to strike his visionary shell, Of power to call forth Pity's tenderest tear, Or wake wild Frenzy--from her hideous cell! ~ Charlotte Smith,

493: Church—door Should Still Stand Open Church-doors should still stand open, night and day, Open to all who come for praise or prayer, Laden with gift of love or load of care, Nimbused with gold, or flecked with locks of gray, Mother, or snow-white bride, or pallid clay, The blithe, the sad, the uncomely as the fair, Each on his secret errand wending there, Nor even the mighty and strong be turned away. And so the poet's heart should ever be Portal of joy and welcomer of woe, That makes the deaf to hear, the blind to see, Open confessional for high and low, An unshut shrine where all may come and go, And by their tears an enriched sanctuary. ~ Alfred Austin,

494:I'd always thought it was gaudy, but standing there watching him beside the gold and glass shrine, I realised that his was a candlelight faith. It didn't work in the clear unforgiving light in London or Scandinavia, where even the dust in the cathedrals showed. But in the warm dimness and the shadows, what would have been tasteless at home made sense. The shrine looked like an oil painting made into real substance. So did he. England's was a reading religion, one it was difficult to understand at the bleak unimpressive first glance, one that needed books to explain itself. But his was images and images, the same as the old stages, in a place where not everyone could read and good light was expensive. ~ Natasha Pulley,

495: Sonnet Lxxvii: Soul's Beauty Under the arch of Life, where love and death, Terror and mystery, guard her shrine, I saw Beauty enthroned; and though her gaze struck awe, I drew it in as simply as my breath. Hers are the eyes which, over and beneath, The sky and sea bend on thee,—which can draw, By sea or sky or woman, to one law, The allotted bondman of her palm and wreath. This is that Lady Beauty, in whose praise Thy voice and hand shake still,—long known to thee By flying hair and fluttering hem,—the beat Following her daily of thy heart and feet, How passionately and irretrievably, In what fond flight, how many ways and days! ~ Dante Gabriel Rossetti,

496: Sonnet Xvi: Who Shall Invoke Her Who shall invoke her, who shall be her priest, With single rites the common debt to pay? On some green headland fronting to the East Our fairest boy shall kneel at break of day. Naked, uplifting in a laden tray New milk and honey and sweet-tinctured wine, Not without twigs of clustering apple-spray To wreath a garland for Our Lady's shrine. The morning planet poised above the sea Shall drop sweet influence through her drowsing lid; Dew-drenched, his delicate virginity Shall scarce disturb the flowers he kneels amid, That, waked so lightly, shall lift up their eyes, Cushion his knees, and nod between his thighs. ~ Alan Seeger,

497: To You, Remembering The Past WHEN we were parted, sweet, and darkness came, I used to strike a match, and hold the flame Before your picture and rould breathless mark The answering glimmer of the tiny spark That brought to life the magic of your eyes, Their wistful tenderness, their glad surprise. Holding that mimic torch before your shrine I used to light your eyes and make them mine; Watch them like stars set in a lonely sky, Whisper my heart out, yearning for reply; Summon your lips from far across the sea Bidding them live a twilight hour with me. Then, when the match was shriveller into gloom, Lo-you were with me in the darkened room. ~ Christopher Morley,

498:Currying favor with special interests at the expense of the public good is a way for politicians to fund their campaigns and secure their future for when they leave government. It has been firmly enshrined as the primary source of money for politics since the Sherman Act did away with patronage. So long as politicians are able to tap special interests for these purposes, they will find ways to reward them with public policy—and they will do whatever it takes to protect the programs they have already put in place. What reformers really need to do first is attack the way the business of politics is conducted, rather than focusing on the products of that business. Then, and only then , will the cancer of cronyism ~ Anonymous,

499: Sonnet Xxxv: The Lamp's Shrine Sometimes I fain would find in thee some fault, That I might love thee still in spite of it: Yet how should our Lord Love curtail one whit Thy perfect praise whom most he would exalt? Alas! he can but make my heart's low vault Even in men's sight unworthier, being lit By thee, who thereby show'st more exquisite Like fiery chrysoprase in deep basalt. Yet will I nowise shrink; but at Love's shrine Myself within the beams his brow doth dart Will set the flashing jewel of thy heart In that dull chamber where it deigns to shine: For lo! in honour of thine excellencies My heart takes pride to show how poor it is. ~ Dante Gabriel Rossetti,

500:In cases like this, I recommend that my clients make a personal altar in a corner of their house. Although I use the word “altar,” there is no need to worry about the direction it faces or the design. Just make a corner that is shrine-like. I recommend the top shelf in a bookcase because locating it above eye level makes it more shrine-like. One theme underlying my method of tidying is transforming the home into a sacred space, a power spot filled with pure energy. A comfortable environment, a space that feels good to be in, a place where you can relax—these are the traits that make a home a power spot. Would you rather live in a home like this or in one that resembles a storage shed? The answer, I hope, is obvious. ~ Marie Kond,

501:Eponymous Clent- Wanted for thirty-nine cases of fraud, counterfeiting, selling, and circulating lewd and unlicensed literature, claiming to be the impecunious son of a duke, impersonating a magistrate, impersonating a horse doctor, breach of promise, forty-seven moonlit flits without payment of debts, robbing shrines, fleeing from justice before trial, stealing pies from windows and small furniture from inns, fabricating the Great Palthrop Horse Plague for purposes of profit, operating a hurdy-gurdy without a license. The public is advised against lending him money, buying anything from him, letting him rooms, or believing a word he says. Contrary to his professions, he will not pay you the day after tomorrow. ~ Frances Hardinge,

502: Sonnet Lvii. To Dependence DEPENDENCE! heavy, heavy are thy chains, And happier they who from the dangerous sea, Or the dark mine, procure with ceaseless pains A hard-earn'd pittance--than who trust to thee! More blest the hind, who from his bed of flock Starts--when the birds of morn their summons give, And waken'd by the lark--' the shepherd's clock,' Lives but to labour--labouring but to live. More noble than the sycophant, whose art Must heap with tawdry flowers thy hated shrine; I envy not the meed thou canst impart To crown his service--while, tho' pride combine With Fraud to crush me--my unfetter'd heart Still to the Mountain Nymph may offer mine. ~ Charlotte Smith,

503: Sonnet Lxxxviii: Hero's Lamp. That lamp thou fill'st in Eros' name to-night, O Hero, shall the Sestian augurs take To-morrow, and for drowned Leander's sake To Anteros its fireless lip shall plight. Aye, waft the unspoken vow: yet dawn's first light On ebbing storm and life twice ebb'd must break; While 'neath no sunrise, by the Avernian Lake, Lo where Love walks, Death's pallid neophyte. That lamp within Anteros' shadowy shrine Shall stand unlit (for so the gods decree) Till some one man the happy issue see Of a life's love, and bid its flame to shine: Which still may rest unfir'd; for, theirs or thine, O brother, what brought love to them or thee? ~ Dante Gabriel Rossetti,

504: The Least Possible DEAR goddess of the shining shrine Where all my votive tapers burn, Where every gold-embroidered thought And all my flowers of life are brought --With many, alas! that are not mine-What will you give me in return? The bow in Bond Street--in the Park The smile all worship on your lips, The courteous word at dinner--dance-But never a blush--a conscious glance; At most, at Henley, in the dark, Your fleet mistaken finger-tips? Ah, just for once, once only, be An altar-server--stoop and set me Upon the altar richly wrought Of your most secret flower-sweet thought: One nightlight's flicker burn for me Before you sleep and quite forget me. ~ Edith Nesbit,

505:The danger for the writer who is spurred by the religious view of the world is that he will consider this to be two operations instead of one. He will try to enshrine the mystery without the fact, and there will follow a further set of separations which are inimical to art. Judgement will be separated from vision, nature from grace, and reason from imagination. They are separations which we see in our society and which exist in our writing. They are separations which faith tends to heal if we realize that faith is a 'walking in darkness' and not a theological solution to mystery. The poet is traditionally a blind man, but the Christian poet, and storyteller as well, is like the blind man whom Christ touched... ~ Flannery O Connor,

506:On day six, the other gods of the pantheon arrived on boats to join in the festivities. They gathered in the shrine on the top of Etemenanki as sacrifices were offered. Then the little clay figurines of mankind were struck by priests and purified in fire for the atonement of the people.   Abram was allowed to stay in the city under the protection of Mikael. He wondered what God’s remedy was to be for this obscene fulcrum of corruption and depravity. Why was mass destruction ruled out? What could possibly be enough? It was not just the city that was malignant; it was the entire earth that had come to be “one” under this maleficent tyrant. They all spoke one language, had one religion, and served one god king and pantheon. ~ Brian Godawa,

507: In Snow-Time I have seen things that charmed the heart to rest: Faint moonlight on the towers of ancient towns, Flattering the soul to dream of old renowns; The first clear silver on the mountain crest Where the lone eagle by his chilly nest Called the lone soul to brood serenely free; Still pools of sunlight shimmering in the sea, Calm after storm, wherein the storm seemed blest. But here a peace deeper than peace is furled, Enshrined and chaliced from the changeful hour; The snow is still, yet lives in its own light. Here is the peace which brooded day and night, Before the heart of man with its wild power Had ever spurned or trampled the great world. ~ Duncan Campbell Scott,

508: Lament WHEN you hear the white-throat pealing From a tree-top far away, And the hills are touched with purple At the borders of the day; When the redwing sounds his whistle At the coming on of spring, And the joyous April pipers Make the alder marshes ring; When the wild new breath of being Whispers to the World once more, And before the shrine of beauty Every spirit must adore; When long thoughts come back with twilight, And a tender deepened mood Shows the eyes of the beloved Like hepaticas in the wood; Ah, remember, when to nothing Save to love your heart gives heed, And spring takes you to her bosom,— So it was with Golden Weed! ~ Bliss William Carman,

509: Returning To Brussels Upon a Flemish road, when noon was deep, I passed a little consecrated shrine, Where, among simple pictures ranged in line, The blessed Mary holds her child asleep. To kneel here, shepherd-maidens leave their sheep When they feel grave because of the sunshine, And again kneel here in the day's decline; And here, when their life ails them, come to weep. Night being full, I passed on the same road By the same shrine; within, a lamp was lit Which through the silence of clear darkness glowed. Thus, when life's heat is past and doubts arise Darkling, the lamp of Faith must strengthen it, Which sometimes will not light and sometimes dies. ~ Dante Gabriel Rossetti,

510:watch the goshawk snip, tear and wrench flesh from the rabbit’s foreleg. I feel sorry for the rabbit. Rabbit was born, grew up in the field, ate dandelions and grass, scratched his jaw with his feet, hopped about. Had baby rabbits of his own. Rabbit didn’t know what lonely was; he lived in a warren. And rabbit is now just a carefully packed assemblage of different kinds of food for a hawk who spends her evenings watching television on the living-room floor. Everything is so damn mysterious. Another car passes. Faces turn to watch me crouched with rabbit and hawk. I feel like a tableau at a roadside shrine. But I’m not sure what the shrine is for. I’m a roadside phenomenon. I am death to community. I am missing the point. ~ Helen Macdonald,

511: God's Graal The ark of the Lord of Hosts Whose name is called by the name of Him Who dwelleth between the Cherubim. O Thou that in no house dost dwell, But walk'st in tent and tabernacle. For God of all strokes will have one In every battle that is done. Lancelot lay beside the well: (God's Graal is good) 10 Oh my soul is sad to tell The weary quest and the bitter quell; For he was the lord of lordlihood, And sleep on his eyelids fell. Lancelot lay before the shrine; (The apple tree's in the wood) There was set Christ's very sign, The bread unknown and the unknown wine That the soul's life for a livelihood Craves from his wheat and vine. ~ Dante Gabriel Rossetti,

512: Sonnet Xl: Severed Selves Two separate divided silences, Which, brought together, would find loving voice; Two glances which together would rejoice In love, now lost like stars beyond dark trees; Two hands apart whose touch alone gives ease; Two bosoms which, heart-shrined with mutual flame, Would, meeting in one clasp, be made the same; Two souls, the shores wave-mocked of sundering seas:— Such are we now. Ah! may our hope forecast Indeed one hour again, when on this stream Of darkened love once more the light shall gleam?— An hour how slow to come, how quickly past,— Which blooms and fades, and only leaves at last, Faint as shed flowers, the attenuated dream. ~ Dante Gabriel Rossetti,

513: Sonnet Xxxi: Her Gifts High grace, the dower of queens; and therewithal Some wood-born wonder's sweet simplicity; A glance like water brimming with the sky Or hyacinth-light where forest-shadows fall; Such thrilling pallor of cheek as doth enthral The heart; a mouth whose passionate forms imply All music and all silence held thereby; Deep golden locks, her sovereign coronal; A round reared neck, meet column of Love's shrine To cling to when the heart takes sanctuary; Hands which for ever at Love's bidding be, And soft-stirred feet still answering to his sign:— These are her gifts, as tongue may tell them o'er. Breathe low her name, my soul; for that means more. ~ Dante Gabriel Rossetti,

514: Commemoration When first your glory shone upon my face My body kindled to a mighty flame, And burnt you yielding in my hot embrace Until you swooned to love, breathing my name. And wonder came and filled our night of sleep, Like a new comet crimsoning the sky; And stillness like the stillness of the deep Suspended lay as an unuttered sigh. I never again shall feel your warm heart flushed, Panting with passion, naked unto mine, Until the throbbing world around is hushed To quiet worship at our scented shrine. Nor will your glory seek my swarthy face, To kindle and to change my jaded frame Into a miracle of godlike grace, Transfigured, bathed in your immortal flame. ~ Claude McKay,

515:Who knows not to what monstrous gods, my friend, The mad inhabitants of Egypt tend? The river-fish, cat, ibis some enshrine; Some think the crocodile alone divine; Others where Thebes’ vast ruins strew the ground, And shattered Memnon yields a magic sound, Set up a glittering brute of uncouth shape And bow before the image of an ape! Thousands regard the hound with holy fear; No one Diana. And ’tis dangerous here To violate an onion or to stain The sanctity of leeks with tooth profane. Oh, holy nation! Sacrosanct abodes Where every garden propagates its gods! They spare the fleecy tribe andthink it ill The blood of lambkins or of kids to spill; But human flesh – oh that is lawful fare, And you may eat it without scandal there. ~ Elizabeth Speller,

516:The Greeks were so committed to ideas as supernatural forces that they created an entire group of goddesses (not one but nine) to represent creative power; the opening lines of both The Iliad and The Odyssey begin with calls to them. These nine goddesses, or muses, were the recipients of prayers from writers, engineers, and musicians. Even the great minds of the time, like Socrates and Plato, built shrines and visited temples dedicated to their particular muse (or muses, for those who hedged their bets). Right now, under our very secular noses, we honor these beliefs in our language, as the etymology of words like museum ("place of the muses") and music ("art of the muses") come from the Greek heritage of ideas as superhuman forces. ~ Scott Berkun,

517: Thomas Chatterton WITH Shakspeare's manhood at a boy's wild heart,— Through Hamlet's doubt to Shakspeare near allied, And kin to Milton through his Satan's pride,— At Death's sole door he stooped, and craved a dart; And to the dear new bower of England's art,— Even to that shrine Time else had deified, The unuttered heart that soared against his side,— Drove the fell point, and smote life's seals apart. Thy nested home-loves, noble Chatterton; The angel-trodden stair thy soul could trace Up Redcliffe's spire; and in the world's armed space Thy gallant sword-play:—these to many an one Are sweet for ever; as thy grave unknown And love-dream of thine unrecorded face. ~ Dante Gabriel Rossetti,

518:Every social practice is the expression of fundamental assumptions about what it means to be human. When a society accepts, endorses, and approves the practice, it implicitly commits itself to the accompanying worldview. And all the more so if those practices are enshrined in law. The law functions as a teacher, educating people on what society considers to be morally acceptable. If America accepts abortion, euthanasia, gender-free marriage, and transgender policies, in the process it will absorb the worldview that justifies those practices—a two-story fragmentation of the human being that denigrates the body and biological bonds such as the family. And the dehumanizing consequences will reach into every aspect of our communal life. ~ Nancy R Pearcey,

519:Liberals: Liberty-loving liberals founded our country and enshrined its freedoms. Dedicated, fair-minded liberals ended slavery and brought women the vote. Hardworking liberals fought the goon squads and won workers’ rights: the eight-hour day, the weekend, health plans, and pensions. Courageous liberals risked their lives to win civil rights. Caring liberals have made the vulnerable elderly secure with Social Security and healthy with Medicare. Forward-looking liberals have extended education to everyone. Liberals who love the land have been preserving our environment so you can enjoy it. Nobody loves liberty and life more than a liberal. When conservatives say you’re on your own, we liberals know we’re all in this together. “Liberal ~ George Lakoff,

520: On The Sight Of Swans In Kensington Gardens Queen-bird, that sittest on thy shining nest And thy young cygnets without sorrow hatchest, And thou, thou other royal bird, that watchest Lest the white mother wandering feet molest: Shrined are your offspring in a crystal cradle, Brighter than Helen's ere she yet had burst Her shelly prison. They shall be born at first Strong, active, graceful, perfect, swan-like, able To tread the land or waters with security, Unlike poor human births, conceived in sin, In grief brought forth, both outwardly and in Confessing weakness, error, and impurity. Did heavenly creatures own succession's line, The births of heaven like to yours would shine. ~ Charles Lamb,

521:Currying favor with special interests at the expense of the public good is a way for politicians to fund their campaigns and secure their future for when they leave government. It has been firmly enshrined as the primary source of money for politics since the Sherman Act did away with patronage. So long as politicians are able to tap special interests for these purposes, they will find ways to reward them with public policy—and they will do whatever it takes to protect the programs they have already put in place. What reformers really need to do first is attack the way the business of politics is conducted, rather than focusing on the products of that business. Then, and only then , will the cancer of cronyism be removed from the body politic. ~ Anonymous,

522: The Passing Of Love O God, forgive me that I ranged My live into a dream of love! Will tears of anguish never wash The passion from my blood? Love kept my heart in a song of joy, My pulses quivered to the tune; The coldest blasts of winter blew Upon me like sweet airs in June. Love floated on the mists of morn And rested on the sunset’s rays; He calmed the thunder of the storm And lighted all my ways. Love held me joyful through the day And dreaming ever through the night; No evil thing could come to me, My spirit was so light. O Heaven help my foolish heart Which heeded not the passing time That dragged my idol from its place And shattered all its shrine. ~ Elizabeth Eleanor Siddal,

523:Far away from Oshoro in Nara Prefecture on the island of Honshu, there is a sacred mountain called Miwa-Yama. In a pattern with which I was now becoming familiar, this entire pyramid-shaped mountain is considered by Japan's indigenous Shinto religion to be a shrine, possessed by the spirit of a god who 'stayed his soul' within it in ancient times. His correct name is Omononushino-Kami (although he is also popularly known as Daikokusama) and according to the ancient texts he is 'the guardian deity of human life' who taught mankind how to cure disease, manufacture medicines and grow crops. His symbol, very strikingly, is a serpent -- and to this day serpents are still venerated at Mount Miwa, where pilgrims bring them boiled eggs and cups of sake. ~ Graham Hancock,

524:Searchers after horror haunt strange, far places. For them are the catacombs of Ptolemais, and the carven mausolea of the nightmare countries. They climb to the moonlit towers of ruined Rhine castles, and falter down black cobwebbed steps beneath the scattered stones of forgotten cities in Asia. The haunted wood and the desolate mountain are their shrines, and they linger around the sinister monoliths on uninhabited islands. But the true epicure in the terrible, to whom a new thrill of unutterable ghastliness is the chief end and justification of existence, esteems most of all the ancient, lonely farmhouses of backwoods New England; for there the dark elements of strength, solitude, grotesqueness, and ignorance combine to form the perfection of the hideous. ~ H P Lovecraft,

525: To A Canadian Lad Killed In The War O noble youth that held our honour in keeping, And bore it sacred through the battle flame, How shall we give full measure of acclaim To thy sharp labour, thy immortal reaping? For though we sowed with doubtful hands, half sleeping, Thou in thy vivid pride hast reaped a nation, And brought it in with shouts and exultation, With drums and trumpets, with flags flashing and leaping. Let us bring pungent wreaths of balsam, and tender Tendrils of wild-flowers, lovelier for thy daring, And deck a sylvan shrine, where the maple parts The moonlight, with lilac bloom, and the splendour Of suns unwearied; all unwithered, wearing Thy valor stainless in our heart of hearts. ~ Duncan Campbell Scott,

526:There was between 1821 and 1913 a prolonged and atrocious holocaust which we have chosen to forget, and from which we have learned absolutely nothing. In 1821, between 26 March and Easter Sunday, in the name of liberty, the southern Greek Christians tortured and massacred 15,000 Greek Muslim civilians, looted their possessions, and burned their dwellings. The Greek hero Kolokotronis boasted without qualm that so many were the corpses that his horse’s hooves never had to touch the ground between the town gates of Athens and the citadel. In the Peloponnese, many thousands of Muslims, mainly women and children, were rounded up and butchered. Thousands of shrines and mosques were destroyed, so that even now there are only one or two left in the whole of Greece. ~ Louis de Berni res,

527: The Footsteps Eagles of coral adorn the ebony bed where Nero lies fast asleep callous, happy, peaceful, in the prime of his body's strength, in the fine vigour of youth. But in the alabaster hall that holds the ancient shrine of the Aenobarbi how restless the household deities! The little gods tremble and try to hide their insignificant bodies. They've heard a terrible sound, a deadly sound coming up the stairs, iron footsteps that shake the staircase; and, faint with fear, the miserable Lares scramble to the back of the shrine, shoving each other and stumbling, one little god falling over another, because they know what kind of sound that is, know by now the footsteps of the Furies. ~ Constantine P. Cavafy,

528:After his initial excitement wore down, Lot began to see that all was not well in the “Cities of Love.” The government promoted tolerance of all religious devotion. They maintained shrines for gods from all over Canaan. Ashtart was the supreme goddess of the pentapolis and resided in Sodom, entertaining visiting deities like Molech, Asherah and Dagon. There was tolerance for all the gods — except one: El Shaddai, the Creator God of all things, the god that Lot worshipped. El Shaddai was burned in effigy, mocked and criticized as being, ironically, an intolerant tyrant who demanded exclusive devotion and was thus unworthy of anything but ridicule. If anyone was discovered to have any kind of personal devotion to El Shaddai, they were imprisoned, tortured and made an example of. ~ Brian Godawa,

529:WE SAW HOW INCLUSIVE economic and political institutions emerge. But why do they persist over time? The history of the Black Act and the limits to its implementation illustrate the virtuous circle, a powerful process of positive feedback that preserves these institutions in the face of attempts at undermining them and, in fact, sets in motion forces that lead to greater inclusiveness. The logic of virtuous circles stems partly from the fact that inclusive institutions are based on constraints on the exercise of power and on a pluralistic distribution of political power in society, enshrined in the rule of law. The ability of a subset to impose its will on others without any constraints, even if those others are ordinary citizens, as Huntridge was, threatens this very balance. ~ Daron Acemo lu,

530:They meet again at dinner--again, next day-- again, for many days in succession. Lady Dedlock is always the same exhausted deity, surrounded by worshippers, and terribly liable to be bored to death, even while presiding at her own shrine. Mr. Tulkinghorn is always the same speechless repository of noble confidences, so oddly but of place and yet so perfectly at home. They appear to take as little note of one another as any two people enclosed within the same walls could. But whether each evermore watches and suspects the other, evermore mistrustful of some great reservation; whether each is evermore prepared at all points for the other, and never to be taken unawares; what each would give to know how much the other knows--all this is hidden, for the time, in their own hearts. ~ Charles Dickens,

531:No sooner would such a temptation present itself than I would smother it. The effect was of snuffing out a candle, two candles, a row of twenty, until the lens pulled back to reveal an entire votive stand exhaling a hundred thin lines of smoke as a terraced offering before the shrine. In this religion hidden lights had been declared superior to those that glared. Somewhere I was storing up merit, accumulating the credit I'd need to buy, one day, the salvation I longed for. Until then (and it was a reckoning that could be forestalled indefinitely, that I preferred putting off) I'd live in that happiest of all conditions: the long but seemingly prosperous courtship. It was a series of tests, ever more arduous, even perverse. For instance, I was required to deny my love in order to prove it. ~ Edmund White,

532:It argued a special genius; he was clearly a case of that. The spark of fire, the point of light, sat somewhere in his inward vagueness as a lamp before a shrine twinkles in the dark perspective of a church; and while youth and early middle-age, while the stiff American breeze of example and opportunity were blowing upon it hard, had made the chamber of his brain a strange workshop of fortune. This establishment, mysterious and almost anonymous, the windows of which, at hours of highest pressure, never seemed, for starers and wonderers, perceptibly to glow, must in fact have been during certain years the scene of an unprecedented, a miraculous white-heat, the receipt for producing which it was practically felt that the master of the forge could not have communicated even with the best intentions. ~ Henry James,

533:A breakfast-room adjoined the drawing-room, I slipped in there.  It contained a bookcase: I soon possessed myself of a volume, taking care that it should be one stored with pictures.  I mounted into the window-seat: gathering up my feet, I sat cross-legged, like a Turk; and, having drawn the red moreen curtain nearly close, I was shrined in double retirement. Folds of scarlet drapery shut in my view to the right hand; to the left were the clear panes of glass, protecting, but not separating me from the drear November day.  At intervals, while turning over the leaves of my book, I studied the aspect of that winter afternoon.  Afar, it offered a pale blank of mist and cloud; near a scene of wet lawn and storm-beat shrub, with ceaseless rain sweeping away wildly before a long and lamentable blast. I ~ Charlotte Bront,

534:He smiled and looked at me steadfastly. I stood rooted to the ground, peace rushing like a mighty flood through the gates of my eyes. I was instantaneously healed of a pain in my back, which had troubled me intermittently for years. Renewed, bathed in a sea of luminous joy, I wept no more. After touching the saint’s feet, I sauntered into the jungle, making my way through its tropical tangle until I reached Tarakeswar. There I made a second pilgrimage to the famous shrine and prostrated myself fully before the altar. The round stone enlarged before my inner vision until it became the cosmical spheres, ring within ring, zone after zone, all dowered with divinity. I entrained happily an hour later for Calcutta. My travels ended, not in the lofty mountains, but in the Himalayan presence of my Master. ~ Paramahansa Yogananda,

535: Footsteps On an ebony bed decorated with coral eagles, sound asleep lies Nero --- unconscious, quiet, and blissful; thriving in the vigor of flesh, and in the splendid power of youth. But in the alabaster hall that encloses the ancient shrine of the Aenobarbi how restive are his Lares. The little household gods tremble, and try to hide their insignificant bodies. For they heard a horrible clamor, a deathly clamor ascending the stairs, iron footsteps rattling the stairs. And now in a faint the miserable Lares, burrow in the depth of the shrine, one tumbles and stumbles upon the other, one little god falls over the other for they understand what sort of clamor this is, they are already feeling the footsteps of the Furies. ~ Constantine P. Cavafy,

536:The Footsteps On an ebony bedstead adorned with eagles made of coral, Nero lies deep in sleep – quiet, unconscious, happy: in the prime of his body’s vigour; in the beautiful ardour of his youth. But in the alabaster hall that holds the ancient shrine of the Ahenobarbi, the Lares of his house are anxious. These minor household gods are trembling, trying to conceal their already negligible bodies. For they heard a terrible noise, a deadly sound spiralling up the staircase, iron-soled footsteps shaking the steps. The miserable Lares, near-fainting now, huddle in the corner of the shrine, jostling and stumbling over each other, one little god falling over the next, for they knew what sort of noise it was; they recognize, by now, the footsteps of the Furies. ~ Constantinos P Cavafy,

537:The feelings which assailed me as I looked up at the summer night sky heavy with rain were not of fury or hatred, nor even of sadness. They were of overpowering fear, not the terror the sight of ghosts in a graveyard might arouse, but rather a fierce ancestral dread that could not be expressed in four or five words, something perhaps like encountering in the sacred grove of a Shinto shrine the white-clothed body of the god. My hair turned prematurely grey from that night. I had now lost all confidence in myself, doubted all men immeasurably, and abandoned all hopes for the things of this world, all joy, all sympathy, eternally. This was truly the decisive incident of my life. I had been split through the forehead between the eyebrows, a wound that was to throb with pain whenever I came in contact with a human being. ~ Osamu Dazai,

538:The problem faced by the company DeBeers, which in 1902 controlled 90 percent of the world’s diamond production, was how to sell to this much bigger market without devaluing the gems in the process. They managed it through a cunning marketing campaign: by concocting the phrase “Diamonds are forever,” they invented the idea of the diamond engagement ring as the only true way to express everlasting love. Anyone who wished to convince their lover of the truth of their feelings needed to buy one, and the more expensive the diamond, the truer the feelings expressed. The marketing campaign took off spectacularly, catapulting a diamond into millions of households and culminating in a James Bond movie, accompanied by a Shirley Bassey / John Barry song, that enshrined the new social role of the diamond as the embodiment of romantic love. ~ Mark Miodownik,

539: The Lost Piece Of Silver HOLY Lord Jesus, Thou wilt search till Thou find This lost piece of silver,--this treasure enshrined In casket or bosom, once of such store; Now lying under the dust of Thy floor. Gentle Lord Jesus, Thou wilt move through the room-So empty--so desolate! and light up its gloom: The lost piece of silver that no man can see, Merciful Jesus! is beheld clear by Thee. Defaced and degraded, trampled in the dust, Its superscription Thou knowest still we trust: And Thou wilt uplift it and make it re-shine, For it was silver--pure silver of Thine. Loving Lord Jesus, Thou wilt come through the dark, When men are all sleeping and no eye can mark. Though 'clean forgotten, like a dead man out of mind,' This lost piece of silver Thou wilt search for--and find. ~ Dinah Maria Mulock Craik,

540:If I profane with my unworthiest hand This holy shrine, the gentle fine is this: My lips, two blushing pilgrims, ready stand To smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss. JULIET Good pilgrim, you do wrong your hand too much, Which mannerly devotion shows in this; For saints have hands that pilgrims' hands do touch, And palm to palm is holy palmers' kiss. ROMEO Have not saints lips, and holy palmers too? JULIET Ay, pilgrim, lips that they must use in prayer. ROMEO O, then, dear saint, let lips do what hands do; They pray, grant thou, lest faith turn to despair. JULIET Saints do not move, though grant for prayers' sake. ROMEO Then move not, while my prayer's effect I take. Thus from my lips, by yours, my sin is purged. JULIET Then have my lips the sin that they have took. ROMEO Sin from thy lips? O trespass sweetly urged! Give me my sin again. ~ William Shakespeare,

541: The Times The times are not degenerate. Man’s faith Mounts higher than of old. No crumbling creed Can take from the immortal soul the need Of that supreme Creator, God. The wraith Of dead beliefs we cherished in our youth Fades but to let us welcome new-born Truth. Man may not worship at the ancient shrine Prone on his face, in self-accusing scorn. That night is past. He hails a fairer morn, And knows himself a something all divine; No humble worm whose heritage is sin, But, born of God, he feels the Christ within. Not loud his prayers, as in the olden time, But deep his reverence for that mighty force, That occult working of the great all Source, Which makes the present era so sublime. Religion now means something high and broad, And man stood never half so near to God. ~ Ella Wheeler Wilcox,

542:Nothing is more hallowing than the union of kindred spirits in art. At the moment of meeting, the art lover transcends himself. At once he is and is not. He catches a glimpse of Infinity, but words cannot voice his delight, for the eye has no tongue. Freed from the fetters of matter, his spirit moves in the rhythm of things. It is thus that art becomes akin to religion and ennobles mankind. It is this which makes a masterpiece something sacred. In the old days the veneration in which the Japanese held the work of the great artist was intense. The tea-masters guarded their treasures with religious secrecy, and it was often necessary to open a whole series of boxes, one within another, before reaching the shrine itself--the silken wrapping within whose soft folds lay the holy of holies. Rarely was the object exposed to view, and then only to the initiated. ~ Kakuz Okakura,

543: Prelude We buried in Mount Auburn last July The gentle, clerkly, wan old bookkeeper, Who left to me his sheaf of casual verse. “You’ll smile,” he wrote, “to learn I poetized, However little. Here are all my rhymes; Too intime, surely, to be put in print While we two lived, with whom the verses deal. How curious that it really comforts me To dream you’ll give them vogue, and so prolong In mortal memory a faint, fair wraith Of her who, while I live, is clearly shrined, Smiling, within my unforgetting heart.” They give the poignancy of Commonplace; Accents of fondness, no more like the feigned Which forms the stock of many a polished strain, Than fields and woods enwreathed with moving mists And changeful to the phase of hour and year Are like a painted canvas of the scene. ~ Edward William Thomson,

544:Girl, are you all right?” Argus stood just outside the doorway, speaking barely above a whisper. “I’m fine,” I replied. For now. “So, this women’s business of yours--” He sounded ill at ease, speaking about what had just happened to me. “Your new friends here seem to think it’s the first time it’s happened to you. Are they right?” I nodded. “Ah. Seems like it’s something special to them, a great honor to share. This hut you’re in, it’s the women’s shrine, and that crone’s a priestess. The only reason they’re letting me come this close and talk to you is so I can translate what she’s got to say.” “Argus, please tell me what’s happening outside,” I said. “I know my brothers saw, but the others--?” “It doesn’t matter who saw what, by now everyone’s heard all about it. If I were you, lass, I’d stay inside that hut until I had grandchildren. ~ Esther M Friesner,

545:Most people are not even aware of their need to conform. They live under the illusion that they follow their own ideas and inclinations, that they are individuals, that they have arrived at their opinions as the result of their own thinking—and that it just happens that their ideas are the same as those of the majority. The consensus of all serves as a proof for the correctness of ‘their’ ideas. Since there is still a need to feel some individuality, such need is satisfied with regard to minor differences; the initials on the handbag or the sweater, the name plate of the bank teller, the belonging to the Democratic as against the Republican party, to the Elks instead of to the Shriners become the expression of individual differences. The advertising slogan of ‘it is different’ shows up this pathetic need for difference, when in reality there is hardly any left. ~ Erich Fromm,

546: Chanson Sans Paroles I the deep violet air, Not a leaf is stirred; There is no sound heard, But afar, the rare Trilled voice of a bird. Is the wood's dim heart, And the fragrant pine, Incense, and a shrine Of her coming. Apart, I wait for a sign. What the sudden hush said, She will hear, and forsake, Swift, for my sake, Her green, grassy bed: She will hear and awake! She will hearken and glide, From her place of deep rest, Dove-eyed, with the breast Of a dove, to my side: The pines bow their crest. I wait for a sign: The leaves to be waved, The tall tree-tops laved In a flood of sunshine, This world to be saved! In the deep violet air, Not a leaf is stirred; There is no sound heard, But afar, the rare Trilled voice of a bird. ~ Ernest Christopher Dowson,

547:Wahhab set out to extinguish all Islamic practices that he considered not to have come from either source: thus Wahhabi mosques lack minarets—the towers that the caller to prayer, the muezzin, climbs in order to chant the azan, the call to prayer. Wahhab also rejected the veneration of Muslim saints and prayers at their shrines, a practice that had become widespread by the eighteenth century. Wahhab pointed to hadiths in which Muhammad himself condemned this practice, calling it shirk, the combination of idolatry and polytheism that is the worst sin of all in Islam: associating partners with Allah in worship. The Wahhabis were often just as brutal as the Islamic State is today. In an 1803 attack that could have come from today’s headlines about ISIS, the Wahhabis entered Ta’if, a city near Mecca, massacred all the men, and enslaved all the women and children. ~ Robert Spencer,

548: To His Lady (Who asked a Song in Spring) WHY do you bid your poet sing, Who has no mind to song-Who only wants to see the Spring, Long sought and tarrying long? The shivering, dreary winter through My song enshrined my vow; If then my songs were sweet to you, Let me be silent now! Have I not duly sung, my dear, Your goodness and your grace? Now that your rival, Spring, is here, O let me see her face! The hedge is white with buds of May, The fields are green with Spring, Oh, give your bard a holiday: He does not want to sing! He wants to listen; all alone, He wants to steal away To hear the ring-doves' tender tone, And what the thrushes say. He wants to hear what can't be heard When you and love are near-The sweet Spring's soft and secret word; Oh, let him go, my dear! ~ Edith Nesbit,

549:She used these moments as she used all such time now to gird herself for the coming necessities. Time pressed; a special calendar drove her. She had looked at a calendar before leaving Chapter House, caught as often happened to her by the persistence of time and its language: seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, years. . . Standard Years, to be precise. Persistence was an inadequate word for the phenomenon. Inviolability was more like it. Tradition. Never disturb tradition. She held the comparisons firmly in mind, the ancient flow of time imposed on planets that did not tick to the primitive human clock. A week was seven days. Seven! How powerful that number remained. Mystical. It was enshrined in the Orange Catholic Bible. The Lord made a world in six days “and on the seventh day He rested.” Good for Him! Odrade thought. We all should rest after great labors. ~ Frank Herbert,

550:We cannot live in peace without Law. And though law cannot be perfect, it may be just if it is written in ignorance of the identity of the claimants and applied equally to all. Then it is a possession not only of the claimants but of the society, which may now base its actions upon a reasonable assumption of the law’s treatment. But ‘fairness’ is not only a nonlegal but an antilegal process, for it deals not with universally applicable principles and strictures, but with specific cases, responding to the perceived or proclaimed needs of individual claimants, and their desire for extralegal preference. And it could be said to substitute fairness (a determination which must always be subjective) for justice (the application of the legislated will of the electorate), is to enshrine greed--the greed, in this case, not for wealth, but for preference. ~ David Mamet,

551: Rough Country Give me a landscape made of obstacles, of steep hills and jutting glacial rock, where the low-running streams are quick to flood the grassy fields and bottomlands. A place no engineers can master–where the roads must twist like tendrils up the mountainside on narrow cliffs where boulders block the way. Where tall black trunks of lightning-scalded pine push through the tangled woods to make a roost for hawks and swarming crows. And sharp inclines where twisting through the thorn-thick underbrush, scratched and exhausted, one turns suddenly to find an unexpected waterfall, not half a mile from the nearest road, a spot so hard to reach that no one comes– a hiding place, a shrine for dragonflies and nesting jays, a sign that there is still one piece of property that won't be owned. ~ Dana Gioia,

552: I Care Not For The Idle State I care not for the idle state Of Persia's king, the rich, the great! I envy not the monarch's throne, Nor wish the treasur'd gold my own. But oh! be mine the rosy braid, The fervour of my brows to shade; Be mine the odours, richly sighing, Amidst my hoary tresses flying. Today I'll haste to quaff my wine, As if tomorrow ne'er should shine; But if tomorrow comes, why thenI'll haste to quaff my wine again. And thus while all our days are bright, Nor time has dimm'd their bloomy light, Let us the festal hours beguile With mantling cup and cordial smile; And shed from every bowl of wine The richest dropp on Bacchus' shrine! For Death may come with brow unpleasant, May come, when least we wish him present, And beckon to the sable shore, And grimly bid us-drink no more! ~ Anacreon,

553:Between the palaces of the knights and those that served them; the convents, the elegant homes belonging to officers of the Church and the town; between the bakehouse and the shops of the craftsmen, the arsenals and magazines, the warehouses, the homes of merchants and courtesans, Italian, Spanish, Greek; past the painted shrines and courtyards scraped from pockets of earth with their bright waxy green carob trees, a fig, a finger of vine, a blue and orange pot of dry, dying flowers and a tethered goat bleating in a swept yard, padded the heirs of this rock, this precious knot in the trade of the world. Umber-skinned, grey-eyed, barefoot and robed as Arabs with the soft, slurring dialect that Dido and Hannibal spoke, they slipped past the painted facades to their Birgu of fishermen's huts and blank, Arab-walled houses or to sleep, curled in the shade, with the curs in a porch. ~ Dorothy Dunnett,

554:Sad as it is, we cannot conceal the fact that in spite of our companionship with flowers we have not risen very far above the brute. Scratch the sheepskin and the wolf within us will soon show his teeth. It has been said that a man at ten is an animal, at twenty a lunatic, at thirty a failure, at forty a fraud, and at fifty a criminal. Perhaps he becomes a criminal because he has never ceased to be an animal. Nothing is real to us but hunger, nothing sacred except our own desires. Shrine after shrine has crumbled before our eyes; but one altar if forever preserved, that whereon we burn incense to the supreme idol,-ourselves. Our god is great, and money is his Prophet! We devastate nature in order to make sacrifice to him. We boast that we have conquered Matter and forget that it is Matter that has enslaved us. What atrocities do we not perpetrate in the name of culture and refinement! ~ Kakuz Okakura,

555: To One In Paradise Thou wast all that to me, love, For which my soul did pineA green isle in the sea, love, A fountain and a shrine, All wreathed with fairy fruits and flowers, And all the flowers were mine. Ah, dream too bright to last! Ah, starry Hope! that didst arise But to be overcast! A voice from out the Future cries, 'On! on!'- but o'er the Past (Dim gulf!) my spirit hovering lies Mute, motionless, aghast! For, alas! alas! me For me the light of Life is over! 'No more- no more- no more-' (Such language holds the solemn sea To the sands upon the shore) Shall bloom the thunder-blasted tree Or the stricken eagle soar! And all my days are trances, And all my nightly dreams Are where thy grey eye glances, And where thy footstep gleamsIn what ethereal dances, By what eternal streams. ~ Edgar Allan Poe,

556:THOU wast all that to me, love, For which my soul did pine: A green isle in the sea, love, A fountain and a shrine All wreathed with fairy fruits and flowers, And all the flowers were mine. Ah, dream too bright to last! Ah, starry Hope, that didst arise But to be overcast! A voice from out the Future cries, "On! on!"—but o'er the Past (Dim gulf!) my spirit hovering lies Mute, motionless, aghast. For, alas! alas! with me The light of Life is o'er! No more—no more—no more— (Such language holds the solemn sea To the sands upon the shore) Shall bloom the thunder-blasted tree, Or the stricken eagle soar. And all my days are trances, And all my nightly dreams Are where thy gray eye glances, And where thy footstep gleams— In what ethereal dances, By what eternal streams. ~ Edgar Allan Poe,

557:He knew she was there by the rapture and the terror that seized on his heart. She was standing talking to a lady at the opposite end of the ground. There was apparently nothing striking either in her dress or her attitude. But for Levin she was as easy to find in that crowd as a rose among nettles. Everything was made bright by her. She was the smile that shed light on all round her. "Is it possible I can go over there on the ice, go up to her?" he thought. The place where she stood seemed to him a holy shrine, unapproachable, and there was one moment when he was almost retreating, so overwhelmed was he with terror. He had to make an effort to master himself, and to remind himself that people of all sorts were moving about her, and that he too might come there to skate. He walked down, for a long while avoiding looking at her as at the sun, but seeing her, as one does the sun, without looking. ~ Leo Tolstoy,

558:you desecrated the shrines of our fathers you pushed our tongue, stole our culture paraded your wickedness as my savior you refused the right to let me own my narrative you butchered our names you brought war on our land you call my people "savages" you stole our histories and wear them proudly in your museums you wash away our achievements you carry it as yours you "discovered" what was already mine you plant puppets, assassinating our leaders you desecrated the shrines of my mothers when we worshipped nature, you laughed at us now, you want to carry our ways, learn from us we refuse to write softness into our stories for you to feel comfortable we refuse to let anyone but us own our narrative we refuse to believe your lies again you will not spit in the face of our fathers and think his children will now sit quietly. ~ Ijeoma Umebinyuo,

559:That the Roman empire was, like all its predecessors, a form of extortion by force, an enriching of well-connected Romans (who “make a desolation and call it peace”) at the expense of hapless conquered peoples, would also not have carried much weight with most readers. Hadn’t Philip of Macedon’s first conquest been the seizure of the Balkan gold mines? Hadn’t Alexander’s last planned campaign been for the sake of controlling the lucrative Arabian spice trade? How could anyone demur over such things? What would be the point of holding out against the nature of man and of the universe itself? Augustus set up in the midst of the Roman Forum a statue of himself that loomed eleven times the size of a normal man,10 and similarly awesome statues were erected in central shrines throughout the empire. Augustus was not a normal man; he was a god, deserving of worship. And, like all gods, he was terrifying. ~ Thomas Cahill,

560: The Fourth Epigram On GALLA. Now liquid Streams by the fierce Cold do grow As solid as the Rocks from whence they flow; Now Tibers Banks with Ice united meet, And it's firm Stream may well be term'd its Street; Now Vot'ries 'fore the Shrines like Statues show, And scarce the Men from Images we know; Now Winters Palsey seizes ev'ry Age, And none's so warm, but feels the Seasons Rage; Even the bright Lillies and triumphant Red Which o're Corinna's youthful cheeks are spred, Look pale and bleak, and shew a purple hew, And Violets staine, where Roses lately grew. Galla alone, with wonder we behold, Maintain her Spring, and still out-brave the Cold; Her constant white does not to Frost give place, Nor fresh Vermillion fade upon her face: Sure Divine beauty in this Dame does shine? Not Humane, one reply'd, yet not Divine. ~ Anne Killigrew,

561:The rise of the western crews may have shocked eastern fans, but it delighted newspaper editors across the country in the 1930s. The story fit in with a larger sports narrative that had fueled newspaper and newsreel sales since the rivalry between two boxers—a poor, part-Cherokee Coloradoan named Jack Dempsey and an easterner and ex-Marine named Gene Tunney—had riveted the nation’s attention in the 1920s. The East versus West rivalry carried over to football with the annual East-West Shrine Game and added interest every January to the Rose Bowl—then the nearest thing to a national collegiate football championship. And it was about to have additional life breathed into it when an oddly put together but spirited, rough-and-tumble racehorse named Seabiscuit would appear on the western horizon to challenge and defeat the racing establishment’s darling, the king of the eastern tracks, War Admiral. ~ Daniel James Brown,

562:Looking on the bright side, let us remind ourselves of what has happened in the wake of earlier demystifications. We find no diminution of wonder; on the contrary, we find deeper beauties and more dazzling visions of the complexity of the universe than the protectors of mystery ever conceived. The 'magic' of earlier visions was, for the most part, a cover-up for frank failures of imagination, a boring dodge enshrined in the concept of a deus ex machina. Fiery gods driving golden chariots across the skies are simpleminded comic-book fare compared to the ravishing strangeness of contemporary cosmology, and the recursive intricacies of the reproductive machinery of DNA make élan vital about as interesting as Superman's dread Kryptonite. When we understand consciousness - when there is no more mystery - consciousness will be different, but there will still be beauty, and more room than ever for awe. ~ Daniel C Dennett,

563: Are You Loving Enough? Are you loving enough? There is some one dear, Some one you hold as the dearest of all In the holiest shrine of your heart. Are you making it known? Is the truth of it clear To the one you love? If death's quick call Should suddenly tear you apart, Leaving no time for a long farewell, Would you feel you had nothing to tell--Nothing you wished you had said before The closing of that dark door? Are you loving enough? The swift years fly--Oh, faster and faster they hurry away, And each one carries its dead. The good deed left for the by and by, The word to be uttered another day, May never be done or said. Let the love word sound in the listening ear, Nor wait to speak it above a bier. Oh the time for telling your love is brief, But long, long, long is the time for grief. Are you loving enough? ~ Ella Wheeler Wilcox,

564:The stuff of nightmare is their plain bread. They butter it with pain. They set their clocks by deathwatch beetles, and thrive the centuries. They were the men with the leather-ribbon whips who sweated up the Pyramids seasoning it with other people's salt and other people's cracked hearts. They coursed Europe on the White Horses of the Plague. They whispered to Caesar that he was mortal, then sold daggers at half-price in the grand March sale. Some must have been lazing clowns, foot props for emperors, princes, and epileptic popes. Then out on the road, Gypsies in time, their populations grew as the world grew, spread, and there was more delicious variety of pain to thrive on. The train put wheels under them and here they run down the log road out of the Gothic and baroque; look at their wagons and coaches, the carving like medieval shrines, all of it stuff once drawn by horses, mules, or, maybe, men. ~ Ray Bradbury,

565: Hymn To The Dairymaids On Beacon Street Sweetly solemn see them stand, Spinning churns on either hand, Neatly capped and aproned white Airy fairy dairy sight. Jersey priestesses they seem Miracling milk to cream. Cream solidifies to cheese By Pasteural mysteries, And they give, within their shrine, Their communión in kine. Incantations pure they mutter O'er the golden minted butter And (no layman hand can pen it) See them gloat above their rennet. By that hillside window pane Rugged teamsters draw the rein. Doff the battered hat and bow To these acolytes of cow. Genuflect, ye passersby! Muse upon their ritual highMilk to cream, yea, cream to cheese White lacteal mysteries! Let adorers sing the word Of the smoothly flowing curd. Yea, we sing with bells and fife This is the whey, this is the Life. ~ Christopher Morley,

566:Ours is the only civilization in history which has enshrined mediocrity as its national ideal. Others have been corrupt, but leave it to us to invent the most undistinguished of corruptions. No orgies, no blood running in the street, no babies thrown off cliffs. No, we're sentimental people and we horrify easily. True, our moral fiber is rotten. Our national character stinks to high heaven. But we are kinder than ever. No prostitute ever responded with a quicker spasm of sentiment when our hearts are touched. Nor is there anything new about thievery, lewdness, lying, adultery. What is new is that in our time liars and thieves and whores and adulterers wish also to be congratulated by the great public, if their confession is sufficiently psychological or strikes a sufficiently heartfelt and authentic note of sincerity. Oh, we are sincere. I do not deny it. I don't know anybody nowadays who is not sincere. ~ Walker Percy,

567:Rom. [To Juliet.] If I profane with my unworthiest hand97 This holy shrine, the gentle sin is this; My lips, two blushing pilgrims, ready stand To smooth that rough touch with a tenderkiss. Jul. Good pilgrim, you do wrong your hand too much,101 Which mannerly devotion shows in this; For saints have hands that pilgrims’ hands do touch, And palm to palm is holy palmers’ kiss.104 Rom. Have not saints lips, and holy palmers too? Jul. Ay, pilgrim, lips that they must use in prayer. Rom. O! then, dear saint, let lips do what hands do; They pray, grant thou, lest faith turn to despair.108 Jul. Saints do not move, though grant for prayers’ sake. Rom. Then move not, while my prayers’ effect I take. Thus from my lips, by thine, my sin is purg’d. [Kissing her. Jul. Then have my lips the sin that they have took.112 Rom. Sin from my lips? O trespass sweetly urg’d! Give me my sin again. Jul. You kiss by the book. ~ William Shakespeare,

568:Just at that moment, Lucilla happened to cross the lawn at a distance. At sight of her, I could not, as I pointed to her, forbear exclaiming in the words of Sir John's favorite poet, There doth beauty dwell, There most conspicuous, e'en in outward shape, Where dawns the high expression of a mind. "This is very fine," said Sir John, sarcastically. "I admire all you young enthusiastic philosophers, with your intellectual refinement. You pretend to be captivated only with mind . I observe, however, that previous to your raptures, you always take care to get this mind lodged in a fair and youthful form. This mental beauty is always prudently enshrined in some elegant corporeal frame, before it is worshiped. I should be glad to see some of these intellectual adorers in love with the mind of an old or ugly woman. I never heard any of you fall into ecstasies in descanting on the mind of your grandmother. ~ Hannah More,

569: I Live On A Road I live on a road, a long magic road, full of beautiful people. The women cultivate long mocha legs and the men sculpt their torsos right down to the designer curlicue of hair under each arm. The lure is the same: to confront self with self in this ancient city of mirrors that can bloat you into a centrespread, dismantle you into eyes, hair, teeth, butt, shrink you into a commercial break, explode you into 70 mm immortality. But life on this road is about waiting – about austerities at the gym and the beauty parlour, about prayer outside the shrines of red-eyed producers, about PG digs waiting to balloon into penthouses, auto rickshaws into Ferraris, mice into chauffeurs. Blessed by an epidemic of desperate hope, at any moment, my road might beanstalk to heaven. ~ Arundhathi Subramaniam,

570:Consider a forecast Steve Ballmer made in 2007, when he was CEO of Microsoft: “There’s no chance that the iPhone is going to get any significant market share. No chance.” Ballmer’s forecast is infamous. Google “Ballmer” and “worst tech predictions”—or “Bing” it, as Ballmer would prefer—and you will see it enshrined in the forecasting hall of shame, along with such classics as the president of Digital Equipment Corporation declaring in 1977 that “there is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home.” And that seems fitting because Ballmer’s forecast looks spectacularly wrong. As the author of “The Ten Worst Tech Predictions of All Time” noted in 2013, “the iPhone commands 42% of US smartphone market share and 13.1% worldwide.”1 That’s pretty “significant.” As another journalist wrote, when Ballmer announced his departure from Microsoft in 2013, “The iPhone alone now generates more revenue than all of Microsoft.”2 ~ Philip E Tetlock,

571:25:18 cherubim. These sculpted creatures are most likely winged sphinxes known from a number of other sites throughout the ancient Near East (see note on Ge 3:24). Such composite creatures have been found in temples and shrines and are often arranged as if guarding the entrance. Their purpose seems to have been protective—to prevent, perhaps only symbolically, unauthorized individuals from entering space where they were not allowed. In the Exodus tabernacle, the creatures seem to function as protectors of Yahweh’s presence. They are the last barrier between any possible human entrant and the divine presence. It is not out in front of them but “between” them, says Yahweh, that “I will meet with you and give you all my commands for the Israelites” (v. 22). It is therefore also significant that winged composite creatures are found flanking the thrones of kings in the ancient world. For a physical description of cherubim, see Eze 10 ~ Anonymous,

572:The projection of Disbelief among humanity is biological, it is marked by the emergence of Socialists (nationalists and/or Patriots - the latter fancy themselves with the name: Capitalists) who -so in life as in burial- shrine themselves onto and into the Earth; with the Rich among them favoring the gemstones layers thereof. However, and contrary to this entombed mosaic of cadavers, is Belief dislodging to its carriers from Earth's beds - therefore, it is spiritual (i.e., cordial - meaning: 'of the heart') and not biological. The tombs of the Pantheists on the other hand are hallucinatory dreams of spatial transcending, yet bolted in their own domain of consciousness while being numb outside that constrained sphere of infection; it is after all their biological senses that charm them, not their active hearts (contrary to passive mode when it is not linked with the mind and, hence, acts as a mere radiator of a biological system). ~ Ibrahim Ibrahim,

573:Destroyed, that is, were not only men, women and thousands of children but also restaurants and inns, laundries, theater groups, sports clubs, sewing clubs, boys’ clubs, girls’ clubs, love affairs, trees and gardens, grass, gates, gravestones, temples and shrines, family heirlooms, radios, classmates, books, courts of law, clothes, pets, groceries and markets, telephones, personal letters, automobiles, bicycles, horses—120 war-horses—musical instruments, medicines and medical equipment, life savings, eyeglasses, city records, sidewalks, family scrapbooks, monuments, engagements, marriages, employees, clocks and watches, public transportation, street signs, parents, works of art. “The whole of society,” concludes the Japanese study, “was laid waste to its very foundations.”2698 Lifton’s history professor saw not even foundations left. “Such a weapon,” he told the American psychiatrist, “has the power to make everything into nothing. ~ Richard Rhodes,

574:Rejecting authority in regard to knowledge was not just a matter of abstract analysis. It was a necessary condition for progress, because, before the Enlightenment, it was generally believed that everything important that was knowable had already been discovered, and was enshrined in authoritative sources such as ancient writings and traditional assumptions. Some of those sources did contain some genuine knowledge, but it was entrenched in the form of dogmas along with many falsehoods. So the situation was that all the sources from which it was generally believed knowledge came actually knew very little, and were mistaken about most of the things that they claimed to know. And therefore progress depended on learning how to reject their authority. This is why the Royal Society (one of the earliest scientific academies, founded in London in 1660) took as its motto ‘Nullius in verba’, which means something like ‘Take no one’s word for it. ~ David Deutsch,

575:Rice paddies climb the hillsides in wet, verdant staircases, dense woodlands trade space with geometric farmscapes, tiny Shinto shrines sprout like mushrooms in Noto forests. Villages seem to materialize from nowhere- wedged into valleys, perched atop hills, finessed into coastal corners. Pull over, climb out of your car, breathe deep for a taste of the finest air that will ever enter your lungs: green as a high mountain, salty and sweet, with just a whisper of decay in the finish. Noto gained its reputation as the Kingdom of Fermentation because of this air. For most of its history, Noto was cut off from the rest of Japan, forced into a subsistence model that in many ways endures today. That was possible not only because of the bounty of Noto's fertile environment of trees, grasslands, fresh water, and sea, but because the air is rich with humidity that encourages the growth of healthy bacteria, the building blocks of fermentation. ~ Matt Goulding,

576:The camp offices stood in the centre, adjoining the shrine to Jupiter that held the legion’s Eagle. In the camps of the Vth Macedonica and the VIth Ferrata, these buildings were of grey stone, dressed by Gaulish masons to such smoothness that a man could run his hand down them and not feel the joins. The legions’ respective signs of the bull and the eagle had been carved thereon with such pride and perfection that men copied them on their shields and carved them on the bedheads in the barracks. At Raphana, the camp office of the XIIth Fulminata and IVth Scythians before which we dismounted was built of the local baked mud, and some drunkard with a poor eye for detail had etched the Scythians’ sign of the goat and the Fulminata’s crossed thunderbolts together, so that it seemed as if the goat were thunderstruck, or else that lightning grew from its anus. Both applied equally; each was unthinkable in a legion which had any pride in itself. ~ M C Scott,

577: Dost Thou Not Care? I love and love not: Lord, it breaks my heart To love and not to love. Thou veiled within Thy glory, gone apart Into Thy shrine, which is above, Dost Thou not love me, Lord, or care For this mine ill?— I love thee here or there, I will accept thy broken heart, lie still. Lord, it was well with me in time gone by That cometh not again, When I was fresh and cheerful, who but I? I fresh, I cheerful: worn with pain Now, out of sight and out of heart; O Lord, how long?— I watch thee as thou art, I will accept thy fainting heart, be strong. 'Lie still,' 'be strong,' to-day; but, Lord, to-morrow, What of to-morrow, Lord? Shall there be rest from toil, be truce from sorrow, Be living green upon the sward Now but a barren grave to me, Be joy for sorrow?— Did I not die for thee? Did I not live for thee? Leave Me to-morrow. ~ Christina Georgina Rossetti,

578: Women's Harvest Song am am am am am waving a ripe sunflower, scattering sunflower pollen to the four world-quarters. joyful because of my melons, joyful because of my beans, joyful because of my squashes. The sunflower waves. So did the corn wave When the wind blew against it, So did my white corn bend When the red lightning descended upon it, It trembled as the sunflower When the rain beat down its leaves. Great is a ripe sunflower, And great was the sun above my corn-fields. His fingers lifted up the corn-ears, His hands fashioned my melons, And set my beans full in the pods. Therefore my heart is happy And I will lay many blue prayer-sticks at the shrine of Ta-wa. I will give corn to Ta-wa, Yellow corn, blue corn, black corn. I wave the sunflower, The sunflower heavy with pollen. I wave it, I turn it, I sing, Because I am happy. ~ Amy Lowell,

579:The criticism of the Soetoro administration kept rolling, mixing with a broad criticism of liberalism and federal judges. “I am sick of federal judges deciding that the United States Constitution requires abortion and same-sex marriage,” a state senator from Enid said. “I challenge you to read that document from end to end, and if you can find the word ‘abortion’ in it I will kiss your ass tomorrow at high noon on the capitol steps. Ditto gay marriage. What’s next? Plural marriages? Legalizing infanticide? We’re practically there now. I say it’s time we seized control of our own lives here in Oklahoma. Anyone wanting an abortion or to marry a homosexual partner can move to California or New York. We shouldn’t be forced to put up with it, and my constituents don’t want to. The real problem here is federal judges who enshrine their liberal philosophies in federal decisions instead of letting individual states vote their consciences in open, fair elections. ~ Stephen Coonts,

580:I suspect if we were as familiar with our bones as with our skin, we'd never bury dead but shrine them in their rooms, arranged as we might like to find them on a visit; and our enemies, if we could steal their bodies from the battle sites, would be museumed as they died, the steel still eloquent in their sides, their metal hats askew, the protective toes of their shoes unworn, and friend and enemy would be so wondrously historical that in a hundred years we'd find the jaws still hung for the same speech and all the parts we spent our life with titled as they always were - rib cage, collar, skull - still repetitious, still defiant, angel light, still worthy of memorial and affection. After all, what does it mean to say that when our cat has bitten through the shell and put confusion in the pulp, the life goes out of them? Alas for us, I want to cry, our bones are secret, showing last, so we must love what perishes: the muscles and the waters and the fats. ~ William H Gass,

581: An Old Woman An old woman grabs hold of your sleeve and tags along. She wants a ?fty paise coin. She says she will take you to the horseshoe shrine. You've seen it already. She hobbles along anyway and tightens her grip on your shirt. She won't let you go. You know how old women are. They stick to you like a burr. You turn around and face her with an air of ?nality. You want to end the farce. When you hear her say, ‘What else can an old woman do on hills as wretched as these?' You look right at the sky. Clear through the bullet holes she has for her eyes. And as you look on the cracks that begin around her eyes spread beyond her skin. And the hills crack. And the temples crack. And the sky falls with a plateglass clatter around the shatter proof crone who stands alone. And you are reduced to so much small change in her hand. ~ Arun Kolatkar,

582:But no one leaves. - Let us set out once more on our native roads, burdened with my vice, that vice that since the age of reason has driven roots of suffering into my side - that towers to heaven, beats me, hurls me down, drags me on. Ultimate innocence, final timidity. All's said. Carry no more my loathing and treacheries before the world. Come on! Marching, burdens, the desert, boredom and anger. Hire myself to whom? What beasts adore? What sacred images destroy? What hearts shall I break? What lie maintain? - Through what blood wade? Better to keep away from justice. - A hard life, outright stupor, - with a dried-out fist to lift the coffin lid, lie down, and suffocate. No old age this way, no danger: terror is very un-French. - Ah! I am so forsaken I will offer at any shrine impulses toward perfection. Oh my self-denial, my marvelous Charity! my Selfless love! And still here below! De Profundis Domine, what an ass I am! ~ Arthur Rimbaud,

583:...Politics is an activity in which you recognize the simultaneous existence of different groups, interests and opinions. You try to find some way to balance or reconcile or compromise those interests, or at least a majority of them. You follow a set of rules, enshrined in a constitution or in custom, to help you reach these compromises in a way everybody considers legitimate. The downside of politics is that people never really get everything they want. It’s messy, limited and no issue is ever really settled. Politics is a muddled activity in which people have to recognize restraints and settle for less than they want. Disappointment is normal. But that’s sort of the beauty of politics, too. It involves an endless conversation in which we learn about other people and see things from their vantage point and try to balance their needs against our own. Plus, it’s better than the alternative: rule by some authoritarian tyrant who tries to govern by clobbering everyone in his way.... ~ David Brooks,

584: Lines On The Opening Of A Spring Campaign Spring! thy impatient bloom restrain! Nor wake so soon thy genial power; For deeds of death must hail thy reign, And clouds of fate around thee lower:.... In vain thy balmy breath to me Scents with its sweets the evening gale; In vain the violet's charms I see, Or fondly mark thy primrose pale: To me thy softest zephyrs breathe Of sorrow's soul-disparting tone; To me thy most attractive wreath Seems tinged with human blood alone. Arrest thy steps, thou source of love, Thou genial friend of joy and life! Let not thy smile propitious prove To works of carnage, scenes of strife: Bid winter all his frowns recall, And back his icy footsteps trace; Again the soil in frost enthral, And check the war-fiend's murderous chase. Fond, fruitless prayer! Thy hand divine The smiling season on must lead; And still at war's ensanguined shrine Must bid unnumbered victims bleed. ~ Amelia Opie,

585:If it is a human thing to do to put something you want, because it's useful, edible, or beautiful, into a bag, or a basket, or a bit of rolled bark or leaf, or a net woven of your own hair, or what have you, and then take it home with you, home being another, larger kind of pouch or bag, a container for people, and then later on you take it out and eat it or share it or store it up for winter in a solider container or put it in the medicine bundle or the shrine or the museum, the holy place, the area that contains what is sacred, and then the next day you probably do much the same again—if to do that is human, if that's what it takes, then I am a human being after all. Fully, freely, gladly, for the first time.... [T]he proper, fitting shape of the novel might be that of a sack, a bag. A book holds words. Words hold things. They bear meanings. A novel is a medicine bundle, holding things in a particular, powerful relation to one another and to us." —"The Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction ~ Ursula K Le Guin,

586:You see that stones are worn away by time, Rocks rot, and twoers topple, even the shrines And images of the gods grow very tired, Develop crack or wrinkles, their holy wills Unable to extend their fated term, To litigate against the Laws of Nature. And don't we see the monuments of men Collapse, as if to ask us, "Are not we As frail as those whom we commemorate?"? Boulders come plunging down from the mountain heights, Poor weaklings with no power to resist The thrust that says to them, Your time has come! But they would be rooted in steadfastness Had they endured from time beyond all time, As far back as infinity. Look about you! Whatever it is that holds in its embrace All earth, if it projects, as some men say, All things out of itself, and takes them back When they have perished, must itself consist Of mortal elements. The parts must add Up to the sum. Whatever gives away Must lose in the procedure, and gain again Whenever it takes back. ~ Lucretius,

587:And Cormia will be okay, I mean, she's not kicked out of here, correct?" "She shall be welcomed back herein. She is a fine female. Just not...as well suited to this life as some of us are." In the quiet heartbeats that followed, he had an image of her undressing him for the shower, her guileless, innocent green eyes looking up at him as she fumbled with his belt and his leathers. She only wanted to do what was right. Back when this whole mess had gotten started, even though she'd been terrified, she would have done the right thing by her tradition and taken him in her. Which made her stronger than him, didn't it. She wasn't running. He was the one with the track shoes on. "You tell the others I was not worthy of her." As the Directrix's mouth fell open, he pointed a finger at her. "That's a goddamned order. You tell them...she is too good for me. I want her elevated to a special rank.... I want her fucking enshrined, do you understand me? You do right by her or I'll bust this place into ruins. ~ J R Ward,

588:Tokyo is so vast, and can be so cruelly impersonal, that the succor provided by its occasional oasis is sweeter than that of any other place I’ve known. There is the quiet of shrines like Hikawa, inducing a somber sort of reflection that for me has always been the same pitch as the reverberation of a temple chime; the solace of tiny nomiya, neighborhood watering holes, with only two or perhaps four seats facing a bar less than half the length of a door, presided over by an ageless mama-san, who can be soothing or stern, depending on the needs of her customer, an arrangement that dispenses more comfort and understanding than any psychiatrist’s couch; the strangely anonymous camaraderie of yatai and tachinomi, the outdoor eating stalls that serve beer in large mugs and grilled food on skewers, stalls that sprout like wild mushrooms on dark corners and in the shadows of elevated train tracks, the laughter of their patrons diffusing into the night air like little pockets of light against the darkness without. ~ Barry Eisler,

589:Romeo: If I profane with my unworthiest hand This holy shrine, the gentle fine is this: My lips, two blushing pilgrims, ready stand To smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss. Juliet: Good pilgrim, you do wrong your hand too much, Which mannerly devotion shows in this; For saints have hands that pilgrims' hands do touch, And palm to palm is holy palmers' kiss. Romeo: Have not saints lips, and holy palmers too? Juliet: Ay, pilgrim, lips that they must use in prayer. Romeo: O, then, dear saint, let lips do what hands do; They pray, grant thou, lest faith turn to despair. Juliet: Saints do not move, though grant for prayers' sake. Romeo: Then move not, while my prayer's effect I take. Thus from my lips, by yours, my sin is purged. Juliet: Then have my lips the sin that they have took. Romeo: Sin from thy lips? O trespass sweetly urged! Give me my sin again. Juliet: You kiss by the book. ~ William Shakespeare,

590:And was it not perhaps more childlike and human to lead a Goldmund-life, more courageous, more noble perhaps in the end to abandon oneself to the cruel stream of reality, to chaos, to commit sins and accept their bitter consequences rather than live a clean life with washed hands outside the world, laying out a lonely harmonious thought-garden, strolling sinlessly among one's sheltered flower beds. Perhaps it was harder, braver and nobler to wander through forests and along the highways with torn shoes, to suffer sun and rain, hunger and need, to play with the joys of the senses and pay for them with suffering. At any rate, Goldmund had shown him that a man destined for high things can dip into the lowest depths of the bloody, drunken chaos of life, and soil himself with much dust and blood, without becoming small and common, without killing the divine spark within himself, that he can err through the thickest darkness without extinguishing the divine light and the creative force inside the shrine of his soul. ~ Hermann Hesse,

591:I contemplated her, seeing her young bland face looking at me, now removed as if behind a gauze curtain. She quietly invited me to suffer. There was a great space now, a great silent hall in which this suffering could take place. There was no urgency now, nothing to plan, nothing to achieve. What shall I do with it, I asked her, what shall I do now with my love for you which you so terribly revived by reappearing in my life? Why did you come back, if you could not content me? What can I do now with the great useless machine of my love which has no wholesome work to do? I can do nothing for you any more, my darling. I wondered if I would be fated to live with this love, making of it a shrine which could not now be desecrated. Perhaps when I was living alone and being everyone's uncle like a celibate priest I would keep this fruitless love as my secret chapel. Could I then learn to love uselessly and unpossessively and would this prove to be the monastic mysticism which I had hoped to attain when I came away to the sea? ~ Iris Murdoch,

592:By noon Carter reached the jasper terraces of Kiran which slope down to the river's edge and bear that temple of loveliness wherein the King of Ilek-Vad comes from his far realm on the twilight sea once a year in a golden palanquin to pray to the god of Oukranos, who sang to him in youth when he dwelt in a cottage by its banks. All of jasper is that temple, and covering an acre of ground with its walls and courts, its seven pinnacled towers, and its inner shrine where the river enters through hidden channels and the god sings softly in the night. Many times the moon hears strange music as it shines on those courts and terraces and pinnacles, but whether that music be the song of the god or the chant of the cryptical priests, none but the King of Ilek-Vad may say; for only he had entered the temple or seen the priests. Now, in the drowsiness of day, that carven and delicate fane was silent, and Carter heard only the murmur of the great stream and the hum of the birds and bees as he walked onward under the enchanted sun. ~ H P Lovecraft,

593: Grave Me A Cup With Brilliant Grace Grave me a cup with brilliant grace, Deep as the rich and holy vase, Which on the shrine of Spring reposes, When shepherds hail that hour of roses. Grave it with themes of chaste design, Form'd for a heavenly bowl like mind. Display not there the barbarous rites, In which religious zeal delights; Nor any tale of tragic fate, Which history trembles to relate! No-cull thy fancies from above, Themes of heav'n and themes of love. Let Bacchus, Jove's ambrosial boy, Distil the grape in drops of joy, And while he smiles at every tear, Let warm-ey'd Venus, dancing near, With spirits of the genial bed, The dewy herbage deftly tread. Let Love be there, without his arms, In timid nakedness of charms; And all the Graces, link'd with Love, Blushing through the shadowy grove; While rosy boys disporting round, In circlets trip the velvet ground; But ah! if there Apollo toys, I tremble for my rosy boys! ~ Anacreon,

594:He was exasperated because he didn’t know what that look meant. He put it somewhere between indifference and despair. He didn’t know that in some places, like the country that Rahel came from, various kinds of despair competed for primacy. And that personal despair could never be desperate enough. That something happened when personal turmoil dropped by at the wayside shrine of the vast, violent, circling, driving, ridiculous, insane, unfeasible, public turmoil of a nation. That Big God howled like a hot wind, and demanded obeisance. Then Small God (cosy and contained, private and limited) came away cauterized, laughing numbly at his own temerity. Inured by the confirmation of his own inconsequence, he became resilient and truly indifferent. Nothing mattered much. Nothing much mattered. And the less it mattered, the less it mattered. It was never important enough. Because Worse Things had happened. In the country that she came from, poised forever between the terror of war and the horror of peace, Worse Things kept happening. ~ Arundhati Roy,

595:Western people have been sold a lie. Marriage was designed in ancient times not for companionship, but for social, economic and political expediency; it would still work just fine if we remembered that. But somewhere along the line people started wanting to pretend that the hormonal rush we experience from being strongly drawn to someone is the same thing as love, which it isn’t; we even started calling it “falling in love” (which, again, it isn’t). As if that weren’t bad enough, some two centuries ago we decided for some absurd reason that this temporary neurochemical derangement was in and of itself reason enough to make a lifelong commitment to someone, without any concern for economics or personal compatibility. In fact, within the past century we completely departed from rationality by deciding that this quasi-inebriated condition was the only valid reason for marriage or (some believe) even having sex, and went so far as to create social institutions (such as anti-prostitution laws) to enshrine the fallacy as Divine Truth. ~ Maggie McNeill,

596: The Gold Star The star upon their service flag has changed to gleaming gold; It speaks no more of hope and life, as once it did of old, But splendidly it glistens now for every eye to see And softly whispers: 'Here lived one who died for liberty. 'Here once he walked and played and laughed, here oft his smile was known; Within these walls today are kept the toys he used to own. Now I am he who marched away and I am he who fell Of service once I spoke, but now of sacrifice I tell. 'No richer home in all this land is there than this I grace, For here was cradled manhood fine; within this humble place A soldier for the truth was born, and here, beside the door, A mother sits and grieves for him who shall return no more. ''Salute me, stranger, as you pass! I mark a soldier who Gave up the joys of living here, to dare and die for you! This is the home that once he knew, who fought for you and fell; This is a shrine of sacrifice, where faith and courage dwell.' ~ Edgar Albert Guest,

597:Long enshrined traditions around communion aside, there are always folks who fancy themselves bouncers to the heavenly banquet, charged with keeping the wrong people away from the table and out of the church. Evangelicalism in particular has seen a resurgence in border patrol Christianity in recent years, as alliances and coalitions formed around shared theological distinctives elevate secondary issues to primary ones and declare anyone who fails to conform to their strict set of beliefs and behaviors unfit for Christian fellowship. Committed to purifying the church of every errant thought, difference of opinion, or variation in practice, these self-appointed gatekeepers tie up heavy loads of legalistic rules and place them on weary people’s shoulders. They strain out the gnats in everyone else’s theology while swallowing their own camel-sized inconsistencies. They slam the door of the kingdom in people’s faces and tell them to come back when they are sober, back on their feet, Republican, Reformed, doubtless, submissive, straight. ~ Rachel Held Evans,

598:The climax of the festival came on the fifth day. It was full of ceremonies, purifications, and rituals, including intercessory prayers, the building of a shrine, and an exorcism of evil spirits from the temple. But the most important event was the ritual humiliation of the king before Marduk. The humiliation of the king consisted of a sesgallu priest stripping the king of the symbols of his power, his mace, his scepter and crown. These elements were placed before Marduk in his throne room. Then the priest went back and slapped the king across the cheek, yanked his ears, and led him before the presence of Marduk, to kneel in supplication and prayer. It was indeed humiliating for Nimrod; a mere reflection of the sexual domination Marduk imposed on Nimrod in private chambers. It publicly reinforced the hierarchy of power. It represented a reversion to chaos followed by the renewal of order, a reiteration of the very fertility rite of the entire festival. Marduk then returned the emblems and insignia of kingship to Nimrod for one more year. ~ Brian Godawa,

599:Let us suppose that Muslims secured control over much of western Europe, say in the 730s or 740s. Can we realistically speculate whether European Christianity would have shared the fate of its counterpart in North Africa, or in Egypt? In all probability, European Christianity would have faced a grim future. Although the faith was very well established in Italy, Gaul, and the Rhineland, where people looked to local shrines and monasteries, it looked more colonial and “African” farther to the north and east, in the sense that the religion was strongly associated with foreigners, whether rulers or missionaries. By 730, Christianity had made only slight incursions into much of Germany and the Netherlands, and as late as 754, Frisian pagans lynched English missionaries. The major evangelization of Saxony began in the 770s, and missions among the Slavs and Scandinavians had made even slighter progress.9 In much of western Europe, any successes the missionaries had achieved would have fallen apart once Christian officials and clergy departed. A ~ Philip Jenkins,

600: Song I FROM THE FRENCH OF CARDINAL BERNIS. I. FRUIT of Aurora's tears, fair rose, On whose soft leaves fond zephyrs play, Oh! queen of flowers, thy buds disclose, And give thy fragrance to the day; Unveil thy transient charms:--ah, no! A little be thy bloom delay'd, Since the same hour that bids thee blow, Shall see thee droop thy languid head. II. But go! and on Themira's breast Find, happy flower! thy throne and tomb; While, jealous of a fate so blest, How shall I envy thee thy doom! Should some rude hand approach thee there, Guard the sweet shrine thou wilt adorn; Ah! punish those who rashly dare, And for my rivals keep thy thorn. III. Love shall himself thy boughs compose, And bid thy wanton leaves divide; He'll show thee how, my lovely rose, To deck her bosom, not to hide: And thou shalt tell the cruel maid How frail are youth and beauty's charms, And teach her, ere her own shall fade, To give them to her lover's arms. ~ Charlotte Smith,

601:On the first day, he’d completed the stucco walls for a small structure the size of his stallion’s box stall, and the other Sorias had been pleased. On the second day, he’d torn free a section of abandoned railroad and melted it into a beautifully intricate metal gate, and the other Sorias had been pleased. On the third day, he’d fired one thousand ceramic tiles with the heat of his own belief and installed a roof made of them, and the other Sorias had been pleased. On the fourth day, the Virgin had appeared again, this time surrounded by owls; he’d carved a statue of her in this state to place inside the Shrine, and the other Sorias had been pleased. On the fifth day, he’d made a rich pigment from some sky that had gotten too close to him and used it to paint the Shrine’s exterior turquoise, and the other Sorias had been pleased. On the sixth day, he’d held up a passenger train, robbed the passengers, killed the sheriff on board, and used the sheriff’s femurs to fashion a cross for the top of the shrine. The Sorias had not been pleased. ~ Maggie Stiefvater,

602:I brought him here,” he said, eager to claim credit for whatever had so overjoyed his king. “I caught him making a sacrifice to Lord Hades at your shrine, my lord Theseus, and when I tried to stop him--” Theseus’s laughter crushed Telys’s weak attempt at boasting. “We all know what happened when you tried to stop him, you clown,” he said, wiping his eyes. “The whole palace is talking about how you were bested by a mere boy. Well, the truth is even better.” He was off the throne and across the floor in an instant, scattering everyone who stood between him and me. He bounded behind me, grabbed the waist of my tunic with both hands, and yanked it back, hard. I’d relied on the looseness of my clothing to hide my breasts, small as they were, but now the thin cloth pulled taut against every line of my body. I might as well have been wearing nothing at all. I heard the onlookers gasp. “Why aren’t you smiling, Telys?” Theseus leered as he confronted the horror-struck young guard. “You ought to be glad. You weren’t beaten by a boy after all. ~ Esther M Friesner,

603:But it was not just Freemasonry in itself — not just the rites, rituals, traditions, opportunities and benefits of Freemasonry. It was also an ambience, a mentality, a hierarchy of attitudes and values for which Freemasonry provided a particularly effacious conduit. The Freemasonry of the age was a repository for an imaginatively stirring and potent idealism, which it was able, in a fashion uniquely its own, to disseminate. Most colonists did not actually read Locke, Hume, Voltaire, Diderot or Rousseau, any more than most British soldiers did. Through the lodges, however, the currents of thought associated with such philosophies became universally accessible. It was largely through the lodges that 'ordinary' colonists learned of that lofty premise called 'the rights of man'. It was through the lodges that they learned the concept of the perfectibility of society. And the New World seemed to offer a species of blank slate, a species of laboratory in which social experiment was possible and the principles enshrined by Freemasonry could be applied in practice. ~ Michael Baigent,

604: Hymne Aux Suisses De Chateauvieux Salut, divin Triomphe! entre dans nos murailles! Rends-nous ces guerriers illustrés Par le sang de Désille, et par les fun7eacute;railles De tant de Français massacrés. Jamais rien de si grand n'embellit ton entrée, Ni quand l'ombre de Mirabeau S'achemina jadis vers la voûte sacrée Où la gloire donne un tombeau, Ni quand Voltaire mort, et sa centre bannie Rentrèrent aux murs de Paris. Vainqueurs du fanatisme et de la calomnie, Posternés devant ses écrits. (Hail, divine Triumph! enter into our walls! Welcome back those warrious honored For the blood shed of Désille and the funerals Of so many Frenchmen massacred. Never before your gates saw anything so fine. Not even when the shade of Mirabeau Of yore was carried to the sacred shrine. A tomb that only glory can bestow. Nor when Voltaire's ashes, refused a calm retreat, To Paris came back for repose. And fanaticism and calumny in full defeat. Prostrate lay before his prose.) ~ Andre Marie de Chenier,

605: The Trumpet Call Trumpeter, sound for the last Crusade! Sound for the fire of the red-cross kings, Sound for the passion, the splendour, the pity That swept the world for a dead Man's sake, Sound, till the answering trumpet rings Clear from the heights of the holy City, Sound till the lions of England awake, Sound for the tomb that our lives have betrayed; O'er broken shrine and abandoned wall, Trumpeter, sound the great recall, Trumpeter, rally us, rally us, rally us; Sound for the last Crusade! Trumpeter, sound for the splendour of God! Sound the music whose name is law, Whose service is perfect freedom still, The order august that rules the stars. Bid the anarchs of night withdraw, Too long the destroyers have worked their will, Sound for the last, the last of the wars. Sound for the heights that our fathers trod, When truth was truth and love was love, With a hell beneath, but a heaven above, Trumpeter, rally us, up to the heights of it! Sound for the City of God. ~ Alfred Noyes,

606:The primitive mind finds it hard to realize an idea without the aid of imagination, and it is the realm of space where imagination wields its sway. Of the gods it must have a visible image; where there is no image, there is no god. The reverence for the sacred image, for the sacred monument or place, is not only indigenous to most religions, it has even been retained by men of all ages, all nations, pious, superstitious or even antireligious; they all continue to pay homage to banners and flags, to national shrines, to monuments erected to kings or heroes. Everywhere the desecration of holy shrines is considered a sacrilege, and the shrine may become so important that the idea it stands for is consigned to oblivion. The memorial becomes an aid to amnesia; the means stultify the end. For things of space are at the mercy of man. Though too sacred to be polluted, they are not too sacred to be exploited. To retain the holy, to perpetuate the presence of god, his image is fashioned. Yet a god who can be fashioned, a god who can be confined, is but a shadow of man. ~ Abraham Joshua Heschel,

607:The idea that everyone should have a house of his own is based on an ancient custom of the Japanese race, Shinto superstition ordaining that every dwelling should be evacuated on the death of its chief occupant. Perhaps there may have been some unrealized sanitary reason for this practice. Another early custom was that a newly built house should be provided for each couple that married. It is on account of such customs that we find the Imperial capitals so frequently removed from one site to another in ancient days. The rebuilding, every twenty years, of Ise Temple, the supreme shrine of the Sun-Goddess, is an example of one of these ancient rites which still obtain at the present day. The observance of these customs was only possible with some form of construction as that furnished by our system of wooden architecture, easily pulled down, easily built up. A more lasting style, employing brick and stone, would have rendered migrations impracticable, as indeed they became when the more stable and massive wooden construction of China was adopted by us after the Nara period. ~ Kakuz Okakura,

608:The only mode which is employed to repress this violence, and to maintain the order and peace of society, is punishment. Whips, axes and gibbets, dungeons, chains and racks are the most approved and established methods of persuading men to obedience, and impressing upon their minds the lessons of reason. There are few subjects upon which human ingenuity has been more fully displayed than in inventing instruments of torture. The lash of the whip a thousand times repeated and flagrant on the back of the defenceless victim, the bastinado on the soles of the feet, the dislocation of limbs, the fracture of bones, the faggot and the stake, the cross, impaling, and the mode of drifting pirates on the Volga, make but a small part of the catalogue. When Damiens, the maniac, was arraigned for his abortive attempt on the life of Louis XV of France, a council of anatomists was summoned to deliberate how a human being might be destroyed with the longest protracted and most diversified agony. Hundreds of victims are annually sacrificed at the shrine of positive law and political institution. ~ William Godwin,

609:The true Mason is not creed-bound. He realizes with the divine illumination of his lodge that as Mason his religion must be universal: Christ, Buddha or Mohammed, the name means little, for he recognizes only the light and not the bearer. He worships at every shrine, bows before every altar, whether in temple, mosque or cathedral, realizing with his truer understanding the oneness of all spiritual truth. All true Masons know that they only are heathen who, having great ideals, do not live up to them. They know that all religions are but one story told in divers ways for peoples whose ideals differ but whose great purpose is in harmony with Masonic ideals. North, east, south and west stretch the diversities of human thought, and while the ideals of man apparently differ, when all is said and the crystallization of form with its false concepts is swept away, one basic truth remains: all existing things are Temple Builders, laboring for a single end. No true Mason can be narrow, for his Lodge is the divine expression of all broadness. There is no place for little minds in a great work. ~ Manly P Hall,

610:I wish that the founders had had the foresight to hang on to and enshrine another one of Independence Hall’s chairs, the one that Benjamin Rush mentioned in a letter to John Adams about how Thomas Jefferson objected when his colleagues in the Continental Congress considered a fast day, which Jefferson pooh-poohed as too religious. Rush reminded Adams, ‘You rose and defended the motion, and in reply to Mr. Jefferson’s objections to Christianity you said you were sorry to hear such sentiments …. You suspected, you told me, that you had offended him, but that he soon convinced you to the contrary by crossing the room and taking a seat in the chair next to you.’ Who knows what happened to that particular chair. … But it might have been a more helpful, sobering symbolic object than that chair with the rising sun. Then perhaps citizens making pilgrimages to Independence Hall could file past the chair Jefferson walked across an aisle to sit in, and we could all ponder the amount of respect, affection, and wishy-washy give-and-take needed to keep a house divided in reasonable repair. ~ Sarah Vowell,

611:Some who desire to be teachers of the Word, but who understand neither what they say, nor whereof they affirm, insist upon “naked” faith as the only way to know spiritual things. By this they mean a conviction of the trustworthiness of the Word of God (a conviction, it may be noted, which the devils share with them). But the man who has been taught even slightly by the Spirit of Truth will rebel at this perversion. His language will be, “I have heard Him and observed Him. What have I to do any more with idols?” For he cannot love a God who is no more than a deduction from a text. He will crave to know God with a vital awareness that goes beyond words and to live in the intimacy of personal communion. To seek our divinity merely in books and writings is to seek the living among the dead; we do but in vain many times seek God in these, where His truth too often is not so much enshrined as entombed. He is best discerned by an intellectual touch of Him. We must see with our eyes, and hear with our ears, and our hands must handle of the Word of Life. Nothing can take the place of the touch of God in the ~ A W Tozer,

612:In this moment of clarity, Saul regretted that he had opened the gates of Tartarus to satisfy his hunger. There was an emptiness in his soul, a deep and abiding emptiness, like a pit in Sheol, that drove him. He had believed that greatness and glory might satiate the hunger. But now he realized he had bitten off more than he could eat. He felt nauseous. Nevertheless, he determined to institute a pogrom to root out all mediums, necromancers and sorcerers from Israel’s territories. The Torah already prescribed death as the penalty for such spiritual traitors, but in reality was rarely enforced. Common Israelites in more rural areas, in the absence of contact with king or priest, degenerated into doing exactly what Saul himself had previously done. They sought for validation wherever they could find it. And there was plenty of validation from the gods of Canaan, who only asked for a small amount of recognition in return—a small amount of worship. Thus, many Israelites owned teraphim, little statues of gods or ancestors to whom they could maintain household shrines. Even some of Saul’s family had them. ~ Brian Godawa,

613:These pieces, he already realised, were merely stepping stones at the start of a journey towards something - some grand artefact, either musical, or literary, or filmic, or perhaps a combination of all three - towards which he knew he was advancing, slowly but with a steady, inexorable tread. Something which would enshrine his feelings for Cicely, and which she would perhaps hear, or read, or see in ten or twenty years' time, and suddenly realize, on her pulse, that it was created for her, intended for her, and that of all the boys who had swarmed around her like so many drones at school, Benjamin had been, without her having the wit to notice it, by far the purest in heart, by far the most gifted and giving. On that day the awareness of all she had missed, all she had lost, would finally break upon her in an instant, and she would weep; weep for her foolishness, and of the love that might have been between them. Of course, Benjamin could always just have spoken to her, gone up to her in the bus queue and asked her for a date. But this seemed to him, on the whole, the more satisfactory approach. ~ Jonathan Coe,

614:Now,’ he continued, again addressing me, ‘I have received the pilgrim – a disguised deity, as I verily believe. Already it has done me good: my heart was a sort of charnel; it will now be a shrine.’ ‘To speak truth, sir, I don’t understand you at all; I cannot keep up the conversation, because it has got out of my depth. Only one thing I know: you said you were not as good as you should like to be, and that you regretted your own imperfection; one thing I can comprehend: you intimated that to have a sullied memory was a perpetual bane. It seems to me, that if you tried hard, you would in time find it possible to become what you yourself would approve; and that if from this day you began with resolution to correct your thoughts and actions, you would in a few years have laid up a new and stainless store of recollections, to which you might revert with pleasure.’ ‘Justly thought; rightly said, Miss Eyre; and, at this moment, I am paving hell11 with energy.’ ‘Sir?’ ‘I am laying down good intentions, which I believe durable as flint. Certainly, my associates and pursuits shall be other than they have been. ~ Charlotte Bront,

615: After A Proposal IS IT so sudden? Then did you believe, dear, Those evenings I called at your flat And lovingly, longingly gazed in your eyes, That I merely had come for a chat? Did it strike you the times that I lingered till twelve And hated to leave you alone, I was doing that merely to fill up my time, Because I 'd no home of my own? So sudden, you say? Yet for years I have stood On your doorstep each evening at eight. Did you think I had come for a chat with your ma, Or a word with your maiden aunt, Kate? Did you think, when I sighed as I fondled your hand, 'T was dyspepsia that troubled me then? Or that the cigars I bestowed on your dad Were smokes I would give to all men? O, the tickets for shows I have purchased for you, The automobiles I have hired! The lockets and bracelets and purses and things, All gifts that I knew you desired, That I tenderly laid at your feet, as a shrine, Though each cost me a half a week's pay! I thought that my actions betrayed my design, And yet, 'It's so sudden,' you say. ~ Edgar Albert Guest,

616:She turned suddenly, and before I could react, framed my face with her hands and pressed her lips to mine. I froze, mostly in shock, but after a moment my body uncoiled and I closed my eyes, relaxing into her. I remembered this; the feel of her lips on mine, cool and soft, the touch of her fingers on my skin. I remembered her scent, those long nights when we would lie under the cold, frozen stars, dreaming in each other’s arms. For a second, my body reacted instinctively. I started to pull us closer, to wrap my arms around her and return the kiss with equal passion…but, then I stopped. I remembered this perfectly; every shining moment with Ariella was forever etched into my mind. What we’d had, what we’d shared, everything. I’d built a shrine to her in my memories, carefully tended with grief and anger and regret. I knew every inch of our relationship, the passion, the feeling of emptiness when we weren’t together, the longing and, yes, the love. I had been in love with Ariella. I remembered what she’d meant to me once, what I’d felt for her then… …and what I didn’t feel for her now. ~ Julie Kagawa,

617:His consolation prize was a hat. A battered fedora that looked as if it had blown off of Humphrey Bogart during the filming of Key Largo. Sucked up into the atmosphere during the movie’s hurricane, it had ended up here, on the other side of the world, sixty years later. On his head. Even though it had been enshrined in a closet inside the house, it kind of smelled as if it had spent about three of those decades at the bottom of a birdcage. Yesiree. It was almost as fun to wear as the brown leather flight jacket. Which really wasn’t fair to the flight jacket. It was a gorgeously cared-for antique that didn’t smell at all. And it definitely worked for him, in terms of some of his flyboy fantasies. But the day had turned into a scorcher. It was just shy of a bazillion degrees in the shade. He needed mittens or perhaps a wool scarf to properly accessorize his impending heat stroke. “Today, playing the role of Indiana Jones, aka Grady Morant, is Jules Cassidy,” he said, as he slipped his arms into the sleeves. Was anyone really going to be fooled by this? Jones was so much taller than he was. ~ Suzanne Brockmann,

618: Brother Wind “I thank my god for brother wind,” So prayed St. Francis long ago In words of simple, joyous praise, That fill my heart with sudden glow As-braced by winter’s icy draughtWith singing soul, and strengthened mind, I humbly join the good Saint’s prayer Thank my God for “Brother Wind.” For Brother Wind, who, whispering soft Brings subtlest perfume on his wings, The violet scent of childhood days, The lost delight in simple things; For Brother wind, who whistling keen O’er open plain and storm-scarred hill, Cleanses from mind, and heart, and brain, All thoughts of wrong, and ancient ill. Who wafts from scarce-stirred lily beds Incense of early purity, Or wakes to life our laggard souls With stinging fragrance of the sea. Echoes of Heaven, far-off and faint For weary heart and tired mind, Sweet long-lost memories, old and quaintThese are the gifts of Brother Wind. Ah! Dear St. Francis, let me kneel Before thy shrine with joyous mind Joining my humble, grateful prayer, Thanking our God for Brother Wind. ~ Alice Guerin Crist,

619:The moon’s three phases of new, full, and old recalled the matriarch’s three phases of maiden, nymph (nubile woman), and crone. Then, since the sun’s annual course similarly recalled the rise and decline of her physical powers – spring a maiden, summer a nymph, winter a crone – the goddess became identified with seasonal changes in animal and plant life; and thus with Mother Earth who, at the beginning of the vegetative year, produces only leaves and buds, then flowers and fruits, and at last ceases to bear. She could later be conceived as yet another triad: the maiden of the upper air, the nymph of the earth or sea, the crone of the underworld – typified respectively by Selene, Aphrodite, and Hecate. These mystical analogues fostered the sacredness of the number three, and the Moon-goddess became enlarged to nine when each of the three persons – maiden, nymph, and crone – appeared in triad to demonstrate her divinity. Her devotees never quite forgot that there were not three goddesses, but one goddess; though, by Classical times, Arcadian Stymphalus was one of the few remaining shrines where they all bore the same name: Hera. ~ Robert Graves,

620:There is nothing to be found in human eyes, and that is their terrifying and dolorous enigma, their abominable and delusive charm. There is nothing but that which we put there ourselves. That is why honest gazes are only to be found in portraits. The faded and weary eyes of martyrs, expressions tortured by ecstasy, imploring and suffering eyes, some resigned, others desperate... the gazes of saints, mendicants and princesses in exile, with pardoning smiles... the gazes of the possessed, the chosen and the hysterical... and sometimes of little girls, the eyes of Ophelia and Canidia, the eyes of virgins and witches... as you live in the museums, what eternal life, dolorous and intense, shines out of you! Like precious stones enshrined between the painted eyelids of masterpieces, you disturb us across time and across space, receivers of the dream which created you! You have souls, but they are those of the artists who wished you into being, and I am delivered to despair and mortification because I have drunk the draught of poison congealed in the irises of your eyes. The eyes of portraits ought to be plucked out. ~ Jean Lorrain,

621:What if it turns out there really are witches and vampires and werewolves living right here alongside us? After all, what better disguise could there be than to get your image enshrined in the culture of the mass media? Anything that's described in artistic terms and shown in the movies stops being frightening and mysterious. For real horror you need the spoken word, you need an old grandpa sitting on a bench, scaring the grandkids in the evening: 'And then the Master of the house came to him and said: "I won't let you go, I'll tie you up and bind you tight and you'll rot under the fallen branches!"' That's the way to make people wary of anomalous phenomena! Kids sense that, you know–it's no wonder they love telling stories about the Black Han and the Coffin on Wheels. But modern literature, and especially the movies, it all just dilutes that instinctive horror. How can you feel afraid of Dracula, if he's been killed a hundred times? How can you be afraid of aliens, if our guys always squelch them? Yes, Hollywood is the great luller of human vigilance. A toast–to the death of Hollywood, for depriving us of a healthy fear of the unknown! ~ Sergei Lukyanenko,

622: Brought From Beyond The magpie and the bowerbird, its odd predilection unheard of by Marco Polo when he came upon, high in Badakhshan, that blue stone’s embedded glint of pyrites, like the dance of light on water, or of angels (the surface tension of the Absolute) on nothing, turned, by processes already ancient, into pigment: ultramarine, brought from beyond the water it’s the seeming color of, and of the berries, blooms and pebbles finickingly garnishing an avian shrine or bower with the rarest hue in nature, whatever nature is: the magpie’s eye for glitter from the clenched fist of the Mesozoic folding: the creek sands, the mine shaft, the siftings and burnishings, the ingot, the pagan artifact: to propagate the faith, to find the metal, unearth it, hoard it up, to, by the gilding of basilicas, transmute it: O magpie, O bowerbird, O Marco Polo and Coronado, where do 15 these things, these fabrications, come from—the holy places, ark and altarpiece, the aureoles, the seraphim—and underneath it all the howling? ~ Amy Clampitt,

623:More typical, however, are tail-chasing proclamations like this one, which can be found on the website of the MIT Innovation Initiative: “The MIT Innovation Initiative is an Institute-wide, multi-year agenda to transform the Institute’s innovation ecosystem—internally, around the globe and with its partners—for accelerated impact well into the 21st century.”20 This sounds distinctly like bullshit, but if MIT wants to think of itself in such a way, that’s their business. The problem arises when we enshrine innovation as a public philosophy—when we look to it as the solution to our economic ills and understand it as the guide for how economies ought to parcel out rewards. To put it bluntly, it is not clear that cheering for innovation in the bombastic way we see in the blue states actually improves the economic well-being of average citizens. For example, the last fifteen years have been a golden age of financial and software innovation, but they have been feeble in terms of GDP growth. In ideological terms, however, innovation definitely works: as a way of excusing soaring inequality and explaining the exalted status of the rich, it is the best we’ve got. ~ Thomas Frank,

624: Bohemia Bohemia, o'er thy unatlassed borders How many cross, with half-reluctant feet, And unformed fears of dangers and disorders, To find delights, more wholesome and more sweet Than ever yet were known to the "elite." Herein can dwell no pretence and no seeming; No stilted pride thrives in this atmosphere, Which stimulates a tendency to dreaming. The shores of the ideal world, from here, Seem sometimes to be tangible and near. We have no use for formal codes of fashion; No "Etiquette f Courts" we emulate; We know it needs sincerity and passion To carry out the plans of God, or fate; We do not strive to seem inanimate. We call no time lost that we give to pleasure; Life's hurrying river speeds to Death's great sea; We cast out no vain plummet-line to measure Imagined depths of that unknown To-Be, But grasp the Now, and fill it full of glee. All creeds have room here, and we all together Devoutly worship at Art's sacred shrine; But he who dwells once in thy golden weather, Bohemia--sweet, lovely land of mine-Can find no joy outside thy border-line. ~ Ella Wheeler Wilcox,

625:All the adults were beside themselves with the dislocation of what they were going through, by my grandmother's was of a different order. She had been separated from a sister who was her sole living connection to a family lost in the Holocaust. None of us had ever strayed from one another - ordinary people in the Soviet Union almost never traveled outside of it, and hardly even within it. But our genes also carried generations of anxiety about safety as Jews - if we went to the wrong place, or left the relative safety that came with community, the panic that set in was as intense in the person leaving as in the people being left. (My father left behind his brother and mother, but they weren't as close as my grandmother had been with her sister.) There must be no one for whom this is less natural to comprehend than Americans, whose country enshrines mobility as a national virtue - unless you ask African Americans about their elders, perhaps. It isn't only that Americans don't fear going from one place to another; it's also that thy don't fear letting each other go there and don't use guilt to discourage it, while those who go don't feel ashamed for wanting to. ~ Boris Fishman,

626: Faute De Mieux WHEN the corn is green and the poppies red And the fields are crimson with love-lies-bleeding, When the elms are black deep overhead And the shade lies cool where the calves are feeding, When the blackbird whistles the song of June, When kine knee-deep in the pond are drowsing, Leave pastoral peace--come up through the noon To the high chalk downs where the sheep are browsing. Oh! sweet to dream in the noontide heat, On the scented bed of thyme and clover, With the air from the sea, blown keen and sweet, And the wings of the wide sky folded over, While, far in the blue, the skylark sings, Renounce desire and renounce endeavour, Forget life's little unworthy things And dream that the dream will last for ever. The love of your life, in your heart's hid shrine, With its gifts and its torments, leave it sighing, And I will bury the pain of mine In the selfsame grave where its joy is lying. Let me hold your hand for a quiet hour In the wild thyme's scent and the clear blue weather, Then come what may, we have plucked one flower, This hour on the downs alone together. ~ Edith Nesbit,

627:History and social science, because they are written by an intelligentsia using written records that are also created largely by literate officials, is simply not well equipped to uncover the silent and anonymous forms of class struggle that [Page 37] typify the peasantry.20 Its practitioners implicitly join the conspiracy of the participants, who are themselves, as it were, sworn to secrecy. Collectively, this unlikely cabal contributes to a stereotype of the peasantry, enshrined in both literature and in history, as a class that alternates between long periods of abject passivity and brief, violent, and futile explosions of rage. He had centuries of fear and submission behind him, his shoulders had become hardened to blows, his soul so crushed that he did not recognise his own degradation. You could beat him and starve him and rob him of everything, year in, year out, before he would abandon his caution and stupidity, his mind filled with all sorts of muddled ideas which he could not properly understand; and this went on until a culmination of injustice and suffering flung him at his master’s throat like some infuriated domestic animal who had been subjected to too many thrashings.21 ~ James C Scott,

628: With Trumpet And Drum With big tin trumpet and little red drum, Marching like soldiers, the children come! It 's this way and that way they circle and file--My! but that music of theirs is fine! This way and that way, and after a while They march straight into this heart of mine! A sturdy old heart, but it has to succumb To the blare of that trumpet and beat of that drum! Come on, little people, from cot and from hall--This heart it hath welcome and room for you all! It will sing you its songs and warm you with love, As your dear little arms with my arms intertwine; It will rock you away to the dreamland above--Oh, a jolly old heart is this old heart of mine, And jollier still is it bound to become When you blow that big trumpet and beat that red drum! So come; though I see not his dear little face And hear not his voice in this jubilant place, I know he were happy to bid me enshrine His memory deep in my heart with your play--Ah me! but a love that is sweeter than mine Holdeth my boy in its keeping to-day! And my heart it is lonely---so, little folk, come, March in and make merry with trumpet and drum! ~ Eugene Field,

629:O God, I have tasted Thy goodness, and it has both satisfied me and made me thirsty for more. I am painfully conscious of my need of further grace. I am ashamed of my lack of desire. O God, the Triune God, I want to want Thee; I long to be filled with longing; I thirst to be made more thirsty still. Show me Thy glory, I pray Thee, that so I may know Thee indeed. Begin in mercy a new work of love within me. Say to my soul, "Rise up, my love, my fair one, and come away." Then give me grace to rise and follow Thee up from this misty lowland where I have wandered so long. In Jesus' Name, Amen. II  The Blessedness of Possessing Nothing Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.—Matt. 5:3 Before the Lord God made man upon the earth He first prepared for him by creating a world of useful and pleasant things for his sustenance and delight. In the Genesis account of the creation these are called simply "things." They were made for man's uses, but they were meant always to be external to the man and subservient to him. In the deep heart of the man was a shrine where none but God was worthy to come. Within him was God; without, a thousand gifts which God had showered upon him. ~ A W Tozer,

630: The Atheist Nor thou, Habib, nor I are glad, when rosy limbs and sweat entwine; But rapture drowns the sense and self, the wine the drawer of the wine, And Him that planted first the grapeo podex, in thy vault there dwells A charm to make the member mad, And shake the marrow of the spine. O member, in thy stubborn strenght a power avails on podex-sense To boil the blood in breast and brain; shudder the nreves incarnadine! From me thou drawest pearly drink and in its pourings both are drunk. The Iman drives forth the drunken man from out the marble prayer-shrine. Blue Mushtari strove with red Mirrikh which should be master of the nightBut where is Mushtari, where Mirrikh when in the sky the sun doth shine? Now El Qahar to Hazif gives the worship unto poets due : But songs are nought and Music all; what poet music may define? Allah's the atheist! he owns no Allah. Sneer, thou dullard churl! The Sufi worships not, but drinks, being himself the all-divine. Come, my Habib, the roses blush, the waters gleam, the bulbul sings To pierce thy podex El Quahar's urgent and and imminent design! 58 ~ Aleister Crowley,

631: The Garden Of Saint Rose THIS is a holy refuge, The garden of Saint Rose, A fragrant altar to that peace The world no longer knows. Below a solemn hillside, Within the folding shade Of overhanging beech and pine Its walls and walks are laid. Cool through the heat of summer, Still as a sacred grove, It has the rapt unworldly air Of mystery and love. All day before its outlook The mist-blue mountains loom, And in its trees at tranquil dusk The early stars will bloom. Down its enchanted borders Glad ranks of color stand, Like hosts of silent seraphim Awaiting love's command. Lovely in adoration They wait in patient line, Snow-white and purple and deep gold About the rose-gold shrine. And there they guard the silence, While still from her recess Through sun and shade Saint Rose looks down In mellow loveliness. She seems to say, 'O stranger, Behold how loving care That gives its life for beauty's sake, Makes everything more fair! 'Then praise the Lord of gardens For tree and flower and vine, And bless all gardeners who have wrought A resting place like mine!' ~ Bliss William Carman,

632: Momus, God Of Laughter Though with gods the world is cumbered, Gods unnamed, and gods unnumbered, Never god was known to be Who had not his devotee. So I dedicate to mine, Here in verse, my temple-shrine. ‘Tis not Ares, - mighty Mars, Who can give success in wars. ‘Tis not Morpheus, who doth keep Guard above us while we sleep, ‘Tis not Venus, she whose duty ‘Tis to give us love and beauty; Hail to these, and others, after Momus, gleesome god of laughter. Quirinus would guard my health, Plutus would insure me wealth; Mercury looks after trade, Hera smiles on youth and maid. All are kind, I own their worth, After Momus, god of mirth. Though Apollo, out of spite, Hides away his face of light, Though Minerva looks askance, Deigning me no smiling glance, Kings and queens may envy me While I claim the god of glee. Wisdom wearies, Love had wings – Wealth makes burdens, Pleasure stings, Glory proves a thorny crown – So all gifts the gods throw down Bring their pains and troubles after; All save Momus, god of laughter. He alone gives constant joy. Hail to Momus, happy boy. 397 ~ Ella Wheeler Wilcox,

633:She thought, sometimes, that, after all, this was the happiest time of her life—the honeymoon, as people called it. To taste the full sweetness of it, it would have been necessary doubtless to fly to those lands with sonorous names where the days after marriage are full of laziness most suave. In post chaises behind blue silken curtains to ride slowly up steep road, listening to the song of the postilion re-echoed by the mountains, along with the bells of goats and the muffled sound of a waterfall; at sunset on the shores of gulfs to breathe in the perfume of lemon trees; then in the evening on the villa-terraces above, hand in hand to look at the stars, making plans for the future. It seemed to her that certain places on earth must bring happiness, as a plant peculiar to the soil, and that cannot thrive elsewhere. Why could not she lean over balconies in Swiss chalets, or enshrine her melancholy in a Scotch cottage, with a husband dressed in a black velvet coat with long tails, and thin shoes, a pointed hat and frills? Perhaps she would have liked to confide all these things to someone. But how tell an undefinable uneasiness, variable as the clouds, unstable as the winds? Words failed her—the opportunity, the courage. ~ Gustave Flaubert,

634: The Married Lover Why, having won her, do I woo? Because her spirit's vestal grace Provokes me always to pursue, But, spirit-like, eludes embrace; Because her womanhood is such That, as on court-days subjects kiss The Queen's hand, yet so near a touch Affirms no mean familiarness; Nay, rather marks more fair the height Which can with safety so neglect To dread, as lower ladies might, That grace could meet with disrespect; Thus she with happy favour feeds Allegiance from a love so high That thence no false conceit proceeds Of difference bridged, or state put by; Because although in act and word As lowly as a wife can be, Her manners, when they call me lord, Remind me 'tis by courtesy; Not with her least consent of will, Which would my proud affection hurt, But by the noble style that still Imputes an unattain'd desert; Because her gay and lofty brows, When all is won which hope can ask, Reflect a light of hopeless snows That bright in virgin ether bask; Because, though free of the outer court I am, this Temple keeps its shrine Sacred to Heaven; because, in short, She 's not and never can be mine. ~ Coventry Patmore,

635: Rocking The Baby I hear her rocking the baby-Her room is next to mine-And I fancy I feel the dimpled arms That round her neck entwine, As she rocks and rocks the baby, In the room just next to mine. I hear her rocking the baby Each day when the twilight comes, And I know there's a world of blessing and love In the 'baby by' she hums. I can see the restless fingers Playing with 'mamma's rings,' The sweet little smiling, pouting mouth That to hers in kissing clings, As she rocks and sings to the baby, And dreams as she rocks and sings. I hear her rocking the baby, Slower and slower now, And I hear she is leaving her good-night kiss On its eyes, and cheek and brow. From her rocking, rocking, rocking, I wonder would she start Could she know, through the wall between us, She is rocking on a heart? While my empty arms are aching For a form they may not press,-And my empty heart is breaking In its desolate loneliness. I list to the rocking, rocking, In the room just next to mine, And breathe a prayer in silence, At a mother's broken shrine, For the woman who rocks the baby In the room just next to mine. 248 ~ Anonymous Americas,

636:Mumbai is the sweet, sweaty smell of hope, which is the opposite of hate; and it's the sour, stifled smell of greed, which is the opposite of love. It's the smell of Gods, demons, empires, and civilizations in resurrection and decay. Its the blue skin-smell of the sea, no matter where you are in the island city, and the blood metal smell of machines. It smells of the stir and sleep and the waste of sixty million animals, more than half of them humans and rats. It smells of heartbreak, and the struggle to live, and of the crucial failures and love that produces courage. It smells of ten thousand restaurants, five thousand temples, shrines, churches and mosques, and of hunderd bazaar devoted exclusively to perfume, spices, incense, and freshly cut flowers. That smell, above all things - is that what welcomes me and tells me that I have come home. Then there were people. Assamese, Jats, and Punjabis; people from Rajasthan, Bengal, and Tamil Nadu; from Pushkar, Cochin, and Konark; warrior caste, Brahmin, and untouchable; Hindi, Muslim, Christian, Buddhist, Jain, Parsee, Animist; fair skin and dark, green eyes and golden brown and black; every different face and form of that extravagant variety, that incoparable beauty, India. ~ Gregory David Roberts,

637: In Early Summer Lodging In A Temple To Enjoy The Moonlight In early summer, with two or three more That were seeking fame in the city of Ch'ang-an, Whose low employ gave them less business Than ever they had since first they left their homes With these I wandered deep into the shrine of Tao, For the joy we sought was promised in this place. When we reached the gate, we sent our coaches back; We entered the yard with only cap and stick. Still and clear, the first weeks of May, When trees are green and bushes soft and wet; When the wind has stolen the shadows of new leaves And birds linger on the last boughs that bloom. Towards evening when the sky grew clearer yet And the South-east was still clothed in red, To the western cloister we carried our jar of wine; While we waited for the moon, our cups moved slow. Soon, how soon her golden ghost was born, Swiftly, as though she had waited for us to come. The beams of her light shone in every place, On towers and halls dancing to and fro. Till day broke we sat in her clear light Laughing and singing, and yet never grew tired. In Ch'ang-an, the place of profit and fame, Such moods as this, how many men know? ~ Bai Juyi,

638: Eternal Friendship Who once has had a friend has found The link 'twixt mortal and divine; Though now he sleeps in hallowed ground, He lives in memory's sacred shrine; And there he freely moves about, A spirit that has quit the clay, And in the times of stress and doubt Sustains his friend throughout the day. No friend we love can ever die; The outward form but disappears; I know that all my friends are nigh Whenever I am moved to tears. And when my strength and hope are gone, The friends, no more, that once I knew, Return to cheer and urge me on Just as they always used to do. They whisper to me in the dark Kind words of counsel and of cheer; When hope has flickered to a spark I feel their gentle spirits near. And Oh! because of them I strive With all the strength that I can call To keep their friendship still alive And to be worthy of them all. Death does not end our friendships true; We all are debtors to the dead; There, wait on everything we do The splendid souls who've gone ahead. To them I hold that we are bound By double pledges to be fine. Who once has had a friend has found The link 'twixt mortal and divine. ~ Edgar Albert Guest,

639: Libera Me Goddess the laughter-loving, Aphrodite, befriend! Long have I served thine altars, serve me now at the end, Let me have peace of thee, truce of thee, golden one, send. Heart of my heart have I offered thee, pain of my pain, Yielding my life for the love of thee into thy chain; Lady and goddess be merciful, loose me again. All things I had that were fairest, my dearest and best, Fed the fierce flames on thine altar: ah, surely, my breast Shrined thee alone among goddesses, spurning the rest. Blossom of youth thou hast plucked of me, flower of my days; Stinted I nought in thine honouring, walked in thy ways, Song of my soul pouring out to thee, all in thy praise. Fierce was the flame while it lasted, and strong was thy wine, Meet for immortals that die not, for throats such as thine, Too fierce for bodies of mortals, too potent for mine. Blossom and bloom hast thou taken, now render to me Ashes of life that remain to me, few though they be, Truce of the love of thee, Cyprian, let me go free. Goddess the laughter-loving, Aphrodite, restore Life to the limbs of me, liberty, hold me no more Having the first-fruits and flower of me, cast me the core. ~ Ernest Christopher Dowson,

640: Winter Twilight ALONG the wintry skyline, Crowning the rocky crest, Stands the bare screen of hardwood trees Against the saffron west,— Its gray and purple network Of branching tracery Outspread upon the lucent air, Like weed within the sea. The scarlet robe of autumn Renounced and put away, The mystic Earth is fairer still, — A Puritan in gray. The spirit of the winter, How tender, how austere! Yet all the ardor of the spring And summer's dream are here. Fear not, O timid lover, The touch of frost and rime! This is the virtue that sustained The roses in their prime. The anthem of the northwind Shall hallow thy despair, The benediction of the snow Be answer to thy prayer. And now the star of evening That is the pilgrim's sign, Is lighted in the primrose dusk, — A lamp before a shrine. Peace fills the mighty minster, Tranquil and gray and old, And all the chancel of the west Is bright with paling gold. A little wind goes sifting Along the meadow floor,— Like steps of lovely penitents Who sighingly adore. Then falls the twilight curtain, And fades the eerie light, And frost and silence turn the keys 223 In the great doors of night. ~ Bliss William Carman,

641:Our democracy cannot survive its current downward drift into tribalism, extremism, and seething resentment. Today it’s “us versus them” in America. Politics is little more than blood sport. As a result, our willingness to believe the worst about everyone outside our own bubble is growing, and our ability to solve problems and seize opportunities is shrinking. We have to do better. We have honest differences. We need vigorous debates. Healthy skepticism is good. It saves us from being too naive or too cynical. But it is impossible to preserve democracy when the well of trust runs completely dry. The freedoms enshrined in the Bill of Rights and the checks and balances in our Constitution were designed to prevent the self-inflicted wounds we face today. But as our long history reveals, those written words must be applied by people charged with giving life to them in each new era. That’s how African Americans moved from being slaves to being equal under the law and how they set off on the long journey to be equal in fact, a journey we know is not over. The same story can be told of women’s rights, workers’ rights, immigrants’ rights, the rights of the disabled, the struggle to define and protect religious liberty, and to guarantee equality to people without regard to their sexual orientation or gender identity. ~ Bill Clinton,

642:Cowperwood, who saw things in the large, could scarcely endure this minutae. He was but little interested in the affairs of bygone men and women, being so intensely engaged with the living present. And after a time he slipped outside, preferring the wide sweep of gardens, with their flower-lined walks and views of the cathedral. Its arches and towers and stained-glass windows, this whole carefully executed shrine, still held glamor, but all because of the hands and brains, aspirations and dreams of selfish and self-preserving creatures like himself. And so many of these, as he now mused, walking about, had warred over possession of this church. And now they were within its walls, graced and made respectable, the noble dead! Was any man noble? Had there ever been such a thing as an indubitably noble soul? He was scarcely prepared to believe it. Men killed to live—all of them —and wallowed in lust in order to reproduce themselves. In fact, wars, vanities, pretenses, cruelties, greeds, lusts, murder, spelled their true history, with only the weak running to a mythical saviour or god for aid. And the strong using this belief in a god to further the conquest of the weak. And by such temples or shrines as this. He looked, meditated, and was somehow touched with the futility of so ~ Theodore Dreiser,

643: Reflection You have given me riches and ease, You have given me joys through the years, I have sat in the shade of your trees, With the song of your birds in my ears. I have drunk of your bountiful wine And done as I've chosen to do, But, oh wonderful country of mine, 'How little have I done for you! You have given me safe harbor from harm, Untroubled I've slept through the nights And have waked to the new morning's charm And claimed as my own its delights. I have taken the finest of fine From your orchards and fields where it grew, But, oh wonderful country of mine, How little I've given to you! You have given me a home and a place Where in safety my babies may play; Health blooms on each bright dimpled face And laughter is theirs every day. You have guarded from danger the shrine Where I worship when toiling is through, But, oh wonderful country of mine, How little have I done for you! I have taken your gifts without thought, I have revelled in joys that you gave, That I see now with blood had been bought, The blood of your earlier braves. I have lived without making one sign That the source of my riches I knew, Now, oh wonderful country of mine, I'm here to do something for you! ~ Edgar Albert Guest,

644:I remained alone in my room, that room with the too lofty ceiling in which I had been so wretched on my first arrival, in which I had thought with such longing of Mlle de Stermaria, had watched for the appearance of Albertine and her friends, like migratory birds alighting upon the beach, in which I had possessed her with such indifference after I had sent the lift-boy to fetch her, in which I had experienced my grandmother’s kindness, then realised that she was dead; those shutters, beneath which shone the early morning light, I had opened the first time to look out upon the first ramparts of the sea (those shutters which Albertine made me close in case anybody should see us kissing). I became aware of my own transformations by contrasting them with the unchangingness of my surroundings. One grows accustomed to these as to people, and when, all of a sudden, one recalls the different meaning that they used to convey to one and then, after they had lost all meaning, the events, very different from those of today, which they enshrined, the diversity of the acts performed beneath the same ceiling, between the same glazed bookshelves, the change in one’s heart and in one’s life which that diversity implies, seem to be increased still further by the unalterable permanence of the setting, reinforced by the unity of the scene. ~ Marcel Proust,

645:Very devout like his great-grandfather St. Louis, though not his equal in intelligence or will, Philip was fascinated by the all-absorbing question of the Beatific Vision: whether the souls of the blessed see the face of God immediately upon entering Heaven or whether they have to wait until the Day of Judgment. The question was of real concern because the intercession of the saints on behalf of man was effective only if they had been admitted into the presence of God. Shrines possessing saints’ relics relied for revenue on popular confidence that a particular saint was in a position to make a personal appeal to the Almighty. Philip VI twice summoned theologians to debate the issue before him and fell into a “mighty choler” when the papal legate to Paris conveyed Pope John XXII’s doubts of the Beatific Vision. “The King reprimanded him sharply and threatened to burn him like an Albigensian unless he retracted, and said further that if the Pope really held such views he would regard him as a heretic.” A worried man, Philip wrote to the Pope that to deny the Beatific Vision was to destroy belief in the intercession of the Virgin and saints. Fortunately for the King’s peace of mind, a papal commission decided after thorough investigation that the souls of the Blessed did indeed come face to face with the Divine Essence. ~ Barbara W Tuchman,

646: Horace To Maecenas How breaks my heart to hear you say You feel the shadows fall about you! The gods forefend That fate, O friend! I would not, I could not live without you! You gone, what would become of me, Your shadow, O beloved Maecenas? We've shared the mirth-And sweets of earth-Let's share the pangs of death between us! I should not dread Chinaera's breath Nor any threat of ghost infernal; Nor fear nor pain Should part us twain-For so have willed the powers eternal. No false allegiance have I sworn, And, whatsoever fate betide you, Mine be the part To cheer your heart-With loving song to fare beside you! Love snatched you from the claws of death And gave you to the grateful city; The falling tree That threatened me Did Fannus turn aside in pity; With horoscopes so wondrous like, Why question that we twain shall wander, As in this land, So, hand in hand, Into the life that waiteth yonder? So to your shrine, O patron mine, With precious wine and victims fare you; Poor as I am, A humble lamb Must testify what love I bear you. But to the skies shall sweetly rise 157 The sacrifice from shrine and heather, And thither bear The solemn prayer That, when we go, we go together! ~ Eugene Field,

647:Didn’t I advise you to forget the stone? Didn’t I tell you it would be mine? Look at everything you’ve lost.” He threw the sack over the ornate teal stone, pulled a cord tight around the sack’s opening, and lifted it from its resting place without placing a single finger on it. “And look at everything I’ve gained.” His sailors laughed with him. Camille spotted her straggly-beared attacker. A fist-sized bruise from Samuel’s boot discolored his jaw. Camille discreetly scanned the cascade, but didn’t see Ira or Samuel. She returned her stare to McGreenery; only this time, it was she who smiled. “I remember what you said. But I have the real map, don’t I?” She held it up for him to see as the second wave of sparks, invisible to everyone else, rolled back over the map and erased the riddle. “Samuel copied the diagram for you, but there were things the map wouldn’t show him. Things only the one worthy of the stone could see. And he overlooked something else, something he had no reason to believe was important.” McGreenery came around the shrine, the sack’s cord cutting so deeply into his flesh, the skin whitened. Camille twirled the map around to show the glowing mark. “This is the mark of Umandu.” She stepped aside so he could see the amber stone aglow at her heel. Shock drowned McGreenery’s simper. “And you can go to hell. ~ Angie Frazier,

648:Look now. Look at what you value, what you hold dear. Objects, first. And not necessarily because of their innate value (although that might figure into it), but because they are endowed - by your mind and imagination, by your memories - with what is know as "sentimental value." Sentiment has been defined as ascribing a value to something above and beyond what its value is to God. This presumes a belief in God, and furthermore a belief in a kind of God that passes judgment on the inexplicable fondness of the human heart; there is an expression, isn't there: "the object of my affections." But perhaps you do not believe in that kid of God, or any other, for that matter. Look then at the faces and bodies of people you love. The explicit beauty that comes not from smoothness of skin or neutrality of expression, but from the web of experience that has left its mark. Each face, each body is its own lving fossilized record. A record of cats, combatants, difficult births; of accidents, cruelties, blessings. Reminders of folly, greed, indiscretion, impatience. A moment of time, of memory, preserved, internalized, and enshrined within and upon the body. You need not be told that these records are what render your beloved beautiful. If God exists, He is there, in the small, cast-off pieces, rough and random and no two alike. ~ Stephanie Kallos,

649: Twin Idols There are two phrases, you must know, So potent (yet so small) That wheresoe'er a man may go He needs none else at all; No servile guide to lead the way Nor lackey at his heel, If he be learned enough to say "Comme bien" and "Wie viel." The sleek, pomaded Parleyvoo Will air his sweetest airs And quote the highest rates when you "Comme bien" for his wares; And, though the German stolid be, His so-called heart of steel Becomes as soft as wax when he Detects the words "Wie viel." Go, search the boulevards and rues From Havre to Marseilles-You'll find all eloquence you use Except "Comme bien" fails; Or in the country auf der Rhine Essay a business deal And all your art is good fuhr nein Beyond the point--"Wie viel." It matters not what game or prey Attracts your greedy eyes-You must pursue the good old way If you would win the prize; It is to get a titled mate All run down at the heel, If you inquire of stock effete, "Comme bien" or "Wie viel." So he is wise who envieth not A wealth of foreign speech, Since with two phrases may be got 427 Whatever's in his reach; For Europe is a soulless shrine In which all classes kneel Before twin idols, deemed divine-"Comme bien" and "Wie viel." ~ Eugene Field,

650: The Unknown God To learned Athens, led by fame, As once the man of Tarsus came, With pity and surprise Midst idol altars as he stood, O'er sculptured marble, brass and wood, He rolled his awful eyes. But one, apart, his notice caught, That seemed with higher meaning fraught, Graved on the wounded stone; Nor form nor name was there expressed; Deep reverence filled the musing breast, Perusing, “To the God unknown.” Age after age has rolled away, Altars and thrones have felt decay, Sages and saints have risen; And, like a giant roused from sleep, Man has explored the pathless deep, And lightnings snatched from heaven. And many a shrine in dust is laid, Where kneeling nations homage paid, By rock, or fount, or grove: Ephesian Dian sees no more Her workmen fuse the silver ore, Nor Capitolian Jove. E'en Salem's hallowed courts have ceased With solemn pomps her tribes to feast, No more the victim bleeds; To censers filled with rare perfumes, And vestments from Egyptian looms, A purer rite succeeds. Yet still, where'er presumptuous man His Maker's essence strives to scan, And lifts his feeble hands, Though saint and sage their powers unite, To fathom that abyss of light, Ah! still that altar stands. 149 ~ Anna Laetitia Barbauld,

651:THE SIMPLE UNION Listen to me, O friend. Be thou a yogi, a monk, a priest, A devout lover of God, A pilgrim searching for Happiness, Bathing in holy rivers, Visiting sacred shrines, The occasional worshipper of a day, A great reader of books, Or a builder of many temples - My love aches for thee. I know the way to the heart of the Beloved. This vain struggle, This long toil, This ceaseless sorrow, This changing pleasure, This burning doubt, This burden of life, All these will cease, O friend - My love aches for thee. I know the way to the heart of the Beloved. Have I pilgrimage the earth, Have I loved the reflections, Have I chanted, singing in ecstasy, Have I donned the robe, Have I put on ashes, Have I listened to the temple bells, Have I grown old with study, Have I searched, Was I lost? Yea, much have I known - My love aches for thee. I know the way to the heart of the Beloved, O friend, Wouldst thou love the reflection, If I can give thee the reality? Throw away thy bells, thine incense, Thy fears and thy gods, Set aside thy systems, thy philosophies. Come, Put aside all these. I know the way to the heart of the Beloved. O friend, The simple union is the best. This is the way to the heart of the Beloved. ~ Anonymous,

652: An Elegy THOUGH beauty be the mark of praise, And yours of whom I sing be such As not the world can praise too much, Yet 'tis your Virtue now I raise. A virtue, like allay so gone Throughout your form as, though that move And draw and conquer all men's love, This subjects you to love of one. Wherein you triumph yet-because 'Tis of your flesh, and that you use The noblest freedom, not to choose Against or faith or honour's laws. But who should less expect from you? In whom alone Love lives again: By whom he is restored to men, And kept and bred and brought up true. His falling temples you have rear'd, The wither'd garlands ta'en away; His altars kept from that decay That envy wish'd, and nature fear'd: And on them burn so chaste a flame, With so much loyalty's expense, As Love to acquit such excellence Is gone himself into your name. And you are he-the deity To whom all lovers are design'd That would their better objects find; Among which faithful troop am IWho as an off'ring at your shrine Have sung this hymn, and here entreat One spark of your diviner heat To light upon a love of mine. 27 Which if it kindle not, but scant Appear, and that to shortest view; Yet give me leave to adore in you What I in her am grieved to want! ~ Ben Jonson,

653: The Dragon Of The Black Pool Deep the waters of the Black Pool, colored like ink; They say a Holy Dragon lives there, whom men have never seen. Beside the Pool they have built a shrine; the authorities have established a ritual; A dragon by itself remains a dragon, but men can make it a god. Prosperity and disaster, rain and drought, plagues and pestilences— By the village people were all regarded as the Sacred Dragon’s doing. They all made offerings of sucking-pig and poured libations of wine; The morning prayers and evening gifts depended on a “medium’s” advice. When the dragon comes, ah! The wind stirs and sighs Paper money thrown, ah! Silk umbrellas waved. When the dragon goes, ah! The wind also—still. Incense-fire dies, ah ! The cups and vessels are cold. Meats lie stacked on the rocks of the Pool’s shore; Wine flows on the grass in front of the shrine. I do not know, of all those offerings, how much the Dragon eats; But the mice of the woods and the foxes of the hills are continually drunk and sated. Why are the foxes so lucky? What have the sucking-pigs done, That year by year they should be killed, merely to glut the foxes? That the foxes are robbing the Sacred Dragon and eating His sucking-pig, Beneath the nine-fold depths of His pool, does He know or not? ~ Bai Juyi,

654:Not without a slight shudder at the danger, I often perceive how near I had come to admitting into my mind the details of some trivial affair- the news of the street; and I am astonished to observe how willing men are to lumber their minds with such rubbish- to permit idle rumors and incidents of the most insignificant kind to intrude on ground which should be sacred to thought. Shall the mind be a public arena, where the affairs of the street and the gossip of the tea-table chiefly are discussed? Or shall it be a quarter of heaven itself- an hypaethral temple, consecrated to the service of the gods? I find it so difficult to dispose of the few facts which to me are significant, that I hesitate to burden my attention with those which are insignificant, which only a divine mind could illustrate. Such is, for the most part, the news in newspapers and conversation. It is important to preserve the mind's chastity in this respect. Think of admitting the details of a single case of the criminal court into our thoughts, to stalk profanely through their very sanctum sanctorum for an hour, ay, for many hours! to make a very bar-room of the mind's inmost apartment, as if for so long the dust of the street had occupied us- the very street itself, with all its travel, its bustle, and filth, had passed through our thoughts' shrine! Would it not be an intellectual and moral suicide? ~ Henry David Thoreau,

655:And who talks of error now? I scarcely think the notion that flittered across my brain was an error. I believe it was an inspiration rather than a temptation: it was very genial, very soothing—I know that. Here it comes again! It is no devil, I assure you; or if it be, it has put on the robes of an angel of light. I think I must admit so fair a guest when it asks entrance to my heart.” “Distrust it, sir; it is not a true angel.” “Once more, how do you know? By what instinct do you pretend to distinguish between a fallen seraph of the abyss and a messenger from the eternal throne—between a guide and a seducer?” “I judged by your countenance, sir, which was troubled when you said the suggestion had returned upon you. I feel sure it will work you more misery if you listen to it.” “Not at all—it bears the most gracious message in the world: for the rest, you are not my conscience-keeper, so don’t make yourself uneasy. Here, come in, bonny wanderer!” He said this as if he spoke to a vision, viewless to any eye but his own; then, folding his arms, which he had half extended, on his chest, he seemed to enclose in their embrace the invisible being. “Now,” he continued, again addressing me, “I have received the pilgrim—a disguised deity, as I verily believe. Already it has done me good: my heart was a sort of charnel; it will now be a shrine. ~ Charlotte Bront,

656:MANASSEH WAS THE WORST KING the Hebrews ever had. He was a thoroughly bad man presiding over a totally corrupt government. He reigned in Jerusalem for fifty-five years, a dark and evil half century. He encouraged a pagan worship that involved whole communities in sexual orgies. He installed cult prostitutes at shrines throughout the countryside. He imported wizards and sorcerers who enslaved the people in superstitions and manipulated them with their magic. The man could not do enough evil. There seemed to be no end to his barbarous cruelties. His capacity for inventing new forms of evil seemed bottomless. His appetite for the sordid was insatiable. One day he placed his son on the altar in some black and terrible ritual of witchcraft and burned him as an offering (2 Kings 21). The great Solomonic temple in Jerusalem, resplendent in its holy simplicity, empty of any form of god so that the invisible God could be attended to in worship, swarmed with magicians and prostitutes. Idols shaped as beasts and monsters defiled the holy place. Lust and greed were deified. Murders were commonplace. Manasseh dragged the people into a mire far more stinking than anything the world had yet seen. The sacred historian’s judgment was blunt: “Manasseh led them off the beaten path into practices of evil even exceeding the evil of the pagan nations that GOD had earlier destroyed” (2 Kings 21:9).[2] ~ Eugene H Peterson,

657: To Poesy These vessels of verse, O Great Goddess, are filled with invisible tears, With the sobs and sweat of my spirit and her desolate brooding for years; See, I lay them -- not on thine altar, for they are unpolished and plain, Not rounded enough by the potter, too much burnt in the furnace of pain; But here in the dust, in the shadow, with a sudden wild leap of the heart I kneel to tenderly kiss them, then in silence arise to depart. I linger awhile at the portal with the light of the crimsoning sun On my wreathless brow bearing the badges of battles I've fought in not won. At the sound of the trumpet I've ever been found in thy thin fighting line, And the weapons I've secretly sharpened have flashed in defence of thy shrine. I've recked not of failure and losses, nor shrunk from the soilure of strife For thy magical glamour was on me and art is the moonlight of life. I move from the threshold, Great Goddess, with steps meditative and slow; Night steals like a dream to the landscape and slips like a pall o'er its glow. I carry no lamp in my bosom and dwindling in gloom is the track, No token of man's recognition to prompt me to ever turn back. I strike eastward to meet the great day-dawn with the soul of my soul by my side, My goal though unknown is assured me, and the planet of Love is my guide. ~ Arthur Bayldon,

658: The World’s Justice If the sudden tidings came That on some far, foreign coast, Buried ages long from fame, Had been found a remnant lost Of that hoary race who dwelt By the golden Nile divine, Spake the Pharaoh's tongue and knelt At the moon-crowned Isis' shrineHow at reverend Egypt's feet, Pilgrims from all lands would meet! If the sudden news were known, That anigh the desert-place Where once blossomed Babylon, Scions of a mighty race Still survived, of giant build, Huntsmen, warriors, priest and sage, Whose ancestral fame had filled, Trumpet-tongued, the earlier age, How at old Assyria's feet Pilgrims from all lands would meet! Yet when Egypt's self was young, And Assyria's bloom unworn, Ere the mythic Homer sung, Ere the gods of Greece were born, Lived the nation of one God, Priests of freedom, sons of Shem, Never quelled by yoke or rod, Founders of JerusalemIs there one abides to-day, Seeker of dead cities, say! Answer, now as then, THEY ARE; Scattered broadcast o'er the lands, Knit in spirit nigh and far, With indissoluble bands. Half the world adores their God, They the living law proclaim, 267 And their guerdon is-the rod, Stripes and scourgings, death and shame. Still on Israel's head forlorn, Every nation heaps its scorn. ~ Emma Lazarus,

659:Depending on which flavor of academic scholarship you prefer, that age had its roots in the Renaissance or Mannerist periods in Germany, England, and Italy. It first bloomed in France in the garden of Jean-Jacques Rousseau in the 1780s. Others point to François-René de Chateaubriand’s château circa 1800 or Victor Hugo’s Paris apartments in the 1820s and ’30s. The time frame depends on who you ask. All agree Romanticism reached its apogee in Paris in the 1820s to 1840s before fading, according to some circa 1850 to make way for the anti-Romantic Napoléon III and the Second Empire, according to others in the 1880s when the late Romantic Decadents took over. Yet others say the period stretched until 1914—conveniently enduring through the debauched Belle Époque before expiring in time for World War I and the arrival of that other perennial of the pigeonhole specialists, modernism. There are those, however, who look beyond dates and tags and believe the Romantic spirit never died, that it overflowed, spread, fractured, came back together again like the Seine around its islands, morphed into other isms, changed its name and address dozens of times as Nadar and Balzac did and, like a phantom or vampire or other supernatural invention of the Romantic Age, it thrives today in billions of brains and hearts. The mother ship, the source, the living shrine of Romanticism remains the city of Paris. ~ David Downie,

660: Song For Australia There is a land where summer skies Are gleaming with a thousand dyes Blending in witching harmonies, in harmonies; and grassy knoll and forest height, are flushing in the rosy light, And all above is azure bright Australia, Australia, Australia. There is a land where honey flows Where laughing corn luxuriant grows; Land of the myrtle and the rose, land of the rose. On hill and plain the clustering vine Is gushing out with purple wine, And cups are quaffed to thee and thine Australia, Australia, Australia. There is a land where treasures shine Deep in the dark unfathomed mine For worshippers at Mammon's Shrine; Where gold lies hid, and rubies glean, And fable wealth no more doth seem The idle fancy of a dream Australia, Australia, Australia. There is a land where homesteads peep From sunny plain and woodland steep And love and joy bright vigils keep; Where the glad voice of childish glee Is mingling with the melody Of nature's hidden minstelsy Australia, Australia, Australia. There is a land where floating free, From mountain top to girdling sea, A proud flag waves exultingly, exultingly And freedom's sons the banner bear, No shackled slave can breathe the air; Fairest of Britain's daughter fair Australia, Australia, Australia. ~ Caroline Carleton,

661:Tipped, their legs have fallen shut, and the more I look at them the less I believe my eyes. Corruption, in these bugs, is splendid. I've a collection now I keep in typewriter-ribbon tins, and though, in time, their bodies dry and the interior flesh decays, their features hold, as I suppose they held in life, an Egyptian determination, for their protective plates are strong and death must break bones to get in. Now that the heavy soul is gone, the case is light. I suspect if we were as familiar with our bones as with our skin, we'd never bury dead but shrine them in their rooms, arranged as we might like to find them on a visit; and our enemies, if we could steal their bodies from the battle sites, would be museumed as they died, the steel still eloquent in their sides, their metal hats askew, the protective toes of their shoes unworn, and friend and enemy would be so wondrously historical that in a hundred years we'd find the jaws still hung for the same speech and all the parts we spent our life with tilted as they always were—rib cage collar skull—still repetitious, still defiant, angel light, still worthy of memorial and affection. After all, what does it mean to say that when our cat has bitten through the shell and put confusion in the pulp, the life goes out of them? Alas for us, I want to cry, our bones are secret, so we must love what perishes: the muscles and the waters and the fats. ~ William H Gass,

662: Count Me, On The Summer Trees Count me, on the summer trees, Every leaf that courts the breeze; Count me, on the foamy deep, Every wave that sinks to sleep; Then, when you have number'd these Billowy tides and leafy trees, Count me all the flames I prove, All the gentle nymphs I love. First, of pure Athenian maids Sporting in their olive shades, You may reckon just a score, Nay, I'll grant you fifteen more. In the sweet Corinthian grove, Where the glowing wantons rove, Chains of beauties may be found, Chains, by which my heart is bound; There indeed are girls divine, Dangerous to a soul like mine! Many bloom in Lesbos' isle; Many in Ionia smile; Rhodes a pretty swarm can boast; Caria too contains a host. Sum these all-of brown and fair You may count two thousand there! What, you gaze! I pray you, peace! More I'll find before I cease. Have I told you all my flames, 'Mong the amorous Syrian dames? Have I number'd every one, Glowing under Egypt's sun? Or the nymphs, who blushing sweet Deck the shrine of Love in Crete; Where the God, with festal play, Holds eternal holiday? Still in clusters, still remain Gade's warm, desiring train; Still there lies a myriad more On the sable India's shore; These, and many far remov'd, All are loving-all are lov'd! ~ Anacreon,

663: The Banner Of The Jew Wake, Israel, wake! Recall to-day The glorious Maccabean rage, The sire heroic, hoary-gray, His five-fold lion-lineage: The Wise, the Elect, the Help-of-God, The Burst-of-Spring, the Avenging Rod. From Mizpeh's mountain-ridge they saw Jerusalem's empty streets, her shrine Laid waste where Greeks profaned the Law, With idol and with pagan sign. Mourners in tattered black were there, With ashes sprinkled on their hair. Then from the stony peak there rang A blast to ope the graves: down poured The Maccabean clan, who sang Their battle-anthem to the Lord. Five heroes lead, and following, see, Ten thousand rush to victory! Oh for Jerusalem's trumpet now, To blow a blast of shattering power, To wake the sleepers high and low, And rouse them to the urgent hour! No hand for vengeance-but to save, A million naked swords should wave. Oh deem not dead that martial fire, Say not the mystic flame is spent! With Moses' law and David's lyre, Your ancient strength remains unbent. Let but an Ezra rise anew, To lift the BANNER OF THE JEW! A rag, a mock at first-erelong, When men have bled and women wept, To guard its precious folds from wrong, Even they who shrunk, even they who slept, 237 Shall leap to bless it, and to save. Strike! for the brave revere the brave! ~ Emma Lazarus,

664:HEALING POINTS IN REVIEW • Remind yourself frequently that the healing power is in your subconscious mind. • Know that faith is like a seed planted in the ground; it grows after its kind. Plant the idea (seed) in your mind, water and fertilize it with expectancy, and it will become manifest. • The idea you have for a book, new invention, or play is real in your mind. This is why you can believe you have it now. Believe in the reality of your idea, plan, or invention, and as you do, it will become manifest. • In praying for another, know that your silent inner knowing of wholeness, beauty, and perfection can change the negative patterns of the other’s subconscious mind and bring about wonderful results. • The miraculous healings you hear about at various shrines are due to imagination and blind faith that act on the subconscious mind, releasing the healing power. • All disease originates in the mind. Nothing appears on the body unless there is a mental pattern corresponding to it. • The symptoms of almost any disease can be induced in you by hypnotic suggestion. This shows you the power of your thought. • There is only one process of healing and that is faith. There is only one healing power; namely, your subconscious mind. • Whether the object of your faith is real or false, you will get results. Your subconscious mind responds to the thought in your mind. Look upon faith as a thought in your mind, and that will suffice. ~ Joseph Murphy,

665:History is replete with the seeds of apocalypse. In particular, the 19th/early 20th Century in France was a time of country-shattering events, whether it was the rise and fall of Napoleon Bonaparte (the creation and brutal upending of a whole new social order, within scarcely more than a decade), or the Great War (which devastated the country to a degree that is hard to believe today, wiping out an entire generation in the trenches). It was no great stretch to imagine a magical war engulfing Europe in 1914, and leaving Paris as a field of ruins filled with magical booby traps–the familiar monuments destroyed, the Seine overflowing with the residue of spells. It’s no secret that I’m fascinated by the narrative of war, and of recovery after war: how people struggle to rebuild lives and go on in the wake of world-shattering devastation; how the past can still cast a long, terrible shadow over everything; how the years before the war become a golden thing, regardless of how many injustices and hardships might have been happening then. I’m equally fascinated by history–the narratives that get preserved and enshrined, the stories that are passed down; and the speed with which some things get forgotten while others endure for generations. For me, the vocabulary and tropes of post-apocalypse were a great way to tackle those subjects, and to imagine what would happen in a city that had such a traumatic event in its past. ~ Aliette de Bodard,

666:Trick-cyclist or assuager of discontents, whatever his title, the psychiatrist had now passed into history, joining the necromancers, sorcerers and other practitioners of the black sciences. The Mental Freedom legislation enacted ten years earlier by the ultraconservative UW government had banned the profession outright and enshrined the individual’s freedom to be insane if he wanted to, provided he paid the full civil consequences for any infringements of the law. That was the catch, the hidden object of the MF laws. What had begun as a popular reaction against ‘subliminal living’ and the uncontrolled extension of techniques of mass manipulation for political and economic ends had quickly developed into a systematic attack on the psychological sciences. Over-permissive courts of law with their condoning of delinquency, pseudo-enlightened penal reformers, ‘Victims of society’, the psychologist and his patient all came under fierce attack. Discharging their self-hate and anxiety onto a convenient scapegoat, the new rulers, and the great majority electing them, outlawed all forms of psychic control, from the innocent market survey to lobotomy. The mentally ill were on their own, spared pity and consideration, made to pay to the hilt for their failings. The sacred cow of the community was the psychotic, free to wander where he wanted, drooling on the doorsteps, sleeping on sidewalks, and woe betide anyone who tried to help him. ~ J G Ballard,

667: Song Of The Captive Trojan Maiden Breeze, breeze of the sea, Who the wave-passers bearest home Swift and unwearied o'er the billows' foam, Ah! whither lead'st thou me Grief-worn? whose house must have This thing - a captured slave? Or shall I reach a harbor strand Dorian of Phthian, where they tell Apidanos o'erstreams the land, Father of fairest founts that well? Or else some island shore, Urged, wretched, on my way with brine-splashed oar, To lead a life of weary sorrow there, Where the first palm bare fruit, Where the bay raised each sacred shoot To form a bower, Leto's protection in her trial of hour? Or shall I, like Delian maiden, Sing of Artemis divine, Golden-filleted, bow-laden? Or at Pallas' sacred shrine The steeds to her fair chariot yoke To bear her, clad in saffron cloak, And braid the silken garments thin With saffron flowerets woven in? Or shall I sing the Titan brood, Whom Zeus, great Kronos' son, Poured twice-forged fire upon, And did to lasting sleep by that fell bolt and rude? Ah, sorrow for the young, For those whose life was long, For all the land, A heap of smoking ruin, Spear-pierced to her undoing 22 By Argive hand! And I shall be a slave Within a country not my own, Leaving the land that Europe has o'erthrown, 'Scaping the chambers of the grave. ~ Euripides,

668: The Depths Of The Sea FOR A PICTURE BY E. BURNE JONES Habes tota quod mente petisti Infelix. IN deep vague spaces of the lonely sea She deemed her soulless life was almost fair, Yet ever dreamed that in the upper air Lay happiness--supreme in mystery; Then saw him--out of reach as you I see-Worshipped his strength, the brown breast broad and bare, The arms that bent the oar, and grew aware Of what life means, and why it is good to be; And yearned for him with all her body sweet, Her lithe cold arms, and chill wet bosom's beat, Vowed him her beauty's unillumined shrine: So I--seeing you above me--turn and tire, Sick with an empty ache of long desire To drag you down, to hold you, make you mine! II Attained at last--the lifelong longing's prize! Raped from the world of air where warm loves glow, She bears him through her water-world below; Yet in those strange, glad, fair, mysterious eyes The shadow of the after-sorrow lies, And of the coming hour, when she shall know What she has lost in having gained him so, And whether death life's longing satisfies. She shall find out the meaning of despair, And know the anguish of a granted prayer, And how, all ended, all is yet undone. So I--I long for what, far off, you shine, 279 Not what you must be ere you could be mine, That which would crown despair if it were won. ~ Edith Nesbit,

669: Clorinda And Damon C. Damon come drive thy flocks this way. D. No : 'tis too late they went astray. C. I have a grassy Scutcheon spy'd, Where Flora blazons all her pride. The grass I aim to feast thy Sheep : The Flow'rs I for thy Temples keep. D. Grass withers; and the Flow'rs too fade. C. Seize the short Joyes then, ere they vade. Seest thou that unfrequented Cave ? D. That den? C. Loves Shrine. D. But Virtue's Grave. C. In whose cool bosome we may lye Safe from the Sun. D. Not Heaven's Eye. C. Near this, a Fountaines liquid Bell Tinkles within the concave Shell. 37 D. Might a Soul bath there and be clean, Or slake its Drought? C. What is 't you mean? D. These once had been enticing things, Clorinda, Pastures, Caves, and Springs. C. And what late change? D. The other day Pan met me. C. What did great Pan say? D. Words that transcend poor Shepherds skill, But he ere since my Songs does fill: And his Name swells my slender Oate. C. Sweet must Pan sound in Damons Note. D. Clorinda's voice might make it sweet. C. Who would not in Pan's Praises meet ? Chorus Of Pan the flowry pastures sing, Caves eccho and the Fountains ring. Sing then while he doth us inspire; For all the world is our Pan's Quire. 38 ~ Andrew Marvell,

670:TIME FOR MORE TEA He does not keep the wicked alive but gives the afflicted their rights. Job 36:6 We the people. That’s what so many Americans have rallied around since the unstoppable Tea Party grassroots movement emerged. It resonates deeply with our Founders’ vision for an America created by the people and for the people, while it fights to ensure our lives are not ruled by the elites in Washington. And where do these convictions originate? We believe we’re created in God’s image and thus have God-given rights that we must protect from the destructive forces of the federal government. Even as the liberal media mock our ideals and our leaders, and even dare to mock our God, we have continued to stand for what is right. We stand because our hope comes from above, not from our TV screens and from Washington. Liberal elites put patriots down and mock them because they’re scared of conscientious, independent citizens. They look around and realize there are more of us than there are of them. They’re scared, because they see how people flock to a message of truth and hope. Patriots will keep winning because when the true biblical hope that the Founders enshrined in our Constitution is held up next to the façade of hope that this world offers, hope rooted in Christ always wins. SWEET FREEDOM IN Action Today, support those in your community who are truly fighting to uphold our one nation under God! Get involved in a local campaign for a candidate who stands for these principles. ~ Sarah Palin,

671: Ode, Written On The Opening Of The Last Campaign Spring! thy impatient bloom restrain, Nor wake so soon thy genial pow'r, For, deeds of death must hail thy reign, And clouds of fate around thee low'r. Alas! not all thy store of charms For patriot hearts can comfort find, Or lull to peace the dread alarms Which rack the friends of human kind. In vain thy balmy breath to me Scents with its sweets the ev'ning gale; In vain the violet's charms I see, Or fondly mark thy primrose pale. To me thy softest zephyrs breathe, Of sorrow's soul-distracting tone, To me thy most attractive wreath Seems ting'd with human blood alone. Arrest thy steps, thou source of love, Thou genial friend of joy and life Let not thy smile propitious prove To works of carnage, scenes of strife. Bid Winter all his frowns recall, And back his icy footsteps trace; Again the soil in frost inthrall, And check the War-fiend's murd'rous chace. Ah, fruitless pray'r! thy hand divine MUST on the teeming season lead, And (contrast dire!) at War's red shrine Must bid unnumber'd victims bleed. But not in vain—if on this hour The fate of Freedom shall depend— If o'er this earth th' Eternal Pow'r The scale of Justice now extend. For then, O Spring, thy sun shall see The patriot flame triumphant shine; GALLIA shall bid the world be free, And WAR his blood-stain'd throne resign! ~ Amelia Opie,

672: The Landing Of The Pilgrim Fathers The breaking waves dashed high On a stern and rock-bound coast, And the woods, against a stormy sky, Their giant branches tost; And the heavy night hung dark The hills and water o'er, When a band of exiles moored their bark On the wild New England shore. Not as the conqueror comes, They, the true-hearted, came; Not with the roll of the stirring drums, And the trumpet that sings of fame; Not as the flying come, In silence and in fear, They shook the depths of the desert's gloom With their hymns of lofty cheer. Amidst the storm they sang, And the stars heard and the sea; And the sounding aisles of the dim woods rang To the anthem of the free. The ocean-eagle soared From his nest by the white wave's foam, And the rocking pines of the forest roared This was their welcome home! There were men with hoary hair Amidst that pilgrim band: Why had they come to wither there, Away from their childhood's land? There was woman's fearless eye, Lit by her deep love's truth; There was manhood's brow serenely high, And the fiery heart of youth. 235 What sought they thus afar? Bright jewels of the mine? The wealth of the seas? the spoils of war? They sought a faith's pure shrine! Ay, call it holy ground, The soil where first they trod! They have left unstained what there they found Freedom to worship God! ~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning,

673:LECHLADE, GLOUCESTERSHIRE. (Composed September, 1815. Published with “Alastor”, 1816.) The wind has swept from the wide atmosphere Each vapour that obscured the sunset’s ray; And pallid Evening twines its beaming hair In duskier braids around the languid eyes of Day: Silence and Twilight, unbeloved of men,    5 Creep hand in hand from yon obscurest glen. They breathe their spells towards the departing day, Encompassing the earth, air, stars, and sea; Light, sound, and motion own the potent sway, Responding to the charm with its own mystery.    10 The winds are still, or the dry church-tower grass Knows not their gentle motions as they pass. Thou too, aereal Pile! whose pinnacles Point from one shrine like pyramids of fire, Obeyest in silence their sweet solemn spells,    15 Clothing in hues of heaven thy dim and distant spire, Around whose lessening and invisible height Gather among the stars the clouds of night. The dead are sleeping in their sepulchres: And, mouldering as they sleep, a thrilling sound,    20 Half sense, half thought, among the darkness stirs, Breathed from their wormy beds all living things around, And mingling with the still night and mute sky Its awful hush is felt inaudibly. Thus solemnized and softened, death is mild    25 And terrorless as this serenest night: Here could I hope, like some inquiring child Sporting on graves, that death did hide from human sight Sweet secrets, or beside its breathless sleep That loveliest dreams perpetual watch did keep.    30 ~ Percy Bysshe Shelley,

674: Though All The World Though all the world should stand aside, And leave you to your sorrow, And you from none, or near, or wide, A smile or tear could borrow; I still would stand with arms outspread, In love and trust unshaken, To make a nest for that dear head, By all the rest forsaken. Come, let me crouch beside your knees, And we will talk togetherYou who have passed o'er stormy seas, And I through tranquil weather. What is to me the shallow scoff Of pert or pious sneerer? Let the base crowd move further off, I only creep the nearer. Sweet child! 'tis not your deep blue eyes, Nor yet your raven tresses, Nor that strange mystic look, more wise Than all your mouth expresses: 'Tis not your face, 'tis not your form, Your accents bright and clever, Which bind me with a strength enorm, And make me yours for ever. And yet, and yet, 'tis all of these, But oh! 'tis something rarer, Makes every pleasing grace more please, And each fair charm the fairer. It is because your soul is high, If your affections lowly, That I prostrate myself and sigh Before a shrine too holy. And if fell clouds quenched girlhood's beam, And cast their shadow o'er it, Your lustre now doth brighter seem 558 For those dark days before it. Like those fair lamps that change by night Their radiance with their motionBurn low, then fling a flood of light Athwart the murky ocean. ~ Alfred Austin,

675:Healthy skepticism is good. It saves us from being too naive or too cynical. But it is impossible to preserve democracy when the well of trust runs completely dry. The freedoms enshrined in the Bill of Rights and the checks and balances in our Constitution were designed to prevent the self-inflicted wounds we face today. But as our long history reveals, those written words must be applied by people charged with giving life to them in each new era. That’s how African Americans moved from being slaves to being equal under the law and how they set off on the long journey to be equal in fact, a journey we know is not over. The same story can be told of women’s rights, workers’ rights, immigrants’ rights, the rights of the disabled, the struggle to define and protect religious liberty, and to guarantee equality to people without regard to their sexual orientation or gender identity. These have been hard-fought battles, waged on uncertain, shifting terrain. Each advance has sparked a strong reaction from those whose interests and beliefs are threatened. Today the changes are happening so fast, in an environment so covered in a blizzard of information and misinformation, that our very identities are being challenged. What does it mean to be an American today? It’s a question that will answer itself if we get back to what’s brought us this far: widening the circle of opportunity, deepening the meaning of freedom, and strengthening bonds of community. Shrinking the definition of them and expanding the definition of us. ~ Bill Clinton,

676:There are many stories of people who were actually able to see the awakened state by breaking into laughter—seeing the contrast, the irony of polar situations. For instance there was the hermit whose devotee lived several miles away in a village. This devotee supported the hermit, supplying him with food and the other necessities of life. Most of the time the devotee sent his wife or daughter or son to bring the hermit his supplies; but one day the hermit heard that the donor himself was coming to see him. The hermit thought, “I must impress him, I must clean and polish the shrine objects and make the shrine very neat and my room extremely tidy.” So he cleaned and rearranged everything until his shrine looked very impressive with bowls of water and butter lamps burning brightly. And when he had finished, he sat down and began to admire the room and look around. Everything looked very neat, somehow unreal, and he saw that his shrine appeared unreal as well. Suddenly, to his surprise he realized that he was being a hypocrite. Then he went into the kitchen and got handfuls of ashes and threw them at the shrine until his room was a complete mess. When his patron came, he was extremely impressed by the natural quality of the room, by its not being tidy. The hermit could not hold himself together. He burst into laughter and said, “I tried to tidy myself and my room, but then I thought perhaps I should show it to you this way.” And so they both, patron and hermit, burst into laugher. That was a great moment of awakening for both of them. ~ Ch gyam Trungpa,

677:But when they made love he was offended by her eyes. They behaved as though they belonged to someone else. Someone watching. Looking out of the window at the sea. At a boat in the river. Or a passerby in the mist in a hat. He was exasperated because he didn't know what that look meant. He put it somewhere between indifference and despair. He didn’t know that in some places, like the country that Rahel came from, various kinds of despair competed for primacy. And that personal despair could never be desperate enough. That something happened when personal turmoil dropped by at the wayside shrine of the vast, violent, circling, driving, ridiculous, insane, unfeasible, public turmoil of a nation. That Big God howled like a hot wind, and demanded obeisance. Then Small God (cozy and contained, private and limited) came away cauterized, laughing numbly at his own temerity. Inured by the confirmation of his own inconsequence, he became resilient and truly indifferent. Nothing mattered much. Nothing much mattered. And the less it mattered, the less it mattered. It was never important enough. Because Worse Things had happened. In the country that she came from, poised forever between the terror of war and the horror of peace, Worse Things kept happening. So Small God laughed a hollow laugh, and skipped away cheerfully. Like a rich boy in shorts. He whistled, kicked stones. The source of his brittle elation was the relative smallness of his misfortune. He climbed into people’s eyes and became an exasperating expression. ~ Arundhati Roy,

678:This preoccupation with the classics was the happiest thing that could have befallen me. It gave me a standard of values. To live for a time close to great minds is the best kind of education. ... Faulty though my own practice has always been, I learned sound doctrine - the virtue of a clean, bare style, of simplicity, of a hard substance and an austere pattern. Above all the Calvinism of my boyhood was broadened, mellowed, and also confirmed. For if the classics widened my sense of the joy of life they also taught its littleness and transience; if they exalted the dignity of human nature they insisted upon its frailties and the aidos with which the temporal must regard the eternal. I lost then any chance of being a rebel, for I became profoundly conscious of the dominion of unalterable law. ... Indeed, I cannot imagine a more precious viaticum than the classics of Greece and Rome, or a happier fate than that one's youth should be intertwined with their world of clear, mellow lights, gracious images, and fruitful thoughts. They are especially valuable to those who believe that Time enshrines and does not destroy, and who do what I am attempting to do in these pages, and go back upon and interpret the past. No science or philosophy can give that colouring, for such provide a schematic, and not a living, breathing universe. And I do not think that the mastery of other literatures can give it in a like degree, for they do not furnish the same totality of life - a complete world recognisable as such, a humane world, yet one untouchable by decay and death... ~ John Buchan,

679:But here’s the thing,” says Paul. “I would bet that if someone did a study and asked, ‘Okay, your kid’s three, rank these aspects of your life in terms of enjoyment,’ and then, five years later, asked, ‘Tell me what your life was like when your kid was three,’ you’d have totally different responses.”   WITH THIS SIMPLE OBSERVATION, Paul has stumbled onto one of the biggest paradoxes in the research on human affect: we enshrine things in memory very differently from how we experience them in real time. The psychologist Daniel Kahneman has coined a couple of terms to make the distinction. He talks about the “experiencing self” versus the “remembering self.” The experiencing self is the self who moves through the world and should therefore, at least in theory, be more likely to control our daily life choices. But that’s not how it works out. Rather, it is the remembering self who plays a far more influential role in our lives, particularly when we make decisions or plan for the future, and this fact is made doubly strange when one considers that the remembering self is far more prone to error: our memories are idiosyncratic, selective, and subject to a rangy host of biases. We tend to believe that how an episode ended was how it felt as a whole (so that, alas, the entire experience of a movie, a vacation, or even a twenty-year marriage can be deformed by a bad ending, forever recalled as an awful experience rather than an enjoyable one until it turned sour). We remember milestones and significant changes more vividly than banal things we do more frequently. ~ Jennifer Senior,

680: Plead For Me Oh, thy bright eyes must answer now, When Reason, with a scornful brow, Is mocking at my overthrow! Oh, thy sweet tongue must plead for me And tell, why I have chosen thee! Stern Reason is to judgment come, Arrayed in all her forms of gloom: Wilt thou, my advocate, be dumb? No, radiant angel, speak and say, Why I did cast the world away. Why I have persevered to shun The common paths that others run, And on a strange road journeyed on, Heedless, alike, of wealth and power Of glory's wreath and pleasure's flower. These, once, indeed, seemed Beings Divine; And they, perchance, heard vows of mine, And saw my offerings on their shrine; But, careless gifts are seldom prized, And mine were worthily despised. So, with a ready heart I swore To seek their altar-stone no more; And gave my spirit to adore Thee, ever - present, phantom thing; My slave, my comrade, and my king, A slave, because I rule thee still; Incline thee to my changeful will, And make thy influence good or ill: A comrade, for by day and night Thou art my intimate delight, My darling pain that wounds and sears And wrings a blessing out from tears By deadening me to earthly cares; 63 And yet, a king, though Prudence well Have taught thy subject to rebel. And am I wrong to worship, where Faith cannot doubt, nor hope despair, Since my own soul can grant my prayer? Speak, God of visions, plead for me, And tell why I have chosen thee ! ~ Emily Jane Brontë,

681: Speak, God Of Visions O, thy bright eyes must answer now, When Reason, with a scornful brow, Is mocking at my overthrow! O, thy sweet tongue must plead for me, And tell why I have chosen thee! Stern Reason is to judgment come, Arrayed in all her forms of gloom: Wilt thou, my advocate, be dumb? No, radiant angel, speak and say Why I did cast the world away; Why I have presevered to shun The common paths that others run, And on a strange road journeyed on, Heedless alike of wealth and power, Of Glory's wreath and Pleasure's flower. These once, indeed, seemed Beings Divine; And they, perchance, heard vows of mine, And saw my offerings on their shrine; But careless gifts are seldom prized, And mine were worthily despised. So, with a ready heart I swore To seek their altar-stone no more; And gave my spirit to adore Thee, ever-present, phantom thing— My slave, my comrade, and my king. A slave, because I rule thee still, Incline thee to my changeful will, And make thy influence good or ill; A comrade, for by day and night Thou art my intimate delight,— My darling pain that wounds and sears, And wrings a blessing out of tears Be deadening me to earthly cares; 79 And yet, a king, though Prudence well Have taught thy subject to rebel. And I am wrong to worship where Faith cannot doubt, nor Hope despair, Since my own soul can grant my prayer? Speak, God of Visions, plead for me, And tell why I have chosen thee! ~ Emily Jane Brontë,

682:The American real-estate industry believed segregation to be a moral principle. As late as 1950, the National Association of Real Estate Boards' code of ethics warned that "a Realtor should never be instrumental in introducing into a neighborhood ... any race or nationality, or any individuals whose presence will clearly be detrimental to property values." A 1943 brochure specified that such potential undesireables might include madams, bootleggers, gangsters - and "a colored man of means who was giving his children a college education and thought they were entitled to live among whites." The federal government concurred. It was the How Owners' Loan Corporation, not a private trade association, that pioneered the practice of redlining, selectively granting loans and insisting that any property it insured be covered by a restrictive covenant - a clause in the deed forbidding the sale of the property to anyone other than whites. Millions of dollars flowed from tax coffers into segregated white neighborhoods. "For perhaps the first time, the federal government embraced the discriminatory attitudes of the marketplace," the historian Kenneth R. Jackson wrote in his 1985 book, Crabgrass Frontier, a history of suburbanization. "Previously, prejudices were personalized and individualized; FHA exhorted segregation and enshrined it as public policy. Whole areas of cities were declared ineligible for loan guarantees." Redlining was not officially outlawed until 1968, by the Fair Housing Act. By then the damage was done - and reports of redlining by banks have continued. ~ Ta Nehisi Coates,

683:As we mentioned earlier,” Yusuf began, “Mount Moriah is the hill in Jerusalem that is graced by the Muslim shrine known as the Dome of the Rock. This real estate is no doubt the most religiously revered in the world. It is valued by Muslims as one of their holiest sites, remembered by Jews and Christians alike as the site of the Holy Temple in ancient times, and looked to by some as the site at which another temple will one day be built. The eyes and hearts of the world are focused on Mount Moriah. “Because of this, that revered piece of land is an outward symbol both of our conflicts and our possibilities. One side may say it is their holy place, set apart for millennia. Others may believe it was bequeathed them by God. There seems to be little opportunity for peace in such views. Looked at in another way, however, this passionate belief provides the portal to peace. “Think about it. From within the box, passions, beliefs, and personal needs seem to divide us. When we get out of the box, however, we learn that this has been a lie. Our passions, beliefs, and needs do not divide but unite: it is by virtue of our own passions, beliefs, and needs that we can see and understand others’. If we have beliefs we cherish, then we know how important others’ beliefs must be to them. And if we have needs, then our own experience equips us to notice the needs of others. To scale Mount Moriah is to ascend a mountain of hope. At least it is if one climbs in a way that lifts his soul to an out-of-the-box summit—a place from where he sees not only buildings and homes but people as well. ~ The Arbinger Institute,

684: Oh, Thy Bright Eyes Must Answer Now Oh, thy bright eyes must answer now, When Reason, with a scornful brow, Is mocking at my overthrow! Oh, thy sweet tongue must plead for me And tell why I have chosen thee!. Stern Reason is to judgment come, Arrayed in all her forms of gloom: Wilt thou, my advocate, be dumb? No, radiant angel, speak and say Why I did cast the world away, Why I have persevered to shun The common paths that others run; And on a strange road journeyed on, Heedless, alike of wealth and power Of glory's wreath and pleasure's flower. These, once, indeed, seemed Beings Divine; And they, perchance, heard vows of mine, And saw my offerings on their shrine; But careless gifts are seldom prized, And mine were worthily despised. So, with a ready heart, I swore To seek their altar-stone no more; And gave my spirit to adore Thee, ever-present, phantom thing My slave, my comrade, and my king. A slave, because I rule thee still; Incline thee to my changeful will, And make thy influence good or ill: A comrade, for by day and night Thou art my intimate delight, My darling pain that wounds and sears, And wrings a blessing out from tears By deadening me to earthly cares; 60 And yet, a king, though Prudence well Have taught thy subject to rebel. And am I wrong to worship where Faith cannot doubt, nor hope despair, Since my own soul can grant my prayer? Speak, God of visions, plead for me, And tell why I have chosen thee!. ~ Emily Jane Brontë,

685: To ---THE BROKEN moon lay in the autumn sky, And I lay at thy feet; You bent above me; in the silence I Could hear my wild heart beat. I spoke; my soul was full of trembling fears At what my words would bring: You rais’d your face, your eyes were full of tears, As the sweet eyes of Spring. You kiss’d me then, I worshipp’d at thy feet Upon the shadowy sod. Oh, fool, I lov’d thee! lov’d thee, lovely cheat! Better than Fame or God. My soul leap’d up beneath thy timid kiss; What then to me were groans, Or pain, or death? Earth was a round of bliss, I seem’d to walk on thrones. And you were with me ’mong the rushing wheels, ’Mid Trade’s tumultuous jars; And where to awe-struck wilds the Night reveals Her hollow gulfs of stars. Before your window, as before a shrine, I ’ve knelt ’mong dew-soak’d flowers, While distant music-bells, with voices fine, Measur’d the midnight hours. There came a fearful moment: I was pale, You wept, and never spoke, But clung around me as the woodbine frail Clings, pleading, round an oak. Upon my wrong I steadied up my soul, And flung thee from myself; I spurn’d thy love as ’t were a rich man’s dole,— It was my only wealth. 15 I spurn’d thee! I, who lov’d thee, could have died, That hop’d to call thee “wife,” And bear thee, gently-smiling at my side, Through all the shocks of life! Too late, thy fatal beauty and thy tears, Thy vows, thy passionate breath; I ’ll meet thee not in Life, nor in the spheres Made visible by Death. ~ Alexander Smith,

686:The Fates themselves grant us one or two places in our lives where the thread untwists and we can follow either one strand or the other. Better to know when and where those choices will come to us instead of being taken by surprise. “ “Why only one or two?” I asked, thinking of all the moments my life had already accumulated in which I’d chosen to follow a different path than the one most people would expect of me. “Why not say that every day lets me choose my own future?” The priest chuckled. “What a gift you have for joking, Lady Helen! You know your future. You’ll be Sparta’s queen, living a life blessed by the gods. Your only surprises will be the name of your husband and whether your babies will be sons or daughters. You don’t need to visit the Pythia. But your noble brothers will be heroes, making their own futures; heroes should know what awaits them.” “He’s right, Helen,” Castor said. “Polydeuces and I should know our fate.” Castor’s fate? He didn’t need an oracle to discover that; I could tell him exactly what it would be. The young priest’s glib words were better than underground fumes for giving me a vision of what lay in store for both of my brothers: They were going to have their ears filled with flattery, then be persuaded to leave a rich gift at Apollo’s shrine just to hear some poor girl babble riddles while she choked half to death on smoke. Then they’d made another offering just to have Apollo’s priests translate the Pythia’s wild words. If their gifts to the sun god were too extravagant, I could also predict what Father would have to say about it when we got home. ~ Esther M Friesner,

687:The period of John Adams’s presidency declined into a time of political savagery with few parallels in American history, a season of paranoia in which the two parties surrendered all trust in each other. Like other Federalists infected with war fever, Hamilton increasingly mistook dissent for treason and engaged in hyperbole. In one newspaper piece, he blasted the Jeffersonians as “more Frenchmen than Americans” and declared that to slake their ambition and thirst for revenge they stood ready “to immolate the independence and welfare of their country at the shrine of France.” 1 Republicans behaved no better, interpreting policies they disliked as the treacherous deeds of men in league with England and bent on bringing back George III. The indiscriminate use of pejorative labels—“Jacobins” for Republicans, “Anglomen” for Federalists—reflected the rancorously unfair emotions. During this melancholy time, the founding fathers appeared as all-too-fallible mortals. An episode at Congress Hall in January 1798 symbolized the acrimonious mood. Representative Matthew Lyon of Vermont, a die-hard Republican, began to mock the aristocratic sympathies of Roger Griswold, a Federalist from Connecticut. When Griswold then taunted Lyon for alleged cowardice during the Revolution, Lyon spat right in his face. Griswold got a hickory cane and proceeded to thrash Lyon, who retaliated by taking up fire tongs and attacking Griswold. The two members of Congress ended up fighting on the floor like common ruffians. “Party animosities have raised a wall of separation between those who differ in political sentiments,” Jefferson wrote sadly to Angelica Church. ~ Ron Chernow,

688: Pan Liveth They told me once that Pan was dead, And so, in sooth, I thought him; For vainly where the streamlets led Through flowery meads I sought him-Nor in his dewy pasture bed Nor in the grove I caught him. "Tell me," 'twas so my clamor ran-"Tell me, oh, where is Pan?" But, once, as on my pipe I played A requiem sad and tender, Lo, thither came a shepherd-maid-Full comely she and slender! I were indeed a churlish blade With wailings to offend 'er-For, surely, wooing's sweeter than A mourning over Pan! So, presently, whiles I did scan That shepherd-maiden pretty, And heard her accents, I began To pipe a cheerful ditty; And so, betimes, forgot old Pan Whose death had waked my pity; So--so did Love undo the man Who sought and pined for Pan! He was not dead! I found him there-The Pan that I was after! Caught in that maiden's tangling hair, Drunk with her song and laughter! I doubt if there be otherwhere A merrier god or dafter-Nay, nor a mortal kindlier than Is this same dear old Pan! Beside me, as my pipe I play, My shepherdess is lying, While here and there her lambkins stray 251 As sunny hours go flying; They look like me--those lambs--they say, And that I'm not denying! And for that sturdy, romping clan, All glory be to Pan! Pan is not dead, O sweetheart mine! It is to hear his voices In every note and every line Wherein the heart rejoices! He liveth in that sacred shrine That Love's first, holiest choice is! So pipe, my pipe, while still you can, Sweet songs in praise of Pan! ~ Eugene Field,

689:Without dioceses, local parishes and village churches could barely continue, even if the villages themselves could have long survived the constant turmoil and bloodshed. And as we have seen, monasteries and shrines could not last for long in an environment of prolonged warfare. The strength of early and medieval Christianity was that it created a sanctified landscape in which Christian institutions were visible everywhere. The weakness of being so heavily invested in real estate was that it left an almost infinite abundance of tempting targets for plunder and destruction, and once these were gone, so were many of the forces that kept believers attached to the faith. The question must arise as to whether some other kind of organization might have offered a better chance of resisting decline. In theory, we can imagine church structures less dependent on monks and clergy, and lacking the tight hierarchy dependent on the empire’s cities. Retroactively, we could even think of a Christianity that looked more Protestant, in the sense of placing more control and initiative in the hands of ordinary believers, whose decentralized church life would depend less on institutions than on direct access to the scriptures. But such an alternative is difficult to conceive realistically, as monasticism and episcopacy were so deeply en-grained in Eastern tradition, while the Protestant idea of access to the Bible assumes forms of printing technology that would not be feasible until centuries afterward. And the annihilation of European heretics like the Cathars suggests that even quite imaginative forms of clandestine organization could not withstand unrelenting persecution. ~ Philip Jenkins,

690:In 1846 Easter fell on the same date in the Latin and Greek Orthodox calendars, so the holy shrines were much more crowded than usual, and the mood was very tense. The two religious communities had long been arguing about who should have first right to carry out their Good Friday rituals on the altar of Calvary inside the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the spot where the cross of Jesus was supposed to have been inserted in the rock. During recent years the rivalry between the Latins and the Greeks had reached such fever pitch that Mehmet Pasha, the Ottoman governor of Jerusalem, had been forced to position soldiers inside and outside the church to preserve order. But even this had not prevented fights from breaking out. On this Good Friday the Latin priests arrived with their white linen altar-cloth to find that the Greeks had got there first with their silk embroidered cloth. The Catholics demanded to see the Greeks’ firman, their decree from the Sultan in Constantinople, empowering them to place their silk cloth on the altar first. The Greeks demanded to see the Latins’ firman allowing them to remove it. A fight broke out between the priests, who were quickly joined by monks and pilgrims on either side. Soon the whole church was a battlefield. The rival groups of worshippers fought not only with their fists, but with crucifixes, candlesticks, chalices, lamps and incense-burners, and even bits of wood which they tore from the sacred shrines. The fighting continued with knives and pistols smuggled into the Holy Sepulchre by worshippers of either side. By the time the church was cleared by Mehmet Pasha’s guards, more than forty people lay dead on the floor.1 ~ Orlando Figes,

691: Grey-Eyed Mabel I gazed on orbs of flashing black; I met the glow of hazel light; I marked the hue of laughing blue, That sparkled in the festive night. But none could fling a lasting spell To hold me with unchanging power-The chains they cast were never fast Beyond the gay and fleeting hour-Till Grey-eyed Mabel's gentle glance, With blushing sense and beauty rife, Bade my soul cry with burning sigh, 'I'm thine, and only thine, for life.' Black, blue, and hazel stars have set, But Mabel's grey eyes lead me yet. What was it in sweet Mabel's eyes That told me what no others told, That roused the dull, that pleased the wise, That charmed the young and cheered the old? What was it held my world-worn breast In holy thrall--unknown before? What was it those grey eyes expressed That made me worship and adore? It was the pure and tender ray That filled those eyes in joy or woe; It was the beam that could not play Without the fountain stream below; It was the beam of simple truth, Of Woman's faith and trusting Youth. Those soft, grey eyes were watched by mine With earnest, deep, and secret prayer; I knew, I felt, my earthly shrine Was found and fixed for ever--there. I poured my heart one moonlit night Into sweet Mabel's listening ear; Our mutual vow, from then till now, Bound each to each--fond, firm, and dear. Our boys and girls are growing round, And all give promise, brave and fair, But one, young cherub form is found First in my love, my hope, my care. And why?--ah! why? My soul replies, 'She has dear Mabel's soft, grey eyes.' ~ Eliza Cook,

692:Marina leaned her head against him and sniffled. It was common in this day and age, when waiting someplace, to look around at your involuntary companions and imagine you were trapped with them someplace more dire: a hostage situation or a building on fire, something requiring teamwork and survival. Could you build the camaraderie promised in movies about such times, or would you fall apart? Phil Needle looked around and realized, quietly but sharply, that he and his wife would not survive this. Gwen's disappearance would slaughter them. YOU WANT IT WHEN? was the caption on the poster. It was talking about office work, and the sad fact, true at the time, that people want things right away and that other people don't care about that. The poster reminded people that it didn't matter what you wanted. Where was she? Where did somebody put her? Where were those ragged thumbs of hers, and her odd, tiny earlobes? Was he about to become one of those guys, clutching a photograph of Gwen, on the news every year in support of an extreme new crime law? Were they becoming one of those families used as a murmured example of the wickedness of the world, as a worst-case scenario to comfort those whose daughter was merely pregnant or paralyzed? Would there be a funeral, everyone sweating in black clothes in the summer and squinting in sunglasses? Oh God, would there be a hasty peer-group shrine, wherever she was found, with cheap flowers and crappy poetry melting in the rain? Would her college fund sit forgotten for a while in the bank, like a tumor thought benign, and then be emptied impulsively on some toy to cheer himself up? He had seen in a magazine a handsome automobile some months ago, shiny as clean water. ~ Daniel Handler,

693:Mithras is a Persian light and warrior god adopted by the Roman army as their tutelary deity.  His name means “Friend”.  Mithras was the emissary of Ahura Mazda, the supreme power of good, who battled Ahriman, the supreme evil.  Mithras slew the divine bull to release its life-giving blood into the earth, and creatures that served Ahriman like scorpions and serpents tried to stop this happening. Mithras was often depicted with a pointed cap, and a number of reliefs show him in the act of slaying the bull.  As a solar god he was directly equated to Sol Invictus by the Romans, as can be seen from inscriptions.[469]  Twelve inscriptions to him have been found to date.[470] There were seven grades in the Mithraic mysteries, which were only open to free men.  The Mithraic cult was highly tolerant of other deities, as is evidences by depictions of other gods in the shrines.  Also as the soldier god, priesthoods were known to bring their statues to the Mithraea (temples) for protection when danger threatened. The Mithraea were usually small, and have preserved their mysteries to an extent as little writing remains from them.  A relief from Housesteads (Northumberland) shows Mithras bearing a sword and spear rising from an egg, surrounded by a hoop depicting the signs of the zodiac.  A silver amulet found at St Albans similarly depicts Mithras rising from a pile of stones.  More commonly images on altars showed him sacrificing a bull, such as at Rudchester (Northumberland), Carrawburgh (Northumberland) and the London Mithraeum.  There are now five known Mithraea in Britain, those at Caernarvon, Carrawburgh, Housesteads, London and Rudchester.  Of these all were purely military apart from the London Mithraea.  ~ David Rankine,

694:Beginning thein Book 1 0. 1. In thee beginning, creation Godded the Heavens ere thee. 2. And thou wert without form and void, knowing neither darkness nor light, having no I by which to divine them. And the spilling of your Father moved amidst the waters that came to make you come. 3. And Dad said, Let there be my firmament in the midst of Her waters, and let it divide Her waters as a sword should its sheath. And 20,000 legions of sireofhim were thrust unto the breach by the bidding of their master. 4. And in the Heavens of their heads, in the limbic marchlands of their intimacy, angels roared and dragons sang, and hippogriffs commissurated across fields of blood-filled furrows. 5. ”.are parents our Myths“ 6. Not knowing that they do sow, they sing thee into being. 7. Blind light blazes - a lamp in an empty grave - an O-void shrine. Its name until you came was No, or Un, and there was naught else: no person, place, or thing. And yet - it was as though a thousand million tiny fingers beaconed you out of the dark. 8. Brightnest of paraspectral radiance, unrememeasurable, ununderstandable, that a snake-shaped You came swimming to. So many of you came, writhing, flagellating, so that this shrine became like a shining sun, and one - only one - was chosen to enter the Codesh of Codes. It brought creative agony, the pain of Somethingness, the sudden searing mystortury of Being, since when we have called it Limited. 9. But how could you not have helped but see the tiny hidden singing Unlimited Light, your Own Sopht Aura? Sire of sirens and sunrise and serapheim? 10. This is what you aur - a sarcophagus of secreted light! 11. Thistory is You. ~ Avalon Brantley,

695: More Light! More Light! For Heinrich Blucher and Hannah Arendt Composed in the Tower before his execution These moving verses, and being brought at that time Painfully to the stake, submitted, declaring thus: "I implore my God to witness that I have made no crime." Nor was he forsaken of courage, but the death was horrible, The sack of gunpowder failing to ignite. His legs were blistered sticks on which the black sap Bubbled and burst as he howled for the Kindly Light. And that was but one, and by no means one of he worst; Permitted at least his pitiful dignity; And such as were by made prayers in the name of Christ, That shall judge all men, for his soul's tranquility. We move now to outside a German wood. Three men are there commanded to dig a hole In which the two Jews are ordered to lie down And be buried alive by the third, who is a Pole. Not light from the shrine at Weimar beyond the hill Nor light from heaven appeared. But he did refuse. A Luger settled back deeply in its glove. He was ordered to change places with the Jews. Much casual death had drained away their souls. The thick dirt mounted toward the quivering chin. When only the head was exposed the order came To dig him out again and to get back in. No light, no light in the blue Polish eye. When he finished a riding boot packed down the earth. The Luger hovered lightly in its glove. He was shot in the belly and in three hours bled to death. No prayers or incense rose up in those hours Which grew to be years, and every day came mute Ghosts from the ovens, sifting through crisp air, 24 And settled upon his eyes in a black soot. ~ Anthony Evan Hecht,

696:A meal is sacramental when the rich and poor, powerful and marginalized, sinners and saints share equal status around the table. A local church is sacramental when it is a place where the last are first and the first are last and where those who hunger and thirst are fed. And the church universal is sacramental when it knows no geographic boundaries, no political parties, no single language or culture, and when it advances not through power and might, but through acts of love, joy, and peace and missions of mercy, kindness, humility. In this sense, church gives us the chance to riff on Jesus’ description of the kingdom, to add a few new metaphors of our own. We might say the kingdom is like St. Lydia’s in Brooklyn where strangers come together and remember Jesus when they eat. The kingdom is like the Refuge in Denver, where addicts and academics, single moms and suburban housewives come together to tell each other the truth. The kingdom is like Thistle Farms where women heal from abuse by helping to heal others. The kingdom is like the church that would rather die than cast two of its own out the doors because they are gay. The kingdom is like St. Luke’s Episcopal Church in Cleveland, Tennessee, where you are loved just for showing up. And even still, the kingdom remains a mystery just beyond our grasp. It is here, and not yet, present and still to come. Consummation, whatever that means, awaits us. Until then, all we have are metaphors. All we have are almosts and not quites and wayside shrines. All we have are imperfect people in an imperfect world doing their best to produce outward signs of inward grace and stumbling all along the way. All we have is this church—this lousy, screwed-up, glorious church—which, by God’s grace, is enough. ~ Rachel Held Evans,

697:We find this even more clearly expressed in Paul, who stresses that justification is apart from works of the law. We might be surprised, then, to see that Paul also emphasizes the necessity of good works for final salvation. God repays every person “according to his works” (Rom 2:6). Those who do evil will suffer “wrath and indignation” (2:8) and “affliction and distress” (2:9), while those who do good will enjoy “eternal life” (2:7, 10). Some have taken these verses to be hypothetical, but the conclusion to Romans 2 shows that the hypothetical reading isn’t convincing, for we see that those who obey do so because of the work of the Spirit in them (2:26 – 29). Their obedience isn’t self-generated but the result of the supernatural work of the Spirit in their lives. Hence, their obedience doesn’t earn or merit eternal life but is the result of the new life they already possess, showing that God’s grace has transformed them in Jesus Christ. It is important to recognize that obedience isn’t motivated by a desire to be accepted by God. Acceptance with God is by faith alone through the work of Christ alone and to the glory of God alone. Obedience, then, stems from joy, from a delight in God, from a desire to do what pleases him. Obedience is necessary, for those who don’t obey reveal that they haven’t truly been accepted by God and show that they don’t know God’s love. But the obedience of believers isn’t animated by a desire to receive God’s love. On the contrary, it is a response to his love. All Christian obedience enshrines the principle: “we love because he first loved us” (1 John 4:19). So too, we obey because we know his love. Obedience, then, flows out of our freedom and joy. Though it is required, it isn’t simply a duty, it is a delight. ~ Thomas R Schreiner,

698: At Her Grave Lo, here among the rest you sleep, As though no difference were 'Twixt them and you, more wide, more deep, Than such as fondness loves to keep Round each lone sepulchre. Yet they but human, you divine, Warmed by that heavenly breath, Which, when ephemeral lights decline, Like lamp before nocturnal shrine, Still burneth after death. Yes, here in Tuscan soil you lie, With Tuscan turf above; And, lifting silent spires on high, The cypresses remind the sky Of the city of your love. And you did grow so like to her Wherein you dwelt so long, Your thoughts, like her May roses, were Untrained, unchecked, but how astir, And oh how sweet, with song! The Poet of Olympian mien His frenzy doth control, And, gazing on the dread Unseen, Keep mind majestic, will serene, And adamantine soul. He, save to Wisdom sternly true, Is but the sport of Fate And gladiatorial pain. But you! A poet, and a woman too! The burden was too great. And so you laid it down, and here, Oblivious of life's load, Quiet you sleep through all the year, 158 Young Spring, staid Summer, Autumn sere, And Winter's icy goad. The swallows, freshly on the wing, In April's sun rejoice; The nightingales unceasing sing; Yes, Spring brings back the birds of Spring, But not, alas! your voice. So round your sleep I soft let fall Frail emblems of regret; The lowly wind-flower, tulip tall, The iris mantling wayside wall, And weeping violet. My votive flowers to-day will blow, To-morrow be decayed; But, though long sunk from sight, I know, The glory of your afterglow Will never wholly fade. ~ Alfred Austin,

699: Jefferson's Daughter 'It is asserted, on the authority of an American Newspaper, that the daughter of Thomas Jefferson, late President of the United States, was sold at New Orleans for $1,000.'-Morning Chronicle. Can the blood that, at Lexington, poured o'er the plain, When the sons warred with tyrants their rights to uphold, Can the tide of Niagara wipe out the stain? No! Jefferson's child has been bartered for gold! Do you boast of your freedom? Peace, babblers-be still; Prate not of the goddess who scarce deigns to hear; Have ye power to unbind? Are ye wanting in will? Must the groans of your bondman still torture the ear? The daughter of Jefferson sold for a slave! The child of a freeman for dollars and francs! The roar of applause, when your orators rave, Is lost in the sound of her chain, as it clanks. Peace, then, ye blasphemers of Liberty's name! Though red was the blood by your forefathers spilt, Still redder your cheeks should be mantled with shame, Till the spirit of freedom shall cancel the guilt. But the brand of the slave is the tint of his skin, Though his heart may beat loyal and true underneath; While the soul of the tyrant is rotten within, And his white the mere cloak to the blackness of death. Are ye deaf to the plaints that each moment arise? Is it thus ye forget the mild precepts of Penn,Unheeding the clamor that 'maddens the skies,' As ye trample the rights of your dark fellow-men? When the incense that glows before Liberty's shrine, Is unmixed with the blood of the galled and oppressed, O, then, and then only, the boast may be thine, That the stripes and stars wave o'er a land of the blest. 180 ~ Anonymous Americas,

700: Three Portraits Of Prince Charles 1731 BEAUTIFUL face of a child, Lighted with laughter and glee, Mirthful, and tender, and wild, My heart is heavy for thee! 1744 Beautiful face of a youth, As an eagle poised to fly forth To the old land loyal of truth, To the hills and the sounds of the North: Fair face, daring and proud, Lo! the shadow of doom, even now, The fate of thy line, like a cloud, Rests on the grace of thy brow! 1773 Cruel and angry face, Hateful and heavy with wine, Where are the gladness, the grace, The beauty, the mirth that were thine? Ah, my Prince, it were well,— Hadst thou to the gods been dear,— To have fallen where Keppoch fell, With the war-pipe loud in thine ear! To have died with never a stain On the fair White Rose of Renown, To have fallen, fighting in vain, For thy father, thy faith, and thy crown! More than thy marble pile, With its women weeping for thee, Were to dream in thine ancient isle, To the endless dirge of the sea! But the Fates deemed otherwise; Far thou sleepest from home, 240 From the tears of the Northern skies, In the secular dust of Rome. A city of death and the dead, But thither a pilgrim came, Wearing on weary head The crowns of years and fame: Little the Lucrine lake Or Tivoli said to him, Scarce did the memories wake Of the far-off years and dim, For he stood by Avernus’ shore. But he dreamed of a Northern glen, And he murmured, over and o’er, “For Charlie and his men:” And his feet, to death that went, Crept forth to St. Peter’s shrine, And the latest Minstrel bent O’er the last of the Stuart line. ~ Andrew Lang,

701: Vanity Fair In Vanity Fair, as we bow and smile, As we talk of the opera after the weather, As we chat of fashion and fad and style, We know we are playing a part together. You know that the mirth she wears, she borrows; She knows you laugh but to hide your sorrows; We know that under the silks and laces, And back of beautiful, beaming faces, Lie secret trouble and grim despair, In Vanity Fair. In Vanity Fair, on dress parade, Our colors look bright and our swords are gleaming; But many a uniform's worn and frayed, And most of the weapons, despite their seeming. Are dull and blunted and badly battered, And close inspection will show how tattered And stained are the banners that float above us. Our comrades hate, while they swear to love us; And robed like Pleasure walks gaunt-eyed Care, In Vanity Fair. In Vanity Fair, as we strive for place, As we rush and jostle and crowd and hurry, We know the goal is not worth the raceWe know the prize is not worth the worry; That all our gain means loss for another; That in fighting for self we wound each other; That the crown of success weighs hard and presse The brow of the victor with thorns-not caresses; That honors are empty and worthless to wear, In Vanity Fair. But in Vanity Fair, as we pass along, We meet strong hearts that are worth the knowing; 'Mong poor paste jewels that deck the throng, 874 We see a solitaire sometimes glowing. We find grand souls under robes of fashion, 'Neath light demeanors hide strength and passion; And fair fine honor and Godlike resistance. In halls of pleasure may have existence; And we find pure altars and shrines of prayer, In Vanity Fair. ~ Ella Wheeler Wilcox,

702: The False Gods “We are false and evanescent, and aware of our deceit, From the straw that is our vitals to the clay that is our feet. You may serve us if you must, and you shall have your wage of ashes,— Though arrears due thereafter may be hard for you to meet. “You may swear that we are solid, you may say that we are strong, But we know that we are neither and we say that you are wrong; You may find an easy worship in acclaiming our indulgence, But your large admiration of us now is not for long. “If your doom is to adore us with a doubt that’s never still, And you pray to see our faces—pray in earnest, and you will. You may gaze at us and live, and live assured of our confusion: For the False Gods are mortal, and are made for you to kill. “And you may as well observe, while apprehensively at ease With an Art that’s inorganic and is anything you please, That anon your newest ruin may lie crumbling unregarded, Like an old shrine forgotten in a forest of new trees. “Howsoever like no other be the mode you may employ, There’s an order in the ages for the ages to enjoy; Though the temples you are shaping and the passions you are singing Are a long way from Athens and a longer way from Troy. “When we promise more than ever of what never shall arrive, And you seem a little more than ordinarily alive, Make a note that you are sure you understand our obligations— For there’s grief always auditing where two and two are five. “There was this for us to say and there was this for you to know, Though it humbles and it hurts us when we have to tell you so. If you doubt the only truth in all our perjured composition, May the True Gods attend you and forget us when we go.” ~ Edwin Arlington Robinson,

703:In this book the reader will find, I hope, an antidote for historical amnesia. To this day, the public remembers the Revolution mostly in its enshrined, mythic form. This is peculiar in a democratic society because the sacralized story of the founding fathers, the men of marble, mostly concerns the uppermost slice of American revolutionary society. That is what has lodged in our minds, and this is the fable that millions of people in other countries know about the American Revolution. I ask readers to expand their conception of revolutionary American society and to consider the multiple agendas—the stuff of ideas, dreams, and aspirations—that sprang from its highly diverse and fragmented character. It is not hard today to understand that American people in all their diversity entertain a variety of ideas about what they want their nation to be and what sort of America they want for their children. Much the same was true two centuries ago. But from a distance of more than two centuries we don’t think about our nation’s birth that way. It is more comforting to think about united colonists rising up as a unified body to get the British lion’s paw off the backs of their necks. That is a noble and inspiring David and Goliath story, but it is not what actually happened. It is assuredly not the story of radical democracy’s work during the Revolution. This book presents a people’s revolution, an upheaval among the most heterogeneous people to be found anywhere along the Atlantic littoral in the eighteenth century. The book’s thrust is to complicate the well-established core narrative by putting before the reader bold figures, ideas, and movements, highlighting the true radicalism of the American Revolution that was indispensable to the origins, conduct, character, and outcome of the world-shaking event. ~ Gary B Nash,

704: My Prayer O God! forgive the erring thought, The erring word and deed, And in thy mercy hear the Christ Who comes to intercede. My sins, like mountain-weights of lead, Weigh heavy on my soul; I'm bruised and broken in this strife, But Thou canst make me whole. Allay this fever of unrest, That fights against the Will; And in Thy still small voice do Thou But whisper, 'Peace, be still!' Until within this heart of mine Thy lasting peace come down, Will all the waves of Passion roll, Each good resolve to drown. We walk in blindness and dark night Through half our earthly way; Our clouds of weaknesses obscure The glory of the day. We cannot lead the lives we would, But grope in dumb amaze, Leaving the straight and flowery paths To tread the crooked ways. We are as pilgrims toiling on Through all the weary hours; And our poor hands are torn with thorns, Plucking life's tempting flowers. We worship at a thousand shrines, And build upon the sands, Passing the one great Temple, and The Rock on which it stands. 101 O, fading dream of human life! What can this change portend? I long for higher walks, and true Progression without end. Here I know nothing, and my search Can find no secret out; I cannot think a single thought That is not mixed with doubt. Relying on the higher source, The influence divine, I can but hope that light may dawn Within this soul of mine. I ask not wisdom, such as that To which the world is prone, Nor knowledge ask, unless it come Direct from God alone. Send down then, God! in mercy send Thy Love and Truth to me, That I may henceforth walk in light That comes direct from Thee. ~ Charles Sangster,

705: In Excelsis You -- you -Your shadow is sunlight on a plate of silver; Your footsteps, the seeding-place of lilies; Your hands moving, a chime of bells across a windless air. The movement of your hands is the long, golden running of light from a rising sun; It is the hopping of birds upon a garden-path. As the perfume of jonquils, you come forth in the morning. Young horses are not more sudden than your thoughts, Your words are bees about a pear-tree, Your fancies are the gold-and-black striped wasps buzzing among red apples. I drink your lips, I eat the whiteness of your hands and feet. My mouth is open, As a new jar I am empty and open. Like white water are you who fill the cup of my mouth, Like a brook of water thronged with lilies. You are frozen as the clouds, You are far and sweet as the high clouds. I dare to reach to you, I dare to touch the rim of your brightness. I leap beyond the winds, I cry and shout, For my throat is keen as is a sword Sharpened on a hone of ivory. My throat sings the joy of my eyes, The rushing gladness of my love. How has the rainbow fallen upon my heart? How have I snared the seas to lie in my fingers And caught the sky to be a cover for my head? How have you come to dwell with me, Compassing me with the four circles of your mystic lightness, So that I say "Glory! Glory!" and bow before you As to a shrine? 104 Do I tease myself that morning is morning and a day after? Do I think the air is a condescension, The earth a politeness, Heaven a boon deserving thanks? So you -- air -- earth -- heaven -I do not thank you, I take you, I live. And those things which I say in consequence Are rubies mortised in a gate of stone. ~ Amy Lowell,

706: If Christ Came Questioning If Christ came questioning His world to-day, (If Christ came questioning,) 'What hast thou done to glorify thy God, Since last My feet this lower earth plane trod?' How could I answer Him; and in what way One evidence of my allegiance bring; If Christ came questioning. If Christ came questioning, to me alone, (If Christ came questioning,) I could not point to any church or shrine And say, 'I helped build up this house of Thine; Behold the altar, and the corner stone'; I could not show one proof of such a thing; If Christ came questioning. If Christ came questioning, on His demand, (If Christ came questioning,) No pagan soul converted to His creed Could I proclaim; or say, that word or deed Of mine, had spread the faith in any land; Or sent it forth, to fly on stronger wing; If Christ came questioning. If Christ came questioning the soul of me, (If Christ came questioning,) I could but answer, 'Lord, my little part Has been to beat the metal of my heart, Into the shape I thought most fit for Thee; And at Thy feet, to cast the offering; Shouldst Thou come questioning. 'From out the earth-fed furnaces of desire, (Ere Thou cam'st questioning,) This formless and unfinished gift I brought, And on life's anvil flung it down, white hot: A glowing thing, of selfishness and fire, With blow on blow, I made the anvil ring; (Ere Thou cam'st questioning). 313 'The hammer, Self-Control, beat hard on it; (Ere Thou cam'st questioning,) And with each blow, rose fiery sparks of pain; I bear their scars, on body, soul, and brain. Long, long I toiled; and yet, dear Lord, unfit, And all unworthy, is the heart I bring, To meet Thy questioning.' ~ Ella Wheeler Wilcox,

707:Flanked by Warren and Tanu, Kendra started forward. As she neared the peninsula, her companions hung back. She felt generally peaceful about proceeding, and decided the absence of an identifiable warning meant the Fairy Queen would welcome her visit. A pair of tall women stepped out from behind the trees, blocking her path. One had flowers braided into her auburn hair; the other had leafy vines twisted into her dark plaits. Their layered gowns reminded Kendra of springtime foliage shimmering with dew. Each woman held a heavy wooden staff. “Where did you come from?” asked the woman with dark hair, her voice a resonant alto. “You tread on sacred ground,” warned the other. Warren and Tanu hustled up beside Kendra. Tanu was a large man, but these women stood half a head taller. The woman with dark hair arched an eyebrow. “Would you threaten us with weapons?” From both sides and behind, other dryads emerged from the trees. “We are friends,” Kendra said. “I have urgent business with the Fairy Queen.” “This one has a queer aspect,” whispered the dryad with the auburn hair. “Indeed,” the other dryad whispered back, “and she speaks our tongue.” “I speak many languages,” Kendra said. The dryads looked stricken. “Even our secret dialect?” asked the one with auburn hair. Kendra stared up at them, hoping her eyes displayed more confidence than she felt. “I am fairykind, a servant of the Fairy Queen. These are my companions.” The dryad with the dark hair narrowed her green eyes. After a moment, her posture became less threatening. “I apologize for our abrupt greeting. These are troubled times, and it has long been our task to protect this shrine. We’ve heard of you, but did not recognize you. We have never encountered a mortal quite like you. We now see that you belong among us.” “Thank you,” Kendra said. “My friends can’t come to the shrine with me.” The ~ Brandon Mull,

708: Preparatory Meditations - Second Series: 12 (Ezekiel 37:24. David my Servant shall be their King) Dull, dull indeed! What, shall it e'er be thus? And why? Are not Thy promises, my Lord, Rich, quick'ning things? How should my full cheeks blush To find me thus? And those a lifeless word? My heart is heedless: unconcerned hereat: I find my spirits spiritless and flat. Thou court'st mine eyes in sparkling colors bright, Most bright indeed, and soul-enamouring, With the most shining sun, whose beams did smite Me with delightful smiles to make me spring. Embellished knots of love assault my mind, Which still is dull, as if this sun n'er shined. David in all his gallantry now comes, Bringing, to tend Thy shrine, his royal glory, Rich prowess, prudence, victories, sweet songs, And piety to pencil out Thy story; To draw my heart to Thee in this brave shine Of typic beams, most warm. But still I pine. Shall not this lovely beauty, Lord, set out In dazzling shining flashes 'fore mine eye, Enchant my heart, love's golden mine, till 't spout Out streams of love refin'd that on Thee lie? Thy glory's great: Thou David's kingdom shalt Enjoy for aye. I want and that's my fault. Spare me, my Lord, spare me, I greatly pray, Let me Thy gold pass through Thy fire until Thy fire refine, and take my filth away. That I may shine like gold, and have my fill Of love for Thee; until my virginal Chime out in changes sweet Thy praises shall. Wipe off my rust, Lord, with Thy wisp me scour, And make Thy beams perch on my strings their blaze. 25 My tunes clothe with Thy shine, and quavers pour My cursing strings on, loaded with Thy praise. My fervant love with music in her hand, Shall then attend Thyself, and Thy command. ~ Edward Taylor,

709: Stanzas On The Death Of Lord Byron He was, and is not! Graecia's trembling shore, Sighing through all her palmy groves, shall tell That Harold's pilgrimage at last is o'er— Mute the impassioned tongue, and tuneful shell, That erst was wont in noblest strains to swell— Hush'd the proud shouts that rode Aegaea's wave! For lo! the great Deliv'rer breathes farewell! Gives to the world his mem'ry and a grave— Expiring in the land he only lived to save! Mourn, Hellas, mourn! and o'er thy widow'd brow, For aye, the cypress wreath of sorrow twine; And in thy new-form'd beauty, desolate, throw The fresh-cull'd flowers on his sepulchral shrine. Yes! let that heart whose fervour was all thine, In consecrated urn lamented be! That generous heart where genius thrill'd divine, Hath spent its last most glorious throb for thee— Then sank amid the storm that made thy children free! Britannia's Poet! Graecia's hero, sleeps! And Freedom, bending o'er the breathless clay, Lifts up her voice, and in her anguish weeps! For us, a night hath clouded o'er our day, And hush'd the lips that breath'd our fairest lay. Alas! and must the British lyre resound A requiem, while the spirit wings away Of him who on its strings such music found, And taught its startling chords to give so sweet a sound! The theme grows sadder — but my soul shall find A language in those tears! No more — no more! Soon, 'midst the shriekings of the tossing wind, The 'dark blue depths' he sang of, shall have bore Our all of Byron to his native shore! His grave is thick with voices — to the ear Murm'ring an awful tale of greatness o'er; But Memory strives with Death, and lingering near, Shall consecrate the dust of Harold's lonely bier! 215 ~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning,

710: The Witch Trapped amid the woods with guile They've led her bound in fetters vile To death, a deadlier sorceress Than any born for earth's distress Since first the winner of the fleece Bore home the Colchian witch to GreeceSeven months with snare and gin They've sought the maid o'erwise within The forest's labyrinthine shade. The lonely woodman half afraid Far off her ragged form has seen Sauntering down the alleys green, Or crouched in godless prayer alone At eve before a Druid stone. But now the bitter chase is won, The quarry's caught, her magic's done, The bishop's brought her strongest spell To naught with candle, book, and bell; With holy water splashed upon her, She goes to burning and dishonour Too deeply damned to feel her shame, For, though beneath her hair of flame Her thoughtful head be lowly bowed It droops for meditation proud Impenitent, and pondering yet Things no memory can forget, Starry wonders she has seen Brooding in the wildwood green With holiness. For who can say In what strange crew she loved to play, What demons or what gods of old Deep mysteries unto her have told At dead of night in worship bent At ruined shrines magnificent, Or how the quivering will she sent Alone into the great alone Where all is loved and all is known, Who now lifts up her maiden eyes And looks around with soft surprise 82 Upon the noisy, crowded square, The city oafs that nod and stare, The bishop's court that gathers there, The faggots and the blackened stake Where sinners die for justice' sake? Now she is set upon the pile, The mob grows still a little while, Till lo! before the eager folk Up curls a thin, blue line of smoke. 'Alas!' the full-fed burghers cry, 'That evil loveliness must die!' ~ Clive Staples Lewis,

711: A Woman's Complaint I know that deep within your heart of hearts You hold me shrined apart from common things, And that my step, my voice, can bring to you A gladness that no other pleasure brings. And yet, dear love, through all the weary days You never speak one word of tenderness, Nor stroke my hair, nor softly clasp my hand Within your own in loving mute caress. You think, perhaps, I should be all content To know so well the loving place I hold Within your life, and so you do not dream How much I long to hear the story told. You cannot know, when we two sit alone, And tranquil thoughts within your mind are stirred, My heart is crying like a tire child For one fond look, one gentle, loving word. It may be when your eyes look into mine You only say, 'How dear she is to me!' Oh, could I read it in you softened glance. How radiant this plain world would be! Perhaps, sometimes, you breathe a secret prayer That choicest blessings unto me be given; But if you said aloud, 'God bless thee, dear!' I should not ask a greater boon from Heaven. I weary sometimes of the rugged way; But should you say, 'Through thee my life is sweet,' The dreariest desert that our path could cross Would suddenly grow green beneath my feet. 'Tis not the boundless waters ocean holds That give refreshment to the thirsty flowers, But just the drops that, rising to the skies, From thence descend in softly falling showers. 26 What matter that our granaries are filled With all the richest harvest's golden stores, If we who own them cannot enter in, But famished stand before the close-barred doors? And so 'tis sad that those who should be rich In that true love that crowns our earthly lot, Go praying with white lips from day to day For love's sweet tokens, and receive them not. ~ Anonymous Americas,

712: On The King's Illness Rest, rest, afflicted spirit, quickly pass Thine hour of bitter suffering! Rest awaits thee, There, where, the load of weary life laid down, The peasant and the king repose together: There peaceful sleep, thy quiet grave bedewed With tears of those who loved thee. Not for thee, In the dark chambers of the nether world, Shall spectre kings rise from their burning thrones And point the vacant seat, and scoffing say, Art thou become like us?—O not for thee! For thou hadst human feelings, and hast lived A man with men; and kindly charities, Even such as warm the cottage hearth, were thine. And therefore falls the tear from eyes not used To gaze on kings with admiration fond. And thou hast knelt at meek Religion's shrine With no mock homage, and hast owned her rights Sacred in every breast: and therefore rise, Affectionate, for thee, the orisons And mingled prayers, alike from vaulted domes Whence the loud organ peals, and raftered roofs Of humbler worship.—Still remembering this, A nation's pity and a nation's love Linger beside thy couch, in this the day Of thy sad visitation, veiling faults Of erring judgement, and not will perverse. Yet, O that thou hadst closed the wounds of war! That had been praise to suit a higher strain. Farewell the years rolled down the gulf of time! Thy name has chronicled a long bright page Of England's story; and perhaps the babe Who opens, as thou closest thine, his eyes On this eventful world, when aged grown, Musing on times gone by, shall sigh and say, Shaking his thin grey hairs, whitened with grief, Our fathers' days were happy. Fare thee well! My thread of life has even run with thine 102 For many a lustre; and thy closing day I contemplate, not mindless of my own, Nor to its call reluctant. ~ Anna Laetitia Barbauld,

713: Worked-Out Mine On summer nights when moonbeams flow And glisten o’er the high, white tips, And winds make lamentation low, As through the ribs of shattered ships, And steal about the broken brace Where pendant timbers swing and moan, And flitting bats give aimless chase, Who dares to seek the mine alone? The shrinking bush with sable rims A skeleton forlorn and bowed, With pipe-clay white about its limbs And at its feet a tattered shroud; And ghostly figures lurk and groan, Shrill whispers sound from ghostly lips, And ghostly footsteps start the stone That clatters sharply down the tips. The engine-house is dark and still, The life that raged within has fled; Like open graves the boilers chill That once with glowing fires were red; Above the shaft in measured space A rotted rope swings to and fro, Whilst o’er the plat and on the brace The silent shadows come and go. And there below, in chambers dread Where darkness like a fungus clings, Are lingering still the old mine’s dead— Bend o’er and hear their whisperings! Up from the blackness sobs and sighs Are flung with moans and muttered fears, A low lament that never dies, And ceaseless sound of falling tears. My ears intent have heard their grief— The fitful tones of Carter’s tongue, The strong man crushed beneath the reef, 196 The groans of Panton, Praer, and Young, And ‘Trucker Bill’ of Number Five, Along the ruined workings roll; For deep in every shoot and drive This mine secretes a shackled soul. Ah! woful mine, where wives have wept, And mothers prayed in anxious pain, And long, distracting vigil kept, You yawn for victims now in vain! Still to that god, whose shrine you were, Is homage done in wild device; Men hate you as the sepulchre That stores their bloody sacrifice. ~ Edward George Dyson,

714: The Soul All my mind has sat in state, Pond'ring on the deathless Soul: What must be the Perfect Whole, When the atom is so great! God! I fall in spirit down, Low as Persian to the sun; All my senses, one by one, In the stream of Thought must drown. On the tide of mystery, Like a waif, I'm seaward borne, Ever looking for the morn That will yet interpret Thee, Opening my blinded eyes, That have strove to look within, 'Whelmed in clouds of doubt and sin, Sinking where I dared to rise: Could I trace one Spirit's flight, Track it to its final goal, Know that 'Spirit' meant 'the Soul,' I must perish in the light. All in vain I search, and cry: 'What, O Soul, and whence art thou?' Lower than the earth I bow, Stricken with the grave reply: 'Wouldst thou ope what God has sealed Sealed in mercy here below? What is best for man to know, Shall most surely be revealed!' Deep on deep of mystery! Ask the sage, he knows no more Of the soul's unspoken lore Than the child upon his knee! 170 Cannot tell me whence the thought That is passing through my mind! Where the mystic soul is shrined, Wherewith all my life is fraught? Knows not how the brain conceives Images almost divine; Cannot work my mental mine, Cannot bind my golden sheaves. Is he wiser, then, than I, Seeing he can read the stars? I have rode in fancy's oars Leagues beyond his farthest sky! Some old Rabbi, dreaming o'er The sweet legends of his race, Ask him for some certain trace Of the far, eternal shore. No. The Talmud page is dark, Though it burn with quenchless fire, And the insight must pierce higher, That would find the vital spark. O, my Soul! be firm and wait, Hoping with the zealous few, Till the Shekinah of the True Lead thee through the Golden Gate. ~ Charles Sangster,

715:No follower of Christ knew the shape of the earth. For many centuries this great Peasant of Palestine has been worshiped as God. Millions and millions have given their lives to his service. The wealth of the world was lavished on his shrines. His name carried consolation to the diseased and dying. His name dispelled the darkness of death, and filled the dungeon with light. His name gave courage to the martyr, and in the midst of fire, with shriveling lips the sufferer uttered it again and again. The outcasts, the deserted, the fallen, felt that Christ was their friend, felt that he knew their sorrows and pitied their sufferings. All this is true, and if it were all, how beautiful, how touching, how glorious it would be. But it is not all. There is another side. In his name millions and millions of men and women have been imprisoned, tortured and killed. In his name millions and millions have been enslaved. In his name the thinkers, the investigators, have been branded as criminals, and his followers have shed the blood of the wisest and best. In his name the progress of many nations was stayed for a thousand years. In his gospel was found the dogma of eternal pain, and his words added an infinite horror to death. His gospel filled the world with hatred and revenge; made intellectual honesty a crime; made happiness here the road to hell, denounced love as base and bestial, canonized credulity, crowned bigotry and destroyed the liberty of man. It would have been far better had the New Testament never been written – far better had the theological Christ never lived. Had the writers of the Testament been regarded as uninspired, had Christ been thought of only as a man, had the good been accepted and the absurd, the impossible, and the revengeful thrown away, mankind would have escaped the wars, the tortures, the scaffolds, the dungeons, the agony and tears, the crimes and sorrows of a thousand years. ~ Robert G Ingersoll,

716: Ode To The Poppy Written by a deceased friend. NOT for the promise of the labour'd field, Not for the good the yellow harvests yield, I bend at Ceres' shrine; For dull, to human eyes, appear The golden glories of the year, Alas!--a melancholy worship's mine, I hail the goddess for her scarlet flower; Thou brilliant weed, That dost so far exceed The richest gifts gay Flora can bestow: Heedless I pass'd thee, in life's morning hour, (Thou comforter of woe) Till sorrow taught me to confess thy power. In early days, when Fancy cheats, A varied wreath I wove, Of laughing Spring's luxuriant sweets, To deck ungrateful Love: The rose, or thorn, my labours crown'd; As Venus smiled, or Venus frown'd; But Love and Joy, and all their train, are flown; E'en languid Hope no more is mine, And I will sing of thee alone, Unless, perchance, the attributes of Grief, The cypress bud, and willow leaf, Their pale funereal foliage blend with thine. Hail, lovely blossom!--thou canst ease The wretched victims of Disease; Canst close those weary eyes in gentle sleep, Which never open but to weep; For, oh! thy potent charm Can agonizing Pain disarm; Expel imperious Memory from her seat, And bid the throbbing heart forget to beat. Soul-soothing plant! that can such blessings give, By thee the mourner bears to live! By thee the hopeless die! 60 Oh! ever 'friendly to despair,' Might Sorrow's pallid votary dare, Without a crime, that remedy implore, Which bids the spirit from its bondage fly, I'd court thy palliative aid no more; No more I'd sue that thou shouldst spread, Thy spell around my aching head, But would conjure thee to impart Thy balsam for a broken heart; And by thy soft Lethean power, ( Inestimable flower) Burst these terrestrial bonds, and other regions try. ~ Charlotte Smith,

717: Gifts 'O World-God, give me Wealth!' the Egyptian cried. His prayer was granted. High as heaven, behold Palace and Pyramid; the brimming tide Of lavish Nile washed all his land with gold. Armies of slaves toiled ant-wise at his feet, World-circling traffic roared through mart and street, His priests were gods, his spice-balmed kings enshrined, Set death at naught in rock-ribbed charnels deep. Seek Pharaoh's race to-day and ye shall find Rust and the moth, silence and dusty sleep. 'O World-God, give me beauty!' cried the Greek. His prayer was granted. All the earth became Plastic and vocal to his sense; each peak, Each grove, each stream, quick with Promethean flame, Peopled the world with imaged grace and light. The lyre was his, and his the breathing might Of the immortal marble, his the play Of diamond-pointed thought and golden tongue. Go seek the sun-shine race, ye find to-day A broken column and a lute unstrung. 'O World-God, give me Power!' the Roman cried. His prayer was granted. The vast world was chained A captive to the chariot of his pride. The blood of myriad provinces was drained To feed that fierce, insatiable red heart. Invulnerably bulwarked every part With serried legions and with close-meshed Code, Within, the burrowing worm had gnawed its home, A roofless ruin stands where once abode The imperial race of everlasting Rome. 'O Godhead, give me Truth!' the Hebrew cried. His prayer was granted; he became the slave Of the Idea, a pilgrim far and wide, Cursed, hated, spurned, and scourged with none to save. The Pharaohs knew him, and when Greece beheld, His wisdom wore the hoary crown of Eld. 85 Beauty he hath forsworn, and wealth and power. Seek him to-day, and find in every land. No fire consumes him, neither floods devour; Immortal through the lamp within his hand. ~ Emma Lazarus,

718:Say to my friends, when they look upon me, dead, Weeping for me and mourning me in sorrow, ‘Do not believe that this corpse you see is myself, In the name of God, I tell you, it is not I, I am a spirit, and this is naught but flesh, It was my abode and my garment for a time. I am a treasure, by a talisman kept hid, Fashioned of dust, which served me as a shrine, I am a pearl, which has left it’s shell deserted, I am a bird, and this body was my cage, Whence I have now flown forth and it is left as a token, Praise to God, who hath now set me free, And prepared for me my place in the highest of the Heavens, Until today I was dead, though alive in your midst. Now I live in truth, with the grave – clothes discarded. Today I hold converse with the Saints above, With no veil between, I see God face to face. I look upon “Loh-i-Mahfuz” and there in I read, Whatever was and is, and all that is to be. Let my house fall in ruins, lay my cage in the ground, Cast away the talisman, it is a token no more, Lay aside my cloak, it was but my outer garment. Place them all in the grave, let them be forgotten, I have passed on my way and you are left behind, Your place of abode was no dwelling place for me. Think not that death is death, nay, it is life, A life that surpasses all we could dream of here, While in this world, here we are granted sleep, Death is but sleep, sleep that shall be prolonged Be not frightened when death draweth nigh, It is but the departure for this blessed home, Think of the mercy and love of your Lord, Give thanks for His Grace and come without fear. What I am now, even so shall you be, For I know that you are even as I am, The souls of all men come forth from God, The bodies of all are compounded alike, Good and evil, alike it was ours. I give you now a message of good cheer May God’s peace and joy forever more be yours. ~ Abu Hamid al Ghazali,

719: The City In The Sea Lo! Death has reared himself a throne In a strange city lying alone Far down within the dim West, Where the good and the bad and the worst and the best Have gone to their eternal rest. There shrines and palaces and towers (Time-eaten towers that tremble not!) Resemble nothing that is ours. Around, by lifting winds forgot, Resignedly beneath the sky The melancholy waters he. No rays from the holy heaven come down On the long night-time of that town; But light from out the lurid sea Streams up the turrets silentlyGleams up the pinnacles far and freeUp domes- up spires- up kingly hallsUp fanes- up Babylon-like wallsUp shadowy long-forgotten bowers Of sculptured ivy and stone flowersUp many and many a marvellous shrine Whose wreathed friezes intertwine The viol, the violet, and the vine. Resignedly beneath the sky The melancholy waters lie. So blend the turrets and shadows there That all seem pendulous in air, While from a proud tower in the town Death looks gigantically down. There open fanes and gaping graves Yawn level with the luminous waves; But not the riches there that lie In each idol's diamond eyeNot the gaily-jewelled dead Tempt the waters from their bed; For no ripples curl, alas! Along that wilderness of glass- 79 No swellings tell that winds may be Upon some far-off happier seaNo heavings hint that winds have been On seas less hideously serene. But lo, a stir is in the air! The wave- there is a movement there! As if the towers had thrust aside, In slightly sinking, the dull tideAs if their tops had feebly given A void within the filmy Heaven. The waves have now a redder glowThe hours are breathing faint and lowAnd when, amid no earthly moans, Down, down that town shall settle hence, Hell, rising from a thousand thrones, Shall do it reverence. ~ Edgar Allan Poe,

720: Individuality Ah yes, I love you, and with all my heart; Just as a weaker woman loves her own, Better than I love my beloved art, Which, until you came, reigned royally, alone, My king, my master. Since I saw your face I have dethroned it, and you hold that place. I am as weak as other women are – Your frown can make the whole world like a tomb Your smile shines brighter than the sun, by far; Sometimes I think there is not space or room In all the earth for such a love as mine, And it soars up to breathe in realms divine. I know that your desertion or neglect Could break my heart, as women’s hearts do break; If my wan days had nothing to expect From your love’s splendour, all joy would forsake The chambers of my soul. Yes this is true. And yet, and yet – one thing I keep from you. There is a subtle part of me, which went Into my long pursued and worshipped art; Though your great love fills me with such content, No other love finds room now in my heart. Yet that rare essence was my art’s alone. Thank God, you cannot grasp it; ‘tis mine own. Thank God, I say, for while I love you so, With that vast love, as passionate as tender, I feel an exultation as I know I have not made you a complete surrender. Here is my body; bruise it, if you will, And break my heart; I have that something still. You cannot grasp it. Seize the breath of morn, Or bind the perfume of the rose as well. God put it in my soul when I was born; It is not mine to give away, or sell, 335 Or offer up on any alter shrine. It was my art’s; and when not art’s, ‘tis mine. For Love’s sake, I can put the art away, Or anything which stands ‘twixt me and you, But that strange essence God bestowed, I say, To permeate the work He gave to do: And it cannot be drained, dissolved, or sent Through any channel, save the one He meant. ~ Ella Wheeler Wilcox,

721: The Coo Of The Cushat Over the smooth lawns, broider'd with violets, Over the hedges of snow-white thorn, Over the billowy, pink apple-blossoms, The musical coo of the cushat is borne. In the still depths of the dim old plantations, Where the sweet whispering night-wind stirs The delicate scent from the dew-sprinkled flowers, It sings by its nest in the tall green firs. So peaceful, so pure, so divinely contented, The world out of sight and its true love nigh Their little grey wings softly folded together,— What dreams I have set to that melody! I listen at dawn, and I listen at even; I hear the notes bubbling all day long Through the woodpecker's laugh and the chirp of the titmouse,— Little dove, yours is the sweetest song! 'Tis not a sad song, though it sets me a-crying— But gladness too deep to be spoken aloud; Nor forlorn, though 'tis sung in the loneliest places— But only too sacred to sing to a crowd. I envy you, though you're so small and so humble; I wish I were like you, you shy little dove— So far from the world and so free from its passion, Yet sure of your white eggs and sure of your love. I wish I were pure from low earthly ambitions, As quiet and calm and contented as you; I wish my heart held such a well-spring of music, That I were as gentle and trustful and true. Little dove, you were worthy to carry the olive Over the waters to Noah's host, To die for the mother of Christ in the Temple, To be chosen for shrine of the Holy Ghost. 180 And now you have only to live and be happy, To rear up your young ones and teach them to coo; O sing on, and teach me the heavenly lessons, To be faithful and worthy of God's work too. Teach me so humbly to take what He gives me, The manifold duties, the great and the small; Teach me so simply to do what He bids me, Loving and trustful, and thankful for all. ~ Ada Cambridge,

722: The City Of Sin LO! Death hath rear'd himself a throne In a strange city, all alone, Far down within the dim west — Where the good, and the bad, and the worst, and the best, Have gone to their eternal rest. There shrines, and palaces, and towers Are — not like any thing of ours — Oh no! — O no! — ours never loom To heaven with that ungodly gloom! Time-eaten towers that tremble not! Resemble nothing that is ours. Around, by lifting winds forgot, Resignedly beneath the sky The melancholy waters lie. No holy rays from heaven come down On the long night-time of that town, But light from out the lurid sea Streams up the turrets silently — Up thrones — up long-forgotten bowers Of scultur'd ivy and stone flowers — Up domes — up spires — up kingly halls — Up fanes — up Babylon-like walls — Up many a melancholy shrine Whose entablatures intertwine The mask — the viol — and the vine. There open temples — open graves Are on a level with the waves — But not the riches there that lie In each idol's diamond eye, Not the gaily-jewell'd dead Tempt the waters from their bed: For no ripples curl, alas! Along that wilderness of glass — No swellings hint that winds may be Upon a far-off happier sea: So blend the turrets and shadows there 81 That all seem pendulous in air, While from the high towers of the town Death looks gigantically down. But lo! a stir is in the air! The wave — there is a ripple there! As if the towers had thrown aside, In slightly sinking, the dull tide — As if the turret-tops had given A vacuum in the filmy heaven. The waves have now a redder glow — The very hours are breathing low — And when, amid no earthly moans, Down, down, that town shall settle hence, All Hades, from a thousand thrones, Shall do it reverence, And Death to some more happy clime Shall give his undivided time. ~ Edgar Allan Poe,

723: In The Jewish Synagogue At Newport Here, where the noises of the busy town, The ocean's plunge and roar can enter not, We stand and gaze around with tearful awe, And muse upon the consecrated spot. No signs of life are here: the very prayers Inscribed around are in a language dead; The light of the "perpetual lamp" is spent That an undying radiance was to shed. What prayers were in this temple offered up, Wrung from sad hearts that knew no joy on earth, By these lone exiles of a thousand years, From the fair sunrise land that gave them birth! How as we gaze, in this new world of light, Upon this relic of the days of old, The present vanishes, and tropic bloom And Eastern towns and temples we behold. Again we see the patriarch with his flocks, The purple seas, the hot blue sky o'erhead, The slaves of Egypt, -- omens, mysteries, -Dark fleeing hosts by flaming angels led. A wondrous light upon a sky-kissed mount, A man who reads Jehovah's written law, 'Midst blinding glory and effulgence rare, Unto a people prone with reverent awe. The pride of luxury's barbaric pomp, In the rich court of royal Solomon -Alas! we wake: one scene alone remains, -The exiles by the streams of Babylon. Our softened voices send us back again But mournful echoes through the empty hall: Our footsteps have a strange unnatural sound, And with unwonted gentleness they fall. 101 The weary ones, the sad, the suffering, All found their comfort in the holy place, And children's gladness and men's gratitude 'Took voice and mingled in the chant of praise. The funeral and the marriage, now, alas! We know not which is sadder to recall; For youth and happiness have followed age, And green grass lieth gently over all. Nathless the sacred shrine is holy yet, With its lone floors where reverent feet once trod. Take off your shoes as by the burning bush, Before the mystery of death and God. ~ Emma Lazarus,

724: Troy No more, O Troy, thy dreaded name Conspicuous in the lists of fame, Midst fortresses impregnable shall stand, In such thick clouds an armed host Pours terrors from the Grecian coast, And wastes thy vanquish'd land: Shorn from thy rampir'd brow the crown Of turrets fell; thy palaces o'erspread With smoke lie waste, no more I tread Thy wonted streets, my native town. II I perish'd at the midnight hour, When, aided by the banquet's power, Sleep o'er my eyes his earliest influence shed; Retiring from the choral song The sacrifice and festive throng, Stretched on the downy bed The bridegroom indolently lay, His massive spear suspended on the beam, No more he saw the helmets gleam, Or nautic troops in dread array. III While me the golden mirror's aid, My flowing tresses taught to braid In graceful ringlets with a fillet bound, Just as I cast my robe aside, And sought the couch; extending wide Thro' every street this sound Was heard; 'O when, ye sons of Greece, This nest of robbers levell'd with the plain, Will ye behold your homes again? When shall these tedious labours cease?' IV Then from my couch up starting, dressed Like Spartan nymph in zoneless vest, At Dian's shrine an ineffectual prayer Did I address; for hither led, First having view'd my Husband dead, Full oft I in despair, 32 As the proud vessel sail'd from land, Look'd back, and saw my native walls laid low, Then fainting with excess of woe At length lost sight of Ilion's strand. Helen, that Sister to the sons of Jove, And Paris, Ida's swain, With my curses still pursuing, For to them I owe my ruin, Me they from my country drove, Never to return again, By that detested spousal rite On which Hymen never smil'd, No, 'twas some Demon who with lewd delight Their frantic souls beguil'd: Her may ocean's waves no more Waft to her paternal shore. ~ Euripides,

725:A veritable pacifist when it comes to social guilds or luncheon clubs, I turn into something of a militant on the subject of the only true and living Church on the face of the earth. . . . Setting aside for a time the heavenly host we hope one day to enjoy, I still choose the church of Jesus Christ to fill my need to be needed--here and now, as well as there and then. When public problems or private heartaches come--as surely they do come--I will be most fortunate if in that hour I find myself in the company of Latter-day Saints. . . . When asked "What can I know?" a Latter-day Saint answers, "All that God knows." When asked "What ought I to do?" his disciples answer, "Follow the Master." When asked "What may I hope?" an entire dispensation declares, "Peace in this world, and eternal life in the world to come" (D&C 59:23), indeed ultimately for "all that [the] Father hath" (D&C 84:38). Depressions and identity crises have a hard time holding up under that response. . . . We cannot but wonder what frenzy the world would experience if a chapter of the Book of Mormon or a section of the Doctrine and Covenants or a conference address by President Spencer W. Kimball were to be discovered by some playful shepherd boy in an earthen jar near the Dead Sea caves of Qumran. The beneficiaries would probably build a special shrine in Jerusalem to house it, being very careful to regulate temperatures and restrict visitors. They would undoubtedly protect against earthquakes and war. Surely the edifice would be as beautiful as the contents would be valuable; its cost would be enormous, but its worth would be incalculable. Yet for the most part we have difficulty giving away copies of sacred scripture much more startling in their origin. Worse yet, some of us, knowing of the scriptures, have not even tried to share them, as if an angel were an every-day visitor and a prophet just another man in the street. We forget that our fathers lived for many centuries without priesthood power or prophetic leadership, and "dark ages" they were indeed. ~ Jeffrey R Holland,

726: Empty Can this be my poem?—this poor fragment Of bald thought in meanest language dressed! Can this string of rhymes be my sweet poem? All its poetry wholly unexpressed! Does it tell me of the dreams that wandered, In the silent night-time, through my brain? Of the woven web of wondrous fancies, Half of keenest joy and half of pain? Does it tell me of the awful beauty That came down to hide this sordid earth? Does it tell me of the inward crying?— Of the glory whence it had its birth? Only as the lamp, all dull and rusted, Tells me of the flame that is put out,— Of the shiny hair and happy faces Lighted, when its radiance streamed about? Only as this piece of glass, now lying In the shade beside me, as I sit, Tells me of the soft hues of the rainbow, That the morning sunshine gave to it! Only as this little flask, now smelling Of the dust and mould with which 'tis lined, Tells me of the lovely subtle fragrance Of the perfume that it once enshrined! Only as a picture, blurred and faded, Tells me of the bloom of colour there, When the painter's soul was with his canvas, And his paint was bright, and fresh, and fair! Only as the wires and keys—notes broken, Odd and scattered—tell me of a strain That once filled my very soul with rapture, But can never be spelled out again! 95 Only as a bare brown flower-stalk tells me Of the delicate blossom that it wore; Of the humming bees in silken petals, And the downy butterflies it bore! Only as a crazy boat, sun-blistered, Drawn up high and dry upon the sands, Tells me of the blue and buoyant billows Bearing breezy sails to foreign lands! Only as a little dead lark, lying With bedraggled wings and withered throat, Tells me of the songs it heard in heaven— Trying to teach me, here and there, a note! Oh no! oh no! this is not my treasure— This is but the shell where it has lain; It is gone—the life, and light, and glory,— And 'twill never come to me again! ~ Ada Cambridge,

727: To The Heroic Soul Nurture thyself, O Soul, from the clear spring That wells beneath the secret inner shrine; Commune with its deep murmur,--'tis divine; Be faithful to the ebb and flow that bring The outer tide of Spirit to trouble and swing The inlet of thy being. Learn to know These powers, and life with all its venom and show Shall have no force to dazzle thee or sting: And when Grief comes thou shalt have suffered more Than all the deepest woes of all the world; Joy, dancing in, shall find thee nourished with mirth; Wisdom shall find her Master at thy door; And Love shall find thee crowned with love empearled; And death shall touch thee not but a new birth. II Be strong, O warring soul! For very sooth Kings are but wraiths, republics fade like rain, Peoples are reaped and garnered as the grain, And that alone prevails which is the truth: Be strong when all the days of life bear ruth And fury, and are hot with toil and strain: Hold thy large faith and quell thy mighty pain: Dream the great dream that buoys thine age with youth. Thou art an eagle mewed in a sea-stopped cave: He, poised in darkness with victorious wings, Keeps night between the granite and the sea, Until the tide has drawn the warder-wave: Then from the portal where the ripple rings, He bursts into the boundless morning,--free! RETROSPECT 143 This is the mockery of the moving years; Youth's colour dies, the fervid morning glow Is gone from off the foreland; slow, slow, Even slower than the fount of human tears To empty, the consuming shadow nears That Time is casting on the worldly show Of pomp and glory. But falter not;--below That thought is based a deeper thought that cheers. Glean thou thy past; that will alone inure To catch thy heart up from a dark distress; It were enough to find one deed mature, Deep-rooted, mighty 'mid the toil and press; To save one memory of the sweet and pure, From out life's failure and its bitterness. ~ Duncan Campbell Scott,

728: Lyric Of Love To Leah Come, my darling, let us dance To the moon that beckons us To dissolve our love in trance Heedless of the hideous Heat & hate of SiriusShun his baneful brilliance! Let us dance beneath the palm Moving in the moonlight, frond Wooing frond above the calm Of the ocean diamond Sparkling to the sky beyond The enchantment of our psalm. Let us dance, my mirror of Perfect passion won to peace, Let us dance, my treasure trove, On the marble terraces Carven in pallid embroeideries For the vestal veil of Love. Heaven awakes to encompass us, Hell awakes its jubilance In our hearts mysterious Marriage of the azure expanse, With the scarlet brilliance Of the Moon with Sirius. Velvet swatches our lissome limbs Languid lapped by sky & sea Soul through sense & spirit swims Through the pregnant porphyry Dome of lapiz-lazuli:Heart of silence, hush our hymns. Come my darling; let us dance Through the golden galaxies Rythmic swell of circumstance Beaming passion’s argosies: 45 Ecstacy entwined with ease, Terrene joy transcending trance! Thou my scarlet concubine Draining heart’s blood to the lees To empurple those divine Lips with living luxuries Life importunate to appease Drought insatiable of wine! Tunis in the tremendous trance Rests from day’s incestuous Traffic with the radiance Of her sire-& over us Gleams the intoxicating glance Of the Moon & Sirius. Take the ardour of my impearled Essence that my shoulders seek To intensify the curled Candour of the eyes oblique, Eyes that see the seraphic sleek Lust bewitch the wanton world. Come, my love, my dove, & pour From thy cup the serpent wine Brimmed & breathless -secret store Of my crimson concubine Surfeit spirit in the shrineDevil -Godess -Virgin -Whore. Afric sands ensorcel us, Afric seas & skies entrance Velvet, lewd & luminous Night surveys our soul askance! Come my love, & let us dance To the Moon and Sirius! ~ Aleister Crowley,

729: Free Fantasia On Japanese Themes All the afternoon there has been a chirping of birds, And the sun lies warm and still on the western sides of swollen branches. There is no wind; Even the little twigs at the ends of the branches do not move, And the needles of the pines are solid Bands of inarticulated blackness Against the blue-white sky. Still, but alert; And my heart is still and alert, Passive with sunshine, Avid of adventure. I would experience new emotions, Submit to strange enchantments, Bend to influences Bizarre, exotic, Fresh with burgeoning. I would climb a sacred mountain, Struggle with other pilgrims up a steep path through pine-trees, Above to the smooth, treeless slopes, And prostrate myself before a painted shrine, Beating my hands upon the hot earth, Quieting my eyes upon the distant sparkle Of the faint spring sea. I would recline upon a balcony In purple curving folds of silk, And my dress should be silvered with a pattern Of butterflies and swallows, And the black band of my obi Should flash with gold circular threads, And glitter when I moved. I would lean against the railing While you sang to me of wars Past and to come— Sang, and played the samisen. 84 Perhaps I would beat a little hand drum In time to your singing; Perhaps I would only watch the play of light Upon the hilt of your two swords. I would sit in a covered boat, Rocking slowly to the narrow waves of a river, While above us, an arc of moving lanterns, Curved a bridge, A hiss of gold Blooming out of darkness, Rockets exploded, And died in a soft dripping of colored stars. We would float between the high trestles, And drift away from other boats, Until the rockets flared soundless, And their falling stars hung silent in the sky, Like wistaria clusters above the ancient entrance of a temple. I would anything Rather than this cold paper; With outside, the quiet son on the sides of burgeoning branches, And inside, only my books. ~ Amy Lowell,

730: The Last Envoy THIS wind, that through the silent woodland blows, O'er rippling corn and dreaming pastures goes Straight to the garden where the heart of spring Faints in the heart of summer's earliest rose. Dimpling the meadow's grassy green and grey, By furze that yellows all the common way, Gathering the gladness of the flowering broom, And too persistent fragrance of the may-- Gathering whatever is of sweet and dear, The wandering wind has passed away from here, Has passed to where within your garden waits The concentrated sweetness of the year. And in your leafed enclosure as you stood, Training your flowers to new beatitude-Ah! did you guess the wind that kissed your hair Had kissed my forehead in this solitude-- Had kissed my lips, and gathered there the heat It breathed upon your mouth, my only sweet-Had gathered from my eyes the tender thought That drooped your eyes, and stirred your pulses' beat? You only thought the sun's caress too warm That lay upon your bosom and your arm; You did not guess the wind had brought from me The unacknowledged fancy's fire and charm-- You only said, 'Too strong these sunlit skies, More dear the moments when the daylight dies!' And then you dreamed of meetings by your gate 322 In sanctity of sunset and moonrise. To-night, when he shall come and meet you there, To kiss your lips and hands and eyes and hair, To light with love and hope youth's waiting shrine-Think of my love, and my assured despair! To-night the wind will rob the languid flowers Of secret scents kept close through daylit hours; It will blow coolly over dewy lawns, Where the laburnums fall in silent showers. I, too, shall learn a secret then--shall wrest Life's hidden things from out her languorous breast, Shall learn the way that leads away from life Into the land where nothing lives but rest. You will not know that the cold air you prize, After the stormy sweetness of his sighs, Is cold from blowing through a moonlit wood Over the hollow where a dead man lies! ~ Edith Nesbit,

731: Warning From The Evil Fortune Of Medea When fierce conflicting passions urge The breast where love is wont to glow, What mind can stem the stormy surge Which rolls the tide of human woe? The hope of praise, the dread of shame, Can rouse the tortured breast no more; The wild desire, the guilty flame, Absorbs each wish it felt before. But if affection gently thrills The soul by purer dreams possessed, The pleasing balm of mortal ills In love can soothe the aching breast: If thus thou comest in disguise, Fair Venus! from thy native heaven, What heart unfeeling would despise The sweetest boon the gods have given? But never from thy golden bow May I beneath the shaft expire! Whose creeping venom, sure and slow, Awakes an all-consuming fire: Ye racking doubts! ye jealous fears! With others wage internal war; Repentance, source of future tears, From me be ever distant far! May no distracting thoughts destroy The holy calm of sacred love! May all the hours be winged with joy, Which hover faithful hearts above! Fair Venus! on thy myrtle shrine May I with some fond lover sigh, Whose heart may mingle pure with mineWith me to live, with me to die! My native soil! beloved before, Now dearer as my peaceful home, Ne'er may I quit thy rocky shore, 34 A hapless banished wretch to roam! This very day, this very hour, May I resign this fleeting breath! Nor quit my silent humble bower; A doom to me far worse than death. Have I not heard the exile's sigh, And seen the exile's silent tear, Through distant climes condemned to fly, A pensive weary wanderer here? Ah! hapless dame! no sire bewails, No friend thy wretched fate deplores, No kindred voice with rapture hails Thy steps within a stranger's doors. Perish the fiend whose iron heart, To fair affection's truth unknown, Bids her he fondly loved depart, Unpitied, helpless, and alone: Who ne'er unlocks with silver key The milder treasures of his soul, May such a friend be far from me, And ocean's storms between us roll! ~ Euripides,

732: Diya Look, Dear, how bright the moonlight is to-night! See where it casts the shadow of that tree Far out upon the grass. And every gust Of light night wind comes laden with the scent Of opening flowers which never bloom by day: Night-scented stocks, and four-o'clocks, and that Pale yellow disk, upreared on its tall stalk, The evening primrose, comrade of the stars. It seems as though the garden which you love Were like a swinging censer, its incense Floating before us as a reverent act To sanctify and bless our night of love. Tell me once more you love me, that 't is you Yes, really you, I touch, so, with my hand; And tell me it is by your own free will That you are here, and that you like to be Just here, with me, under this sailing pine. I need to hear it often for my heart Doubts naturally, and finds it hard to trust. Ah, Dearest, you are good to love me so, And yet I would not have it goodness, rather Excess of selfishness in you to need Me through and through, as flowers need the sun. I wonder can it really be that you And I are here alone, and that the night Is full of hours, and all the world asleep, And none can call to you to come away; For you have given all yourself to me Making me gentle by your willingness. Has your life too been waiting for this time, Not only mine the sharpness of this joy? Dear Heart, I love you, worship you as though I were a priest before a holy shrine. I'm glad that you are beautiful, although Were you not lovely still I needs must love; But you are all things, it must have been so For otherwise it were not you. Come, close; When you are in the circle of my arm Faith grows a mountain and I take my stand 70 Upon its utmost top. Yes, yes, once more Kiss me, and let me feel you very near Wanting me wholly, even as I want you. Have years behind been dark? Will those to come Bring unguessed sorrows into our two lives? What does it matter, we have had to-night! To-night will make us strong, for we believe Each in the other, this is a sacrament. Beloved, is it true? ~ Amy Lowell,

733: Meditation At Perugia The sunset colours mingle in the sky, And over all the Umbrian valleys flow; Trevi is touched with wonder, and the glow Finds high Perugia crimson with renown; Spello is bright; And, ah! St. Francis, thy deep-treasured town, Enshrined Assisi, fully fronts the light. This valley knew thee many a year ago; Thy shrine was built by simpleness of heart; And from the wound called life thou drew'st the smart: Unquiet kings came to thee and the sad poor-Thou gavest them peace; Far as the Sultan and the Iberian shore Thy faith and abnegation gave release. Deeper our faith, but not so sweet as thine; Wider our view, but not so sanely sure; For we are troubled by the witching lure Of Science, with her lightning on the mist; Science that clears, Yet never quite discloses what she wist, And leaves us half with doubts and half with fears. We act her dreams that shadow forth the truth, That somehow here the very nerves of God Thrill the old fires, the rocks, the primal sod; We throw our speech upon the open air, And it is caught Far down the world, to sing and murmur there; Our common words are with deep wonder fraught. Shall not the subtle spirit of man contrive To charm the tremulous ether of the soul, Wherein it breathes?--until, from pole to pole, Those who are kin shall speak, as face to face, From star to star, Even from earth to the most secret place, Where God and the supreme archangels are. 60 Shall we not prove, what thou hast faintly taught, That all the powers of earth and air are one, That one deep law persists from mole to sun? Shall we not search the heart of God and find That law empearled, Until all things that are in matter and mind Throb with the secret that began the world? Yea, we have journeyed since thou trod'st the road, Yet still we keep the foreappointed quest; While the last sunset smoulders in the West, Still the great faith with the undying hope Upsprings and flows, While dim Assisi fades on the wide slope And the deep Umbrian valleys fill with rose. ~ Duncan Campbell Scott,

734: Sîva Mors Janua Vitae. I am the God of the sensuous fire That moulds all Nature in forms divine; The symbols of death and of man’s desire, The springs of change in the world, are mine; The organs of birth and the circlet of bones, And the light loves carved on the temple stones. I am the lord of delights and pain, Of the pest that killeth, of fruitful joys; I rule the currents of heart and vein; A touch gives passion, a look destroys; In the heat and cold of my lightest breath Is the might incarnate of Lust and Death. If a thousand altars stream with blood Of the victims slain by the chanting priest, Is a great God lured by the savoury food? I reck not of worship, or song, or feast; But that millions perish, each hour that flies, Is the mystic sign of my sacrifice. Ye may plead and pray for the millions born; They come like dew on the morning grass; Your vows and vigils I hold in scorn, The soul stays never, the stages pass; All life is the play of the power that stirs In the dance of my wanton worshippers. And the strong swift river my shrine below It runs, like man, its unending course To the boundless sea from eternal snow; Mine is the Fountain—and mine the Force That spurs all nature to ceaseless strife; And my image is Death at the gates of Life. In many a legend and many a shape, In the solemn grove and the crowded street, I am the Slayer, whom none escape; I am Death trod under a fair girl’s feet; I govern the tides of the sentient sea That ebbs and flows to eternity. And the sum of the thought and the knowledge of man Is the secret tale that my emblems tell; Do ye seek God’s purpose, or trace his plan? Ye may read your doom in my parable: For the circle of life in its flower and its fall Is the writing that runs on my temple wall.… Let my temples fall, they are dark with age, Let my idols break, they have stood their day; On their deep hewn stones the primeval sage Has figured the spells that endure alway; My presence may vanish from river and grove, But I rule for ever in Death and Love. ~ Alfred Comyn Lyall,

735:Six express tracks and twelve locals pass through Palimpsest. The six Greater Lines are: Stylus, Sgraffito, Decretal, Foolscap, Bookhand, and Missal. Collectively, in the prayers of those gathered prostrate in the brass turnstiles of its hidden, voluptuous shrines, these are referred to as the Marginalia Line. They do not run on time: rather, the commuters of Palimpsest have learned their habits, the times of day and night when they prefer to eat and drink, their mating seasons, their gathering places. In days of old, great safaris were held to catch the great trains in their inexorable passage from place to place, and women grappled with them with hooks and tridents in order to arrive punctually at a desk in the depth, of the city. As if to impress a distracted parent on their birthday, the folk of Palimpsest built great edifices where the trains liked to congregate to drink oil from the earth and exchange gossip. They laid black track along the carriages’ migratory patterns. Trains are creatures of routine, though they are also peevish and curmudgeonly. Thus the transit system of Palimpsest was raised up around the huffing behemoths that traversed its heart, and the trains have not yet expressed displeasure. To ride them is still an exercise in hunterly passion and exactitude, for they are unpredictable, and must be observed for many weeks before patterns can be discerned. The sport of commuting is attempted by only the bravest and the wildest of Palimpsest. Many have achieved such a level of aptitude that they are able to catch a train more mornings than they do not. The wise arrive early with a neat coil of hooked rope at their waist, so that if a train is in a very great hurry, they may catch it still, and ride behind on the pauper’s terrace with the rest of those who were not favored, or fast enough, or precise in their calculations. Woe betide them in the infrequent mating seasons! No train may be asked to make its regular stops when she is in heat! A man was once caught on board when an express caught the scent of a local. The poor banker was released to a platform only eight months later, when the two white leviathans had relinquished each other with regret and tears. ~ Catherynne M Valente,

736: The Mystery My mind is like a troubled sea O'er which the winds forever sweep; Within its depths, eternally, My being's pulses throb and leap; There germs of contemplation sleep, Like stars beyond the Milky Way,Like pearls within the gloomy deep, That never saw the light of day. Oh, wondrous mind, how little known! Whence comes the thought that through my brain Floats weirdlike as the pleasing tone That quickens a beloved strain? It may have graced some sweet refrain A thousand years ago, or more; Some Norman Prince, some valiant Dane, May have imbibed it with their lore. It may have strengthened Plato's soul, Its clarion echoes ringing through His brain, the heaven-reaching goal Whence wisdom had its starry view; It may have cheered the gifted few Whose minds were mints of royal song, Who toiled where Shakespeare soared, and drew Down blessings from the grateful throng. And on for ages yet to come, Through minds by heavenly impulse fired, That thought may strike some scorner dumb, In all its regal guise attired; Divinely blest, though uninspired, Some soul may change its swift career, Bearing the great truth, long-desired, In triumph to the highest sphere. Unbounded universe of Thought! Illimitable realms of mind! 159 Regions of Fancy, wonder-fraught! Imagination unconfined! Temples of mystery! behind Whose veils the God-appointed plan In perfect wisdom is enshrined, Beyond the pigmy reach of man: I cannot-dare not-seek to know What finite vision, to the end, Through years of strictest search below, Must ever fail to comprehend! God! whose intents so far transcend Our poor discernment, let me see Some portion of the truths that tend By slow gradations up to Thee: That in the less imperfect years, When human frailty shall have died, When the vexed riddle of the spheres, Interpreted and glorified, Shall be as nothing to the tide Of light in which Thy hidden ways Will be revealed: I may abide Thy meanest instrument of praise, And from the broad calm ocean of Thy truth And wisdom drinking, find eternal youth. ~ Charles Sangster,

737: In The Manner Of Spenser So long estranged from every Muse's lyre, And groveling in the tangled net of Care; What powerful breath shall kindle up that fire Smothered with damps of most unkindly air? Ah, how is quenched the lamp that burnt so fair! Come, sweet seducers, late too far away, Once more to my deserted cell repair; Your rebel courts again your gentle sway;— Come, soothe the winter's night, and charm the summer's day. Come, dear companions of my youthful hour, Fill my fond breast with your majestic themes; Meet me again on hill, by stream, or bower, And bathe my fancy in the bliss of dreams. Vain wish! no more the star of Fancy gleams; They with becoming scorn reject thy prayer: Nor will they haunt thy bower, or bless thy streams, No more to thy deserted cell repair:— “Go, court the world,” they cry, “thou art not worth our care.” Bustle and hurry, noise and thrall they hate, And plodding Method with her leaden rule; And all that swells the' unwieldy pomp of state, And all that binds to earth the golden fool; And creeping Labour with his patient tool: Free like the birds they wander unconfined, Nor dip their wings in Lucre's muddy pool; Business they hate, in crowded nook enshrined, That spins her dirty web, and clouds the' ethereal mind. Ah, why should man, in hard unsocial strife, And withering care whose vigils never cease, Fretting away this little thread of life, Of his sad birthright reap such large increase! Why should he toil for aught but bread and peace? Why rear to heaven his clay-built pyramids? Nor from his tasks himself, poor slave! release; With anxious thought, which wholesome rest forbids, Drying the balm of sleep from sorrow's swollen lids. Despising cheap delights, he loves to scoop 75 His marble palace from the rock's hard breast, And in close dungeon walls himself to coop, On golden couches wooing pale unrest; With foreign looms his stately halls are drest, And grim-wrought tapestry clothes the darkened room; While in the flowery vale Peace builds her nest, Amidst the purple heath or yellow broom, Or where midst rustling corn the nodding poppies bloom. ~ Anna Laetitia Barbauld,

738: Finality A HEAVY and desolate sense of life Is all the Past makes mine—and still A cold contempt of Fortune’s strife, Despite the dread Of want of bread, ’Numbs, clogs like ice, my weary will. How little is there on the earth That I at length can venerate? I see at most one world-wide dearth Of wisdom free, True piety, Of noble love, of honest hate. With little hope of higher good For Man, for me, of earthly bliss, Yet I withstand as I’ve withstood, The evil plan Man teaches man Of valuing all things amiss. There’s nothing under the godlike sun Worth loving to be bought or sold!— The only wealth by labour won Besides the food Supplying blood, Is human excellence—not gold! All other things designed or done Their only real value miss, But in so far as this—each one And all sustain, Adorn, explain, Secure and enter into this. Beauty itself were nothing—no, But for Love’s golden heart and eye; Nay Truth were dead but for the glow Around its shrine 62 Of minds divine, Of martyr minds that may not die. Why pile we stone on stone to raise Jail, fane, or public hall—why plan Fortress or tower for future days, Yet leave unbuilt To wrong or guilt That nobler pile—the Mind of Man? With finer wool the land to dower, Behold how strongly we are moved— Even while a Nation’s thinking power Unvalued, yet Unnamed, we let All bestial grow, being unimprov’d! Can then the seed in God’s right hand Of Happiness, when shed below, Find fitting nurture in a land Of wilding soil And selfish toil? I tell ye Time shall answer, No! I tell ye that all public good, All individual worth and peace, All youthful nobleness of mood, Like rose-leaves thin Must wither in The sordid breath of days like these. O for a prophet’s tongue to teach The truths I cannot else reveal, O for a conqueror’s power to reach The holy aim That doth inflame And nerve me with a martyr’s zeal! ’Tis vain—the sacred wish is vain! Men but renew the strifes of old: But value with a greed insane All devilish skill, 63 All splendid ill That fetters Truth with chains of gold! ~ Charles Harpur,

739:The obstinacy of antiquated institutions in perpetuating themselves resembles the stubbornness of the rancid perfume which should claim our hair, the pretensions of the spoiled fish which should persist in being eaten, the persecution of the child's garment which should insist on clothing the man, the tenderness of corpses which should return to embrace the living. "Ingrates!" says the garment, "I protected you in inclement weather. Why will you have nothing to do with me?" "I have just come from the deep sea," says the fish. "I have been a rose," says the perfume. "I have loved you," says the corpse. "I have civilized you," says the convent. To this there is but one reply: "In former days." To dream of the indefinite prolongation of defunct things, and of the government of men by embalming, to restore dogmas in a bad condition, to regild shrines, to patch up cloisters, to rebless reliquaries, to refurnish superstitions, to revictual fanaticisms, to put new handles on holy water brushes and militarism, to reconstitute monasticism and militarism, to believe in the salvation of society by the multiplication of parasites, to force the past on the present, – this seems strange. Still, there are theorists who hold such theories. These theorists, who are in other respects people of intelligence, have a very simple process; they apply to the past a glazing which they call social order, divine right, morality, family, the respect of elders, antique authority, sacred tradition, legitimacy, religion; and they go about shouting, "Look! take this, honest people." This logic was known to the ancients. The soothsayers practise it. They rubbed a black heifer over with chalk, and said, "She is white, Bos cretatus." As for us, we respect the past here and there, and we spare it, above all, provided that it consents to be dead. If it insists on being alive, we attack it, and we try to kill it. Superstitions, bigotries, affected devotion, prejudices, those forms all forms as they are, are tenacious of life; they have teeth and nails in their smoke, and they must be clasped close, body to body, and war must be made on them, and that without truce; for it is one of the fatalities of humanity to be condemned to eternal combat with phantoms. It is difficult to seize darkness by the throat, and to hurl it to the earth. ~ Victor Hugo,

740: Mid-August From the upland hidden, Where the hill is sunny Tawny like pure honey In the August heat, Memories float unbidden Where the thicket serries Fragrant with ripe berries And the milk-weed sweet. Like a prayer-mat holy Are the patterned mosses Which the twin-flower crosses With her flowerless vine; In fragile melancholy The pallid ghost flowers hover As if to guard and cover The shadow of a shrine. Where the pine-linnet lingered The pale water searches, The roots of gleaming birches Draw silver from the lake; The ripples, liquid-fingered, Plucking the root-layers, Fairy like lute players Lulling music make. O to lie here brooding Where the pine-tree column Rises dark and solemn To the airy lair, Where, the day eluding, Night is couched dream laden, Like a deep witch-maiden Hidden in her hair. In filmy evanescence Wraithlike scents assemble, Then dissolve and tremble 62 A little until they die; Spirits of the florescence Where the bees searched and tarried Till the blossoms all were married In the days before July. Light has lost its splendour, Light refined and sifted, Cool light and dream drifted Ventures even where, (Seeping silver tender) In the dim recesses, Trembling mid her tresses, Hides the maiden hair. Covered with the shy-light, Filling in the hushes, Slide the tawny thrushes Calling to their broods, Hoarding till the twilight The song that made for noon-days Of the amorous June days Preludes and interludes. The joy that I am feeling Is there something in it Unlike the warble the linnet Phrases and intones? Or is a like thought stealing With a rapture fine, free Through the happy pine tree Ripening her cones? In some high existence In another planet Where their poets cannot Know our birds and flowers, Does the same persistence Give the dreams they issue Something like the tissue Of these dreams of ours? 63 O to lie athinking-Moods and whims! I fancy Only necromancy Could the web unroll, Only somehow linking Beauties that meet and mingle In this quiet dingle With the beauty of the whole. ~ Duncan Campbell Scott,

741: Hymn: Ye Are The Salt Of The Earth Salt of the earth, ye virtuous few, Who season human-kind; Light of the world, whose cheering ray Illumes the realms of mind: Where Misery spreads her deepest shade, Your strong compassion glows; From your blest lips the balm distils, That softens mortal woes. By dying beds, in prison glooms, Your frequent steps are found; Angels of love! you hover near, To bind the stranger's wound. You wash with tears the bloody page Which human crimes deform; When vengeance threats, your prayers ascend, And break the gathering storm. As down the summer stream of vice The thoughtless many glide; Upward you steer your steady bark, And stem the rushing tide. Where guilt her foul contagion breathes, And golden spoils allure; Unspotted still your garments shine— Your hands are ever pure. Whene'er you touch the poet's lyre, A loftier strain is heard; Each ardent thought is yours alone, And every burning word. Yours is the large expansive thought, The high heroic deed; Exile and chains to you are dear— To you 'tis sweet to bleed. You lift on high the warning voice, When public ills prevail; Yours is the writing on the wall That turns the tyrant pale. The dogs of hell your steps pursue, 73 With scoff, and shame, and loss; The hemlock bowl 'tis yours to drain, To taste the bitter cross. E'en yet the steaming scaffolds smoke, By Seine's polluted stream; With your rich blood the fields are drenched, Where Polish sabres gleam. E'en now, through those accursed bars, In vain we send our sighs; Where, deep in Olmutz' dungeon glooms, The patriot martyr lies. Yet yours is all through History's rolls The kindling bosom feels; And at your tomb, with throbbing heart, The fond enthusiast kneels. In every faith, through every clime, Your pilgrim steps we trace; And shrines are dressed, and temples rise, Each hallowed spot to grace; And pæans loud, in every tongue, And choral hymns resound; And lengthening honours hand your name To time's remotest bound. Proceed! your race of glory run, Your virtuous toils endure! You come, commissioned from on high, And your reward is sure. ~ Anna Laetitia Barbauld,

742: The Feast Of Lights Kindle the taper like the steadfast star Ablaze on evening's forehead o'er the earth, And add each night a lustre till afar An eightfold splendor shine above thy hearth. Clash, Israel, the cymbals, touch the lyre, Blow the brass trumpet and the harsh-tongued horn; Chant psalms of victory till the heart takes fire, The Maccabean spirit leap new-born. Remember how from wintry dawn till night, Such songs were sung in Zion, when again On the high altar flamed the sacred light, And, purified from every Syrian stain, The foam-white walls with golden shields were hung, With crowns and silken spoils, and at the shrine, Stood, midst their conqueror-tribe, five chieftains sprung From one heroic stock, one seed divine. Five branches grown from Mattathias' stem, The Blessed John, the Keen-Eyed Jonathan, Simon the fair, the Burst-of Spring, the Gem, Eleazar, Help of-God; o'er all his clan Judas the Lion-Prince, the Avenging Rod, Towered in warrior-beauty, uncrowned king, Armed with the breastplate and the sword of God, Whose praise is: 'He received the perishing.' They who had camped within the mountain-pass, Couched on the rock, and tented neath the sky, Who saw from Mizpah's heights the tangled grass Choke the wide Temple-courts, the altar lie Disfigured and polluted-who had flung Their faces on the stones, and mourned aloud And rent their garments, wailing with one tongue, Crushed as a wind-swept bed of reeds is bowed, Even they by one voice fired, one heart of flame, Though broken reeds, had risen, and were men, They rushed upon the spoiler and o'ercame, 251 Each arm for freedom had the strength of ten. Now is their mourning into dancing turned, Their sackcloth doffed for garments of delight, Week-long the festive torches shall be burned, Music and revelry wed day with night. Still ours the dance, the feast, the glorious Psalm, The mystic lights of emblem, and the Word. Where is our Judas? Where our five-branched palm? Where are the lion-warriors of the Lord? Clash, Israel, the cymbals, touch the lyre, Sound the brass trumpet and the harsh-tongued horn, Chant hymns of victory till the heart take fire, The Maccabean spirit leap new-born! ~ Emma Lazarus,

743: Hymn To Pan Thrill with lissome lust of the light, O man ! My man ! Come careering out of the night Of Pan ! Io Pan . Io Pan ! Io Pan ! Come over the sea From Sicily and from Arcady ! Roaming as Bacchus, with fauns and pards And nymphs and styrs for thy guards, On a milk-white ass, come over the sea To me, to me, Coem with Apollo in bridal dress (Spheperdess and pythoness) Come with Artemis, silken shod, And wash thy white thigh, beautiful God, In the moon, of the woods, on the marble mount, The dimpled dawn of of the amber fount ! Dip the purple of passionate prayer In the crimson shrine, the scarlet snare, The soul that startles in eyes of blue To watch thy wantoness weeping through The tangled grove, the gnarled bole Of the living tree that is spirit and soul And body and brain -come over the sea, (Io Pan ! Io Pan !) Devil or god, to me, to me, My man ! my man ! Come with trumpets sounding shrill Over the hill ! Come with drums low muttering From the spring ! Come with flute and come with pipe ! Am I not ripe ? I, who wait and writhe and wrestle With air that hath no boughs to nestle My body, weary of empty clasp, Strong as a lion, and sharp as an aspCome, O come ! I am numb With the lonely lust of devildom. 36 Thrust the sword through the galling fetter, All devourer, all begetter; Give me the sign of the Open Eye And the token erect of thorny thigh And the word of madness and mystery, O pan ! Io Pan ! Io Pan ! Io Pan ! Pan Pan ! Pan, I am a man: Do as thou wilt, as a great god can, O Pan ! Io Pan ! Io pan ! Io Pan Pan ! Iam awake In the grip of the snake. The eagle slashes with beak and claw; The gods withdraw: The great beasts come, Io Pan ! I am borne To death on the horn Of the Unicorn. I am Pan ! Io Pan ! Io Pan Pan ! Pan ! I am thy mate, I am thy man, Goat of thy flock, I am gold , I am god, Flesh to thy bone, flower to thy rod. With hoofs of steel I race on the rocks Through solstice stubborn to equinox. And I rave; and I rape and I rip and I rend Everlasting, world without end. Mannikin, maiden, maenad, man, In the might of Pan. Io Pan ! Io Pan Pan ! Pan ! Io Pan ! ~ Aleister Crowley,

744:Christmas In India Dim dawn behind the tamerisks -- the sky is saffron-yellow -- As the women in the village grind the corn, And the parrots seek the riverside, each calling to his fellow That the Day, the staring Easter Day is born. Oh the white dust on the highway! Oh the stenches in the byway! Oh the clammy fog that hovers And at Home they're making merry 'neath the white and scarlet berry -- What part have India's exiles in their mirth? Full day begind the tamarisks -- the sky is blue and staring -- As the cattle crawl afield beneath the yoke, And they bear One o'er the field-path, who is past all hope or caring, To the ghat below the curling wreaths of smoke. Call on Rama, going slowly, as ye bear a brother lowly -- Call on Rama -- he may hear, perhaps, your voice! With our hymn-books and our psalters we appeal to other altars, And to-day we bid "good Christian men rejoice!" High noon behind the tamarisks -- the sun is hot above us -- As at Home the Christmas Day is breaking wan. They will drink our healths at dinner -- those who tell us how they love us, And forget us till another year be gone! Oh the toil that knows no breaking! Oh the Heimweh, ceaseless, aching! Oh the black dividing Sea and alien Plain! Youth was cheap -- wherefore we sold it. Gold was good -- we hoped to hold it, And to-day we know the fulness of our gain. Grey dusk behind the tamarisks -- the parrots fly together -- As the sun is sinking slowly over Home; And his last ray seems to mock us shackled in a lifelong tether. That drags us back how'er so far we roam. Hard her service, poor her payment -- she is ancient, tattered raiment -- India, she the grim Stepmother of our kind. If a year of life be lent her, if her temple's shrine we enter, The door is hut -- we may not look behind. Black night behind the tamarisks -- the owls begin their chorus -- As the conches from the temple scream and bray. With the fruitless years behind us, and the hopeless years before us, Let us honor, O my brother, Christmas Day! Call a truce, then, to our labors -- let us feast with friends and neighbors, And be merry as the custom of our caste; For if "faint and forced the laughter," and if sadness follow after, We are richer by one mocking Christmas past. ~ Rudyard Kipling,

745: Chorus Of Phoenician Women Borne from Phoenician shores I cross'd the deep, My tender years to Phoebus they consign To sprinkle incense on his shrine, And dwell beneath Parnassus' steep O'erspread with everlasting snow: Our dashing oars were plied in haste Thro' the Ionian wave, whose eddies flow Round Sicily's inhospitable waste; Then vernal Zephyrs breath'd, our sails around, And Heaven's high-vaulted roof convey'd the murmuring sound. A chosen offering to the Delphic God, I from my native city, to this land Where aged Cadmus bore command, Am come, obedient to the nod Of those who from Agenor spring, To the proud towers of Laius' race, Our kindred govern'd by a kindred king. Here stand I, like an image on its base, Tho' destin'd to partake refin'd delights, Bathe in Castalia's stream, and tend Apollo's rites. O mountain, from whose cloven height, There darts a double stream of light, Oft on thy topmost ridge the Menades are seen, And thou, each day distilling generous wine, O plant of Bacchus, whose ripe clusters shine, Blushing thro' the leaf's faint green; Ye caves, in which the Python lay, And hills, from whence Apollo twang'd his bow, Around your heights o'erspread with snow, 'Midst my lov'd virgin comrades may I stray, Each anxious fear expelling from my breast, In the world's center, that auspicious fane The residence of Phoebus blessed, And bid adieu to Dirce's plain. But now before these walls doth Mars advance, And brandish slaughter's flaming torch around; May Thebes ne'er feel the threaten'd wound, For to a friend his friend's mischance Is grevious as his own: each ill That lights upon these sevenfold towers With equal woe Phoenicia's realm must fall: For Thebes I mourn; since of one blood with ours From Io's loves this nation dates its birth, Those sorrows I partake which vex my kindred earth. Thick as a wintry cloud that phalanx stands, Whose gleaming shields portend the bloody fight, The God of War with stern delight, Shall to the siege those hostile bands Lead on, and rouse the Fiends to smite The race of an incestuous bed: Much, O Pelasgian Argos, much thy might, And more the vengeance of the Gods I dread; For arm'd with justice on his native land Rushes that banish'd youth, the sceptre to demand. ~ Euripides,

746:Nevertheless, in certain respects and in certain places, despite philosophy, despite progress, the spirit of the cloister lingers on, in the middle of the nineteenth century, and a bizarre new outbreak of asceticism now astounds the civilized world. The persistence of antiquated institutions in perpetuating themselves is like the stubbornness of stale scent clinging to your hair, the urgency of spoiled fish clamouring to be eaten, the oppression of childish garb expecting to clothe the adult, and the tenderness of corpses wanting to come back to kiss the living. 'Ungrateful wretch!' says the garment. 'I protected you in bad weather. Why will you have nothing more to do with me?' 'I come from the open sea,' says the fish. 'I was a rose,' says the perfume. 'I loved you,' says the corpse. 'I civilized you,' says the convent. There is only one answer to this: once upon a time. To dream of the indefinite protraction of defunct things and of embalmment as a way of governing mankind, to restore ravaged dogmas, regild shrines, patch up cloisters, re-bless reliquaries, revitalize superstitions, refuel fanaticisms, replace the handles on holy-water sprinklers and on sabres, recreate monasticism and militarism, to believe in the salvation of society by the multiplication of the parasites, to force the past on the present - this seems strange. Still, there are theorists who propound these theories. Such theorists, and they are intelligent people, have a very simple method: they put a gloss on the past, a gloss they call 'social order', 'divine right', 'morality', 'family', 'respect for elders', 'ancient authority', 'sacred tradition', 'legitimacy', 'religion', and they go about shouting, 'Look! Take this, honest people.' This logic was known to the ancients The haruspices practiced it. They rubbed a black heifer with chalk and said, 'It's white.' We ourselves respect the past in certain instances and in all cases grant it clemency, provided it consents to being dead. If it insists on being alive, we attack and try to kill it. Superstitions, bigotries, false pieties, prejudices, these spectres, for all that they are spectres, cling to life. They have teeth and nails in their vaporousness, and they must be tackled head-on, and war must be waged against them, and it must be waged constantly. For it is one of the fates of humanity to be doomed to eternal battle against phantoms. Shades are difficult to throttle and destroy. ~ Victor Hugo,

747: The Garden Of Adonis (The Garden of Life in Spenser's 'Faerie Queene.') IT is no fabled garden in the skies, But bloometh here— this is no world of death; And nothing that once liveth, ever dies, And naught that breathes can ever cease to breathe, And naught that bloometh ever withereth. The gods can ne'er take back their gifts from men, They gave us life,— they cannot take again. Who hath known Death, and who hath seen his face? On what high mountain have ye met with him? Within what lowest valley is there trace Of his feared footsteps? in what forest dim, In what great city, in what lonely ways? Nay, there is no such god, but one called Change, And all he does is beautiful and strange. It is but Change that lays our darlings low, And, though we doubt and fear, forsakes them not. Where red lips smiled do sweetest roses blow, And star-flowers bloom above the lovely spot Where gleamed the eyes, with blue forget-me-not. And through the grasses runs the same wave there We knew of old within the golden hair. Dig in the earth— ye shall not surely find Death or death's semblance; only roots of flowers, And all fair, goodly things there live enshrined, With the foundations of the glad green bowers, Through which the sunshine comes in golden showers. And all the blossoms that this earth enwreathe, Are for assurance that there is no death. O mother, raise thy tear-bathed lids again: Thy child died not, he only liveth more— His soul is in the sunshine and the rain, His life is in the waters and the shore, He is around thee all the wide world o'er; The daisy thou hast plucked smiles back at thee, 253 Because it doth again its mother see. What noble deed that ever lived, is dead, Or yet hath lost its power to inspire Courage in hearts that sicken, and to shed New faith and hope when hands and footsteps tire, And make sad, downcast eyes look upward higher? Yea, all men see and know it, whence it came; It purifies them like a burning flame. And dreams? What dreams were ever lost and gone, But wandering in strange lands we found again? When least we think of these dear birdlings flown, We find that bright and fresh they still remain. The garden of all life is round us then; And he is blind who doth not know and see, And praise the gods for immortality. ~ Emma Lazarus,

748:Our democracy cannot survive its current downward drift into tribalism, extremism, and seething resentment. Today it’s “us versus them” in America. Politics is little more than blood sport. As a result, our willingness to believe the worst about everyone outside our own bubble is growing, and our ability to solve problems and seize opportunities is shrinking. We have to do better. We have honest differences. We need vigorous debates. Healthy skepticism is good. It saves us from being too naive or too cynical. But it is impossible to preserve democracy when the well of trust runs completely dry. The freedoms enshrined in the Bill of Rights and the checks and balances in our Constitution were designed to prevent the self-inflicted wounds we face today. But as our long history reveals, those written words must be applied by people charged with giving life to them in each new era. That’s how African Americans moved from being slaves to being equal under the law and how they set off on the long journey to be equal in fact, a journey we know is not over. The same story can be told of women’s rights, workers’ rights, immigrants’ rights, the rights of the disabled, the struggle to define and protect religious liberty, and to guarantee equality to people without regard to their sexual orientation or gender identity. These have been hard-fought battles, waged on uncertain, shifting terrain. Each advance has sparked a strong reaction from those whose interests and beliefs are threatened. Today the changes are happening so fast, in an environment so covered in a blizzard of information and misinformation, that our very identities are being challenged. What does it mean to be an American today? It’s a question that will answer itself if we get back to what’s brought us this far: widening the circle of opportunity, deepening the meaning of freedom, and strengthening bonds of community. Shrinking the definition of them and expanding the definition of us. Leaving no one behind, left out, looked down on. We must get back to that mission. And do it with both energy and humility, knowing that our time is fleeting and our power is not an end in itself but a means to achieve more noble and necessary ends. The American dream works when our common humanity matters more than our interesting differences and when together they create endless possibilities. That’s an America worth fighting—even dying—for. And, more important, it’s an America worth living and working for. ~ Bill Clinton,

749:Contemplations on the belly When pregnant with our first, Dean and I attended a child birth class. There were about 15 other couples, all 6-8 months pregnant, just like us. As an introduction, the teacher asked us to each share what had been our favorite part of pregnancy and least favorite part. I was surprised by how many of the men and women there couldn't name a favorite part. When it was my turn, I said, "My least favorite has been the nausea, and my favorite is the belly." We were sitting in the back of the room, so it was noticeable when several heads turned to get a look at me. Dean then spoke. "Yeah, my least favorite is that she was sick, and my favorite is the belly too." Now nearly every head turned to gander incredulously at the freaky couple who actually liked the belly. Dean and I laughed about it later, but we were sincere. The belly is cool. It is one of the Seven Natural Wonders of the World, an unmistakable sign of what's going on inside, the wigwam for our little squirmer, the mark of my undeniable superpower of baby-making. I loved the belly and its freaky awesomeness, and especially the flutters, kicks, and bumps from within. Twins belly is a whole new species. I marvel at the amazing uterus within and skin without with their unceasing ability to stretch (Reed Richards would be impressed). I still have great admiration for the belly, but I also fear it. Sometimes I wonder if I should build a shrine to it, light some incense, offer up gifts in an attempt both to honor it and avoid its wrath. It does seem more like a mythic monstrosity you'd be wise not to awaken than a bulbous appendage. It had NEEDS. It has DEMANDS. It will not be taken lightly (believe me, there's nothing light about it). I must give it its own throne, lying sideways atop a cushion, or it will CRUSH MY ORGANS. This belly is its own creature, is subject to different laws of growth and gravity. No, it's not a cute belly, not a benevolent belly. It would have tea with Fin Fang Foom; it would shake hands with Cthulhu. It's no wonder I'm so restless at night, having to sleep with one eye open. Nevertheless, I honor you, belly, and the work you do to protect and grow my two precious daughters inside. Truly, they must be even more powerful than you to keep you enslaved to their needs. It's quite clear that out of all of us, I'm certainly not the one in control. I am here to do your bidding, belly and babies. I am your humble servant. ~ Shannon Hale,

750:Temple. Jesus’ attitude toward the temple (Mark 11:15–19; John 2:18–22) was finally the most ominous threat because there he spoke directly about the destruction. In so doing he of course voiced the intent of the enemies of the church and of the state. Moreover, in his speech about the temple he quotes from the temple sermon of Jeremiah (Jer 7:11), thereby mobilizing that painful memory of dismantling criticism and in fact radically replicating it here.9 In critiquing the temple, Jesus struck at the center of the doctrine of election, which can be traced in the Zion tradition at least as far back as Isaiah and which assumed a guaranteed historical existence for this special people gathered around this special shrine. Thus Jesus advances the critical tradition of Jeremiah against the royal tradition reflected in Isaiah.10 All these actions, together with Jesus’ other violations of social convention, are a heavy criticism of the “righteousness of the law.” The law had become in his day a way for the managers of society, religious even more than civil, to effectively control not only morality but the political-economic valuing that lay behind the morality. Thus his criticism of the “law” is not to be dismissed as an attack on “legalism” in any moralistic sense, as is sometimes done in reductionist Pauline interpretation. Rather, his critique concerns the fundamental social valuing of his society. In practice Jesus has seen, as Marx later made clear, that the law can be a social convention to protect the current distribution of economic and political power.11 Jesus, in the tradition of Jeremiah, dared to articulate the end of a consciousness that could not keep its promises but that in fact denied the very humanness it purported to give. As is always the case, it is a close call to determine if in fact Jesus caused the dismantling or if he voiced what was indeed about to happen in any case. But Jesus, along with the other prophets, is regularly treated as though giving voice is causing the dismantling. And indeed, in such a consciousness that may be the reality. We may note in passing that in the temple-cleansing narrative as well as in the Matthean birth narrative it is the Jeremiah tradition that is mentioned. Moreover, in the Matthean version of eating with sinners (Matt 9:10–13), as well as in working on the Sabbath (Matt 12:5–6), the appeal is to Hos 6:6. It is certainly important that appeal is made precisely to the most radical and anguished prophets of the dismantling. ~ Walter Brueggemann,

751: Master And Servant The devil to Bacchus said, one day, In a scowling, growling, petulant way, As he came from earth to hell: 'There's a soul above that I cannot move, And I've struggled long and well; He's a manly youth, with an eye of truth, A fellow of matchless grace; And he looks me through with his eye of blue Till I cower before his face. The very power and strength of heaven To this young, fearless soul were given; For I've never an art that can reach his heart, And I cannot snare his feet: I have wasted days in devising ways, And now must cry 'Defeat!'' And the devil scowled, and grumbled, and growled, And beat about with his cane, Till the demons fled over the burning waste Out of his reach in hurrying haste, Howling aloud in pain. Bacchus laughed as he stooped and quaffed A burning bumper of wine: 'Why, master,' said he, 'you soon shall see The fellow down at your shrine; Long ago, if you'd let me know, We'd had him in our ranks. And now, adieu! while I work for you; Don't hurry about your thanks! I'm going above; you know they love The sight of my glowing face. They call me a god! ho! ho! how odd! With this for my dwelling-place.' A youth with a dower of manly grace, A maid with the morning in her face; And she filleth a goblet full to the brim, And giveth the bubbling draught to him. 'Drink!' she says, and the goblet sways 384 And shimmers under his eyes. He tries to speak, but the tongue is weak, And the words sink into sighs; For the maid is fair, and she holds him there With a spell that he cannot flee: 'Drink!' and she sips with her ruby lips'Drink but a draught with me.' And the lovers quaffed, while the demons laughed, And Bacchus laughed loud and long. 'Ho! ho!' cried he, 'what a victory! Ho! ho! for the soul so strong That my master was beat, and cried 'Defeat!' But wine is a tempter, and love is sweet.' Bacchus went back o'er the fiery track Into the land below; And the devil said, 'Well, what have you to tell Of the thing I want to know?' And Bacchus said he, 'Why, look and see! There is your strong, brave youth Reeling along, with a drunken song Staining those lips of truth. My work is done! You must go on And finish the job I started; And as long as I stay in your service, pray, Don't ever be down-hearted.' ~ Ella Wheeler Wilcox,

752: Written In Australia THE WIDE sun stares without a cloud: Whipped by his glances truculent The earth lies quivering and cowed. My heart is hot with discontent: I hate this haggard continent. But over the loping leagues of sea A lone land calls to her children free: My own land holding her arms to me— But oh, the long loping leagues of sea. The grey old city is dumb with heat; No breeze comes leaping, naked, rude, Adown the narrow, high-walled street; Upon the night thick perfumes brood: The evening oozes lassitude. But over the edges of my town, Swept in a tide that ne’er abates, The riotous breezes tumble down; My heart looks home, looks home where waits The Windy City of the Straits! The land lies desolate and stripped; Across its waste has thinly strayed A tattered host of eucalypt From whose gaunt uniform is made A ragged penury of shade. But over my isles the forest drew A mantle thick—save where a peak Shows his grim teeth a-snarl—and through The filtered coolness creek and creek, Tangled in ferns, in whispers speak. And there the placid great lakes are; And brimming rivers proudly force Their ice-cold tides. Here, like a scar, Dry-lipped, a withered water-course 111 Crawls from a long-forgotten source. My glance, home-gazing, scarce discerns This listless girl, in whose dark hair A starry red hibiscus burns; Her pallid cheeks are like a pair Of nuns, bloom-ravished, yet so fair. And like a sin her warm lips flame In her wan face; swift passions brim In those brown eyes too soft for blame; Her form is sinuous and slim— That lyric line of breast and limb! But one there waits whose brown face glows, Whose cheeks with Winter’s kisses smart— The flushing petals of a rose. Of earth and sun she is a part; Her brow is Greek and Greek her heart. At love she laughs a faint disdain; Her heart no weakly one to charm; Robust and fragrant as the rain, The dark bush soothed her with his balm, The mountains gave her of their calm. Her fresh young figure, lithe and tall, Her radiant eyes, her brow benign, She is the peerless queen of all— The maid, the country, that I shrine In this far-banished heart of mine! And over the loping leagues of green A lone land waits with a hope serene— My own land calls like a prisoner queen— But oh, the long loping leagues between! ~ Arthur Henry Adams,

753:The Next Time" Nobody sees it happening, but the architecture of our time Is becoming the architecture of the next time. And the dazzle Of light upon the waters is as nothing beside the changes Wrought therein, just as our waywardness means Nothing against the steady pull of things over the edge. Nobody can stop the flow, but nobody can start it either. Time slips by; our sorrows do not turn into poems, And what is invisible stays that way. Desire has fled, Leaving only a trace of perfume in its wake, And so many people we loved have gone, And no voice comes from outer space, from the folds Of dust and carpets of wind to tell us that this Is the way it was meant to happen, that if only we knew How long the ruins would last we would never complain. II Perfection is out of the question for people like us, So why plug away at the same old self when the landscape Has opened its arms and given us marvelous shrines To flock towards? The great motels to the west are waiting, In somebody’s yard a pristine dog is hoping that we’ll drive by, And on the rubber surface of a lake people bobbing up and down Will wave. The highway comes right to the door, so let’s Take off before the world out there burns up. Life should be more Than the body’s weight working itself from room to room. A turn through the forest will do us good, so will a spin Among the farms. Just think of the chickens strutting, The cows swinging their udders, and flicking their tails at flies. And one can imagine prisms of summer light breaking against The silent, haze-filled sleep of the farmer and his wife. III It could have been another story, the one that was meant Instead of the one that happened. Living like this, Hoping to revise what has been false or rendered unreadable Is not what we wanted. Believing that the intended story Would have been like a day in the west when everything Is tirelessly present—the mountains casting their long shadow Over the valley where the wind sings its circular tune And trees respond with a dry clapping of leaves—was overly Simple no doubt, and short-sighted. For soon the leaves, Having gone black, would fall, and the annulling snow Would pillow the walk, and we, with shovels in hand, would meet, Bow, and scrape the sidewalk clean. What else would there be This late in the day for us but desire to make amends And start again, the sun’s compassion as it disappears. ~ Mark Strand,

754: Johannes Ronge Silesian shepherd, blesed be The sequel of that history That I have read with heart elate, Entwining it with my own fate; So dear to me the visions seem That thou, oh child unknown, didst dream— In earliest days on mountain wild:— How dreadful spirits sternly smiled, And prophecied thy future days, And pointed out untrodden ways, And gave thee weapons strong & good, As the wierd lady of the Wood To young St. George. Must I compare With those dove winged guardians fair Who to the little English maid In crowded streets brief visits paid; For in the year that gave me birth Didst thou appear upon this earth: And we have wandered far & wide Seeking for truth on every side. Sweet dreadful spirits strengthed thee Into a noble destiny Sweet smiling angels sang to me Strains full of love and mystery. Yet know I not what I should do In worship of the good & true. Oh! gentle shepherd, dost thou wear Meek flowers on thy waving hair, And dost thou pipe a simple song, And love thy flock the whole day long? Or, stately shepherd, comest thou With flaming signs around thy brow And God's commandment in thy hand? And dost thou read & understand? Deliverer—for the good & true Within one day what shall we do? How shall we build the mystic shrine? What symbols shall be thine & mine? Tell, modern priest, what robes should be 144 Emblems of richest charty? What consecrations may there be, What hope, what faith, what mystery? And wilt thou walk thy people thro', And sprinkle us with heavenly dew? And shall we from the sacred door Go forth & search the parish o'er, And mark what evil there is done, And give some remedy, each one? A cup of water, if no more. As thou hast purified before, With graceful step & action bland, Shall we, with schemes of duty planned By wisest hearts, walk daily thro' With serious step devout & true. Our spirits may in deepest rest Sleep softly on the Savior's breast. Permit it not, dear Lord, that we Should ever fall from loving thee. Countless I trust the spirits be Who rest upon thee lovingly. The holy Mary, beauteous light, Who gazes on her face aright? I think the world has yet to turn Their looks toward her eyes, & learn. There may they read of things unknown, And make rare wonders all their own. Canst thou within that house of gold, Oh! shepherd, thy poor lambkins fold? ~ Dante Gabriel Rossetti,

755:He was the leader of the Prophet David’s army,’ said the Sheikh. ‘David had him killed so that he could marry Nebi Uri’s beautiful wife. Two angels, Mikhail and Jibrael, appeared and asked David why he needed an extra wife when he already had ninety-nine others. You know this story?’ ‘Yes. I think we Christians know Nebi Uri as Uriah the Hittite.’ It was an unlikely tangle of tales: a medieval Muslim saint buried in a much older Byzantine tomb tower had somehow been confused with the Biblical and Koranic Uriah; perhaps the saint’s name was Uriah, and over the passage of time his identity had been merged with that of his scriptural namesake. More intriguing still was the fact that in this city, long famed for the shrines of its Christian saints, the Muslim Sufi tradition had directly carried on from where Theodoret’s Christian holy men had left off. Just as the Muslim form of prayer, with its bowings and prostrations, appears to derive from the older Syriac Christian tradition that I had seen performed at Mar Gabriel, and just as the architecture of the earliest minarets unmistakably derives from the square late-antique Syrian church towers, so the roots of Islamic mysticism and Sufism lie with the Byzantine holy men and desert fathers who preceded them across the Near East. Today the West often views Islam as a civilisation very different from and indeed innately hostile to Christianity. Only when you travel in Christianity’s Eastern homelands do you realise how closely the two religions are really linked. For the former grew directly out of the latter and still, to this day, embodies many aspects and practices of the early Christian world now lost in Christianity’s modern Western incarnation. When the early Byzantines were first confronted by the Prophet’s armies, they assumed that Islam was merely a heretical form of Christianity, and in many ways they were not so far wrong: Islam accepts much of the Old and New Testaments, and venerates both Jesus and the ancient Jewish prophets. Certainly if John Moschos were to come back today it is likely that he would find much more that was familiar in the practices of a modern Muslim Sufi than he would with those of, say, a contemporary American Evangelical. Yet this simple truth has been lost by our tendency to think of Christianity as a Western religion rather than the Oriental faith it actually is. Moreover the modern demonisation of Islam in the West, and the recent growth of Muslim fundamentalism (itself in many ways a reaction to the West’s repeated humiliation of the Muslim world), have led to an atmosphere where few are aware of, or indeed wish to be aware of, the profound kinship of Christianity and Islam. ~ William Dalrymple,

756: Iran I cringe (or is it shiver?) every time I hear the word motherland. I’d like to think my blatant internationalism foments the reaction. But is it the latent fear forever held by you, my pays natal, the terror of un retour? I’d like to remember the scent of your jasmine, the ooze of your pomegranate’s juice. But the torture in your prisons the sadism in your leaders’ eyes pervade the reminiscence. I’m drawn to the romance of your poets, memorialised so lyrically in the sepulchral shrines of Shiraz. The tales of turbaned bards drinking the forbidden, singing the heady praises of Love fill me with the desire to love you, but the ubiquity of sub-machineguns, the vigilance of the Guards repel. And I’ve been repulsed across the globe. I’ve been 38 made thoroughly homeless. Blame Islam? The historical disaster of a revolution without vision? Anti-colonialism without the aim of ending the slavery of the soul to the superiority of belief? Or, as always, ‘them’: the Americans, greased up for devouring your oil? Blame? No, I’m not at all interested in constructivism. I’ll accuse, as they say in my surrogate patrie, ‘until the cows come home’. Why the pretentious reliance on Italicised French words and Anglo slang? My mother-tongue also terrifies. Once the language of no doubt sublime poets and ghazals; the discourse of submission and hatred during my childhood. Remember your theologians interpreting reality? I don’t want to. I don’t know if my psyche can handle many more nightmares. Let it suffice that I can recall the purges, the bruises, the glow of the incinerations. I’ll have you know that I now fathom what 39 you had in mind for me: a plot among the ‘martyrs’ in the Heaven of Zahra mausoleum in Tehran. Now I hear you’re armed to the teeth to continue your infernal war against timeless nemeses. Your wealthy still holiday in Europe and plan cosmetic surgeries. Your clerics still issue death warrants against ‘apostates’ and ‘infidels’. I’m almost dead in the quicksand of the deserts of foreignness and exile. Do I even begin to dare contemplate a return to the makeshift terrains of memory? To the localities that cultivated my senses of placement, to the orchards that I wandered as a bored child? The people are mostly dead. The remaining form a diaspora of regret and disillusionment. I’m, as I said, not a positivist. Only a fickle and shuddering ghost rejuvenated and alarmed by the mention of the word 40 motherland. ~ Ali Alizadeh,

757:That settles it,” said Mr. Trapwood. “We’re going back to the pension. We’re going to pack. We’re going to be on the Bishop first thing tomorrow. Sir Aubrey will have to send someone else out. Nothing is worth another day in this hellhole.” Mr. Low did not answer. He had caught a fever and was lying in the bottom of a large canoe owned by the Brothers of the São Gabriel Mission, who had arranged for the crows to be taken back to Manaus. His eyes were closed and he was wandering a little in his mind, mumbling about a boy with hair the color of the belly of the golden toad which squatted on the lily leaves of the Mamari River. There had, of course, been no golden-haired boys; there hadn’t been any boys at all. What there had been was a leper colony, run by the Brothers of Saint Patrick, a group of Irish missionaries to whom the crows had been sent. “They’re good men, the Brothers,” a man on the docks had told them as they set off on their last search for Taverner’s son. “They take in all sorts of strays--orphans, boys with no homes. If anyone knows where Taverner’s lad might be, it’ll be them.” Then he had spat cheerfully into the river because he was a crony of the chief of police and liked the idea of Mr. Low and Mr. Trapwood spending time with the Brothers, who were very holy men indeed and slept on the hard ground, and ate porridge made from manioc roots, and got up four times in the night to pray. The Brothers’ mission was on a swampy part of the river and very unhealthy, but the Brothers thought only about God and helping their fellowmen. They welcomed Mr. Trapwood and Mr. Low and said they could look over the leper colony to see if they could find anyone who might turn out to be the boy they were looking for. “They’re a jolly lot, the lepers,” said Father Liam. “People who’ve suffered don’t have time to grumble.” But the crows, turning green, thought there wouldn’t be much point. Even if there was a boy there the right age, Sir Aubrey probably wouldn’t think that a boy who was a leper could manage Westwood. Later a group of pilgrims arrived who had been walking on foot from the Andes and were on their way to a shrine on the Madeira River, and the Brothers knelt and washed their feet. “We know you’ll be proud to share the sleeping hut with our friends here,” they said to Mr. Low and Mr. Trapwood, and the crows spent the night on the floor with twelve snoring, grunting men--and woke to find two large and hungry-looking vultures squatting in the doorway. By the time they returned to Manaus the crows were beaten men. They didn’t care any longer about Taverner’s son or Sir Aubrey, or even the hundred-pound bonus they had lost. All they cared about was getting onto the Bishop and steaming away as fast as it could be done. ~ Eva Ibbotson,

758: Call Me Away Call me away; there's nothing here, That wins my soul to stay; Then let me leave this prospect drear, And hasten far away. To our beloved land I'll flee, Our land of thought and soul, Where I have roved so oft with thee, Beyond the world's control. I'll sit and watch those ancient trees, Those Scotch firs dark and high; I'll listen to the eerie breeze, Among their branches sigh. The glorious moon shines far above; How soft her radiance falls, On snowy heights, and rock, and grove; And yonder palace walls! Who stands beneath yon fir trees high? A youth both slight and fair, Whose bright and restless azure eye Proclaims him known to care, Though fair that brow, it is not smooth; Though small those features, yet in sooth Stern passion has been there. Now on the peaceful moon are fixed Those eyes so glistening bright, But trembling teardrops hang betwixt, And dim the blessed light. Though late the hour, and keen the blast, That whistles round him now, Those raven locks are backward cast, To cool his burning brow. His hands above his heaving breast Are clasped in agony -- 39 'O Father! Father! let me rest! And call my soul to thee! I know 'tis weakness thus to pray; But all this cankering care -This doubt tormenting night and day Is more than I can bear! With none to comfort, none to guide And none to strengthen me. Since thou my only friend hast died -I've pined to follow thee! Since thou hast died! And did he live What comfort could his counsel give -To one forlorn like me? Would he my Idol's form adore -Her soul, her glance, her tone? And say, "Forget for ever more Her kindred and thine own; Let dreams of her thy peace destroy, Leave every other hope and joy And live for her alone"?' He starts, he smiles, and dries the tears, Still glistening on his cheek, The lady of his soul appears, And hark! I hear her speak -'Aye, dry thy tears; thou wilt not weep -While I am by thy side -Our foes all day their watch may keep But cannot thus divide Such hearts as ours; and we tonight Together in the clear moon's light Their malice will deride. No fear our present bliss shall blast And sorrow we'll defy. Do thou forget the dreary past, The dreadful future I.' 40 Forget it? Yes, while thou art by I think of nought but thee, 'Tis only when thou art not nigh Remembrance tortures me. But such a lofty soul to find, And such a heart as thine, In such a glorious form enshrined And still to call thee mine -Would be for earth too great a bliss, Without a taint of woe like this, Then why should I repine? ~ Anne Brontë,

759:The traditional Roman wedding was a splendid affair designed to dramatize the bride’s transfer from the protection of her father’s household gods to those of her husband. Originally, this literally meant that she passed from the authority of her father to her husband, but at the end of the Republic women achieved a greater degree of independence, and the bride remained formally in the care of a guardian from her blood family. In the event of financial and other disagreements, this meant that her interests were more easily protected. Divorce was easy, frequent and often consensual, although husbands were obliged to repay their wives’ dowries. The bride was dressed at home in a white tunic, gathered by a special belt which her husband would later have to untie. Over this she wore a flame-colored veil. Her hair was carefully dressed with pads of artificial hair into six tufts and held together by ribbons. The groom went to her father’s house and, taking her right hand in his, confirmed his vow of fidelity. An animal (usually a ewe or a pig) was sacrificed in the atrium or a nearby shrine and an Augur was appointed to examine the entrails and declare the auspices favorable. The couple exchanged vows after this and the marriage was complete. A wedding banquet, attended by the two families, concluded with a ritual attempt to drag the bride from her mother’s arms in a pretended abduction. A procession was then formed which led the bride to her husband’s house, holding the symbols of housewifely duty, a spindle and distaff. She took the hand of a child whose parents were living, while another child, waving a hawthorn torch, walked in front to clear the way. All those in the procession laughed and made obscene jokes at the happy couple’s expense. When the bride arrived at her new home, she smeared the front door with oil and lard and decorated it with strands of wool. Her husband, who had already arrived, was waiting inside and asked for her praenomen or first name. Because Roman women did not have one and were called only by their family name, she replied in a set phrase: “Wherever you are Caius, I will be Caia.” She was then lifted over the threshold. The husband undid the girdle of his wife’s tunic, at which point the guests discreetly withdrew. On the following morning she dressed in the traditional costume of married women and made a sacrifice to her new household gods. By the late Republic this complicated ritual had lost its appeal for sophisticated Romans and could be replaced by a much simpler ceremony, much as today many people marry in a registry office. The man asked the woman if she wished to become the mistress of a household (materfamilias), to which she answered yes. In turn, she asked him if he wished to become paterfamilias, and on his saying he did the couple became husband and wife. ~ Anthony Everitt,

760: Nagasaki Days I -- A Pleasant Afternoon for Michael Brownstein and Dick Gallup One day 3 poets and 60 ears sat under a green-striped Chautauqua tent in Aurora listening to Black spirituals, tapping their feet, appreciating words singing by in mountain winds on a pleasant sunny day of rest -- the wild wind blew thru blue Heavens filled with fluffy clouds stretched from Central City to Rocky Flats, Plutonium sizzled in its secret bed, hot dogs sizzled in the Lion's Club lunchwagon microwave mouth, orangeade bubbled over in waxen cups Traffic moved along Colefax, meditators silent in the Diamond Castle shrine-room at Boulder followed the breath going out of their nostrils, Nobody could remember anything, spirits flew out of mouths & noses, out of the sky, across Colorado plains & the tent flapped happily open spacious & didn't fall down. June 18, 1978 II -- Peace Protest Cumulus clouds float across blue sky over the white-walled Rockwell Corporation factory -- am I going to stop that? Rocky Mountains rising behind us Denver shining in morning light -- Led away from the crowd by police and photographers 58 Middleaged Ginsberg and Ellsberg taken down the road to the greyhaired Sheriff's van -But what about Einstein? What about Einstein? Hey, Einstein Come back! III -- Golden Courthouse Waiting for the Judge, breathing silent Prisoners, witnesses, Police -the stenographer yawns into her palms. August 9, 1978 IV -- Everybody's Fantasy I walked outside & the bomb'd dropped lots of plutonium all over the Lower East Side There weren't any buildings left just iron skeletons groceries burned, potholes open to stinking sewer waters There were people starving and crawling across the desert the Martian UFOs with blue Light destroyer rays passed over and dried up all the waters Charred Amazon palmtrees for hundreds of miles on both sides of the river August 10, 1978 V -- Waiting Room at the Rocky Flats Plutonium Plant 59 "Give us the weapons we need to protect ourselves!" the bareheaded guard lifts his flyswatter above the desk -- whap! A green-letter'd shield on the pressboard wall! "Life is fragile. Handle with care" -My Goodness! here's where they make the nuclear bomb triggers. August 17, 1978 VI -- Numbers in Red Notebook 2,000,000 killed in Vietnam 13,000,000 refugees in Indochina 1972 200,000,000 years for the Galaxy to revolve on its core 24,000 the Babylonian Great Year 24,000 half life of plutonium 2,000 the most I ever got for a poetry reading 80,000 dolphins killed in the dragnet 4,000,000,000 years earth been born Summer 1978 ~ Allen Ginsberg,

761: Dear Old London When I was broke in London in the fall of '89, I chanced to spy in Oxford Street this tantalizing sign, 'A Splendid Horace cheap for Cash!' Of course I had to look Upon the vaunted bargain, and it was a noble book! A finer one I 've never seen, nor can I hope to see, The first edition, richly bound, and clean as clean can be; And, just to think, for three-pounds-ten I might have had that Pine, When I was broke in London in the fall of '89! Down at Noseda's, in the Strand, I found, one fateful day, A portrait that I pined for as only maniac may, A print of Madame Vestris (she flourished years ago, Was Bartolozzi's daughter, and a thoroughbred, you know). A clean and handsome print it was, and cheap at thirty bob, That 's what I told the salesman, as I choked a rising sob; But I hung around Noseda's as it were a holy shrine, When I was broke in London in the fall of '89. At Davey's, in Great Russell Street, were autographs galore, And Mr. Davey used to let me con that precious store. Sometimes I read what warriors wrote, sometimes a king's command, But oftener still a poet's verse, writ in a meagre hand. Lamb, Byron, Addison, and Burns, Pope, Johnson, Swift, and Scott, It needed but a paltry sum to comprehend the lot; Yet, though Friend Davey marked 'em down, what could I but decline? For I was broke in London in the fall of '89. Of antique swords and spears I saw a vast and dazzling heap That Curio Fenton offered me at prices passing cheap; And, oh, the quaint old bureaus, and the warming-pans of brass, And the lovely hideous freaks I found in pewter and in glass! And, oh, the sideboards, candlesticks, the cracked old china plates, The clocks and spoons from Amsterdam that antedate all dates! Of such superb monstrosities I found an endless mine When I was broke in London in the fall of '89. O ye that hanker after boons that others idle by, -The battered things that please the soul, though they may vex the eye, -The silver plate and crockery all sanctified with grime, 110 The oaken stuff that has defied the tooth of envious Time, The musty tomes, the speckled prints, the mildewed bills of play, And other costly relics of malodorous decay, -Ye only can appreciate what agony was mine When I was broke in London in the fall of '89. When, in the course of natural things, I go to my reward, Let no imposing epitaph my martyrdoms record; Neither in Hebrew, Latin, Greek, nor any classic tongue, Let my ten thousand triumphs over human griefs be sung; But in plain Anglo-Saxon that he may know who seeks What agonizing pangs I 've had while on the hunt for freaks Let there be writ upon the slab that marks my grave this line: 'Deceased was broke in London in the fall of '89.' ~ Eugene Field,

762: The Sacrifice Of Iphigenia Now long and long from wintry Strymon blew The weary, hungry, anchor-straining blasts, The winds that wandering seamen dearly rue, Nor spared the cables worn and groaning masts; And, lingering on, in indolent delay, Slow wasted all the strength of Greece away. But when the shrill-voiced prophet 'gan proclaim That remedy more dismal and more dread Than the drear weather blackening overhead, And spoke in Artemis' most awful name, The sons of Atreus, 'mid their armed peers, Their sceptres dashed to earth, and each broke out in tears, And thus the elder king began to say: "Dire doom! to disobey the gods' commands! More dire, my child, mine house's pride, to slay, Dabbling in virgin blood a father's hands. Alas! alas! which way to fly? As base deserter quit the host, The pride and strength of our great league all lost? Should I the storm-appeasing rite deny, Will not their wrathfullest wrath rage up and swell? Exact the virgin's blood?--oh, would 't were o'er and well!" So, 'neath Necessity's stern yoke he passed, And his lost soul, with impious impulse veering, Surrendered to the accursed unholy blast, Warped to the dire extreme of human daring. The frenzy of affliction still Maddens, dire counselor, man's soul to ill. So he endured to be the priest In that child-slaughtering rite unblest, The first full offering of that host In fatal war for a bad woman lost. The prayers, the mute appeal to her hard sire, Her youth, her virgin beauty, Naught heeded they, the chiefs for war on fire. So to the ministers of that dire duty 27 (First having prayed) the father gave the sign, Like some soft kid, to lift her to the shrine. There lay she prone, Her graceful garments round her thrown; But first her beauteous mouth around Their violent bonds they wound, With their rude inarticulate might, Lest her dread curse the fatal house should smite. But she her saffron robe to earth let fall: The shaft of pity from her eye Transpierced that awful priesthood--one and all. Lovely as in a picture stood she by As she would speak. Thus at her father's feasts The virgin, 'mid the reveling guests, Was wont with her chaste voice to supplicate For her dear father an auspicious fate. I saw no more! to speak more is not mine; Not unfulfilled was Calchas' lore divine. Eternal justice still will bring Wisdom out of suffering. So to the fond desire farewell, The inevitable future to foretell; 'Tis but our woe to antedate; Joint knit with joint, expands the full-formed fate. Yet at the end of these dark days May prospering weal return at length; Thus in his spirit prays He of the Apian land the sole remaining strength. ~ Aeschylus,

763: Wordsworth At Dove Cottage Wise Wordsworth, to avert your ken, From half of human fate. What is there in the ways of men, Their struggles, or their state, To make the calm recluse forswear The garden path, the fire-side chair, To journey with the Great? The narrowest hamlet lends the heart A realm as rich and wide As kingdoms do, to play its part; Who reaps not, that hath tried, More rapture from the wayside flower Than all the stairs and robes of power And avenues of pride? Whether we scan it from below, Or bask in it above, We weary of life's glittering show; We tire of all save Love. As, when fatigued with wood-notes shrill, We listen with contentment still To cooings of the dove. In this low cottage nested near Mountain and lake, you dwelt; 'Twas here you tilled the ground, 'twas here You loved, and wrote, and knelt. Hence, wheresoe'er your kindred dwell, Your songs sincere our hearts compel To feel the thing you felt. Glory there is that lives entombed In spacious-soaring shrine; A tenement more narrow-roomed Sufficient is for thine. A homely temple haply found Where peasants toil and streamlets sound, Adorned not, but divine. 613 Your sacred music still is heard, When notes profane have died; Like some familiar home-bred word, You in our lives abide. And when with trackless feet we rove By meadow, mountain, mere, or grove, We feel you at our side. Thrice-happy bard! who found at home All joys that needful be; Whose longings were not forced to roam Beyond your household Three:Your own proud genius, steadfast, calm, A wife whose faith was household balm, And heavenly Dorothy. What is it sweetens tasteless Fame? Makes shadowy Glory bliss? What is the guerdon poets claim? What should it be but this?A heart attuned to understand, A listening ear, a loving hand, A smile, a tear, a kiss! Leave them but these, and let who will Crave plaudits from the crowd, Its vapid incense, aves shrill, And favour of the proud. The sweetest minister of Fame Is she who broods upon one's name, But calls it not aloud. And this at least, in full, you had, From sister, and from wife: They made your gravest moments glad, They havened you from strife; Hallowed your verse, revered your tread, Maintained a nimbus round your head, And deified your life. Hence, long as gentle brows shall bend 614 Over your rustic page, Their pious love shall still befriend The poet and the sage; For, when we cross your cottage sill, Virtue, no less than Genius, will Invite the Pilgrimage. The tallest tower that ever rose Hath but a span to soar; Palace and fane are passing shows, But Time will be no more, When Wordsworth's home no longer leads Men's far-off feet to Grasmere's meads, And sanctifies its shore. ~ Alfred Austin,

764: A Greek Girl I may not weep, not weep, and he is dead. A weary, weary weight of tears unshed Through the long day in my sad heart I bear; The horrid sun with all unpitying glare Shines down into the dreary weaving-room, Where clangs the ceaseless clatter of the loom, And ceaselessly deft maiden-fingers weave The fine-wrought web; and I from morn till eve Work with the rest, and when folk speak to me I smile hard smiles; while still continually The silly stream of maiden speech flows on:-And now at length they talk of him that's gone, Lightly lamenting that he died so soon-Ah me! ere yet his life's sun stood at noon. Some praise his eyes, some deem his body fair, And some mislike the colour of his hair! Sweet life, sweet shape, sweet eyes, and sweetest hair, What form, what hue, save Love's own, did ye wear? I may not weep, not weep, for very shame. He loved me not. One summer's eve he came To these our halls, my father's honoured guest, And seeing me, saw not. If his lips had prest My lips, but once, in love; his eyes had sent One love-glance into mine, I had been content, And deemed it great joy for one little life; Nor envied other maids the crown of wife: The long sure years, the merry children-band-Alas, alas, I never touched his hand! And now my love is dead that loved not me. Thrice-blest, thrice-crowned, of gods thrice-lovèd she-That other, fairer maid, who tombward brings Her gold, shorn locks and piled-up offerings Of fragrant fruits, rich wines, and spices rare, And cakes with honey sweet, with saffron fair; And who, unchecked by any thought of shame, May weep her tears, and call upon his name, With burning bosom prest to the cold ground, Knowing, indeed, that all her life is crown'd, Thrice-crowned, thrice honoured, with that love of his;-No dearer crown on earth is there, I wis. While yet the sweet life lived, more light to bear Was my heart's hunger; when the morn was fair, And I with other maidens in a line Passed singing through the city to the shrine, Oft in the streets or crowded market-place I caught swift glimpses of the dear-known face; Or marked a stalwart shoulder in the throng; Or heard stray speeches as we passed along, In tones more dear to me than any song. These, hoarded up with care, and kept apart, Did serve as meat and drink my hungry heart. And now for ever has my sweet love gone; And weary, empty days I must drag on, Till all the days of all my life be sped, By no thought cheered, by no hope comforted. For if indeed we meet among the shades, How shall he know me from the other maids?-Me, that had died to save his body pain! Alas, alas, such idle thoughts are vain! O cruel, cruel sunlight, get thee gone! O dear, dim shades of eve, come swiftly on! That when quick lips, keen eyes, are closed in sleep, Through the long night till dawn I then may weep. ~ Amy Levy,

765:The Three-Decker "The three-volume novel is extinct." Full thirty foot she towered from waterline to rail. It cost a watch to steer her, and a week to shorten sail; But, spite all modern notions, I found her first and best— The only certain packet for the Islands of the Blest. Fair held the breeze behind us—’twas warm with lovers’ prayers. We’d stolen wills for ballast and a crew of missing heirs. They shipped as Able Bastards till the Wicked Nurse confessed, And they worked the old three-decker to the Islands of the Blest. By ways no gaze could follow, a course unspoiled of Cook, Per Fancy, fleetest in man, our titled berths we took With maids of matchless beauty and parentage unguessed, And a Church of England parson for the Islands of the Blest. We asked no social questions—we pumped no hidden shame— We never talked obstetrics when the Little Stranger came: We left the Lord in Heaven, we left the fiends in Hell. We weren’t exactly Yussufs, but—Zuleika didn’t tell. No moral doubt assailed us, so when the port we neared, The villain had his flogging at the gangway, and we cheered. ’Twas fiddle in the forc’s’le—’twas garlands on the mast, For every one got married, and I went ashore at last. I left ’em all in couples a-kissing on the decks. I left the lovers loving and the parents signing cheques. In endless English comfort by county-folk caressed, I left the old three-decker at the Islands of the Blest! That route is barred to steamers: you’ll never lift again Our purple-painted headlands or the lordly keeps of Spain. They’re just beyond your skyline, howe’er so far you cruise In a ram-you-damn-you liner with a brace of bucking screws. Swing round your aching search-light—’twill show no haven’s peace. Ay, blow your shrieking sirens to the deaf, gray-bearded seas! Boom out the dripping oil-bags to skin the deep’s unrest— And you aren’t one knot the nearer to the Islands of the Blest! But when you’re threshing, crippled, with broken bridge and rail, At a drogue of dead convictions to hold you head to gale, Calm as the Flying Dutchman, from truck to taffrail dressed, You’ll see the old three-decker for the Islands of the Blest. You’ll see her tiering canvas in sheeted silver spread; You’ll hear the long-drawn thunder ’neath her leaping figure-head; While far, so far above you, her tall poop-lanterns shine Unvexed by wind or weather like the candles round a shrine! Hull down—hull down and under—she dwindles to a speck, With noise of pleasant music and dancing on her deck. All’s well—all’s well aboard her—she’s left you far behind, With a scent of old-world roses through the fog that ties you blind. Her crew are babes or madmen? Her port is all to make? You’re manned by Truth and Science, and you steam for steaming’s sake? Well, tinker up your engines—you know your business best— She’s taking tired people to the Islands of the Blest! ~ Rudyard Kipling,

766: Troy Town HEAVENBORN Helen, Sparta's queen, (O Troy Town!) Had two breasts of heavenly sheen, The sun and moon of the heart's desire: All Love's lordship lay between. (O Troy's down, Tall Troy's on fire!) Helen knelt at Venus' shrine, (O Troy Town!) Saying, “A little gift is mine, A little gift for a heart's desire. Hear me speak and make me a sign! (O Troy's down, Tall Troy's on fire!) “Look, I bring thee a carven cup; (O Troy Town!) See it here as I hold it up,— Shaped it is to the heart's desire, Fit to fill when the gods would sup. (O Troy's down, Tall Troy's on fire!) “It was moulded like my breast; (O Troy Town!) He that sees it may not rest, Rest at all for his heart's desire. O give ear to my heart's behest! (O Troy's down, Tall Troy's on fire!) “See my breast, how like it is; (O Troy Town!) See it bare for the air to kiss! Is the cup to thy heart's desire? O for the breast, O make it his! (O Troy's down, Tall Troy's on fire!) “Yea, for my bosom here I sue; (O Troy Town!) Thou must give it where 'tis due, Give it there to the heart's desire. 501 Whom do I give my bosom to? (O Troy's down, Tall Troy's on fire!) “Each twin breast is an apple sweet. (O Troy Town!) Once an apple stirred the beat Of thy heart with the heart's desire:— Say, who brought it then to thy feet? (O Troy's down, Tall Troy's on fire!) “They that claimed it then were three: (O Troy Town!) For thy sake two hearts did he Make forlorn of the heart's desire. Do for him as he did for thee! (O Troy's down, Tall Troy's on fire!) “Mine are apples grown to the south, (O Troy Town!) Grown to taste in the days of drouth, Taste and waste to the heart's desire: Mine are apples meet for his mouth.” (O Troy's down, Tall Troy's on fire!) Venus looked on Helen's gift, (O Troy Town!) Looked and smiled with subtle drift, Saw the work of her heart's desire:— “There thou kneel'st for Love to lift!” (O Troy's down, Tall Troy's on fire!) Venus looked in Helen's face, (O Troy Town!) Knew far off an hour and place, And fire lit from the heart's desire; Laughed and said, “Thy gift hath grace!” (O Troy's down, Tall Troy's on fire!) Cupid looked on Helen's breast, (O Troy Town!) Saw the heart within its nest, Saw the flame of the heart's desire,— 502 Marked his arrow's burning crest. (O Troy's down, Tall Troy's on fire!) Cupid took another dart, (O Troy Town!) Fledged it for another heart, Winged the shaft with the heart's desire, Drew the string and said, “Depart!” (O Troy's down, Tall Troy's on fire!) Paris turned upon his bed, (O Troy Town!) Turned upon his bed and said, Dead at heart with the heart's desire— “Oh to clasp her golden head!” (O Troy's down, Tall Troy's on fire!) ~ Dante Gabriel Rossetti,

767:Dharma Master Cheng Yen is a Buddhist nun living in Hualien County, a mountainous region on the east coast of Taiwan. Because the mountains formed barriers to travel, the area has a high proportion of indigenous people, and in the 1960s many people in the area, especially indigenous people, were living in poverty. Although Buddhism is sometimes regarded as promoting a retreat from the world to focus on the inner life, Cheng Yen took the opposite path. In 1966, when Cheng Yen was twenty-nine, she saw an indigenous woman with labor complications whose family had carried her for eight hours from their mountain village to Hualien City. On arriving they were told they would have to pay for the medical treatment she needed. Unable to afford the cost of treatment they had no alternative but to carry her back again. In response, Cheng Yen organized a group of thirty housewives, each of whom put aside a few cents each day to establish a charity fund for needy families. It was called Tzu Chi, which means “Compassionate Relief.” Gradually word spread, and more people joined.6 Cheng Yen began to raise funds for a hospital in Hualien City. The hospital opened in 1986. Since then, Tzu Chi has established six more hospitals. To train some of the local people to work in the hospital, Tzu Chi founded medical and nursing schools. Perhaps the most remarkable feature of its medical schools is the attitude shown to corpses that are used for medical purposes, such as teaching anatomy or simulation surgery, or for research. Obtaining corpses for this purpose is normally a problem in Chinese cultures because of a Confucian tradition that the body of a deceased person should be cremated with the body intact. Cheng Yen asked her volunteers to help by willing their bodies to the medical school after their death. In contrast to most medical schools, here the bodies are treated with the utmost respect for the person whose body it was. The students visit the family of the deceased and learn about his or her life. They refer to the deceased as “silent mentors,” place photographs of the living person on the walls of the medical school, and have a shrine to each donor. After the course has concluded and the body has served its purpose, all parts are replaced and the body is sewn up. The medical school then arranges a cremation ceremony in which students and the family take part. Tzu Chi is now a huge organization, with seven million members in Taiwan alone—almost 30 percent of the population—and another three million members associated with chapters in 51 countries. This gives it a vast capacity to help. After a major earthquake hit Taiwan in 1999, Tzu Chi rebuilt 51 schools. Since then it has done the same after disasters in other countries, rebuilding 182 schools in 16 countries. Tzu Chi promotes sustainability in everything it does. It has become a major recycler, using its volunteers to gather plastic bottles and other recyclables that are turned into carpets and clothing. In order to promote sustainable living as well as compassion for sentient beings all meals served in Tzu Chi hospitals, schools, universities, and other institutions are vegetarian. ~ Peter Singer,

768: Sir Galahad MY good blade carves the casques of men, My tough lance thrusteth sure, My strength is as the strength of ten, Because my heart is pure. The shattering trumpet shrilleth high, The hard brands shiver on the steel, The splinter'd spear-shafts crack and fly, The horse and rider reel: They reel, they roll in clanging lists, And when the tide of combat stands, Perfume and flowers fall in showers, That lightly rain from ladies' hands. How sweet are looks that ladies bend On whom their favours fall ! For them I battle till the end, To save from shame and thrall: But all my heart is drawn above, My knees are bow'd in crypt and shrine: I never felt the kiss of love, Nor maiden's hand in mine. More bounteous aspects on me beam, Me mightier transports move and thrill; So keep I fair thro' faith and prayer A virgin heart in work and will. When down the stormy crescent goes, A light before me swims, Between dark stems the forest glows, I hear a noise of hymns: Then by some secret shrine I ride; I hear a voice but none are there; The stalls are void, the doors are wide, The tapers burning fair. Fair gleams the snowy altar-cloth, The silver vessels sparkle clean, The shrill bell rings, the censer swings, And solemn chaunts resound between. 557 Sometimes on lonely mountain-meres I find a magic bark; I leap on board: no helmsman steers: I float till all is dark. A gentle sound, an awful light ! Three arngels bear the holy Grail: With folded feet, in stoles of white, On sleeping wings they sail. Ah, blessed vision! blood of God! My spirit beats her mortal bars, As down dark tides the glory slides, And star-like mingles with the stars. When on my goodly charger borne Thro' dreaming towns I go, The cock crows ere the Christmas morn, The streets are dumb with snow. The tempest crackles on the leads, And, ringing, springs from brand and mail; But o'er the dark a glory spreads, And gilds the driving hail. I leave the plain, I climb the height; No branchy thicket shelter yields; But blessed forms in whistling storms Fly o'er waste fens and windy fields. A maiden knight--to me is given Such hope, I know not fear; I yearn to breathe the airs of heaven That often meet me here. I muse on joy that will not cease, Pure spaces clothed in living beams, Pure lilies of eternal peace, Whose odours haunt my dreams; And, stricken by an angel's hand, This mortal armour that I wear, This weight and size, this heart and eyes, Are touch'd, are turn'd to finest air. The clouds are broken in the sky, And thro' the mountain-walls A rolling organ-harmony 558 Swells up, and shakes and falls. Then move the trees, the copses nod, Wings flutter, voices hover clear: 'O just and faithful knight of God! Ride on ! the prize is near.' So pass I hostel, hall, and grange; By bridge and ford, by park and pale, All-arm'd I ride, whate'er betide, Until I find the holy Grail. ~ Alfred Lord Tennyson,

769: Moonrise Over Tyringham Now the high holocaust of hours is done, And all the west empurpled with their death, How swift oblivion drinks the fallen sun, How little while the dusk remembereth! Though some there were, proud hours that marched in mail, And took the morning on auspicious crest, Crying to fortune “Back, for I prevail!”— Yet now they lie disfeatured with the rest; And some that stole so soft on destiny Methought they had surprised her to a smile; But these fled frozen when she turned to see, And moaned and muttered through my heart awhile. But now the day is emptied of them all, And night absorbs their life-blood at a draught; And so my life lies, as the gods let fall An empty cup from which their lips have quaffed. Yet see—night is not . . . by translucent ways, Up the grey void of autumn afternoon Steals a mild crescent, charioted in haze, And all the air is merciful as June. The lake is a forgotten streak of day That trembles through the hemlocks’ darkling bars, And still, my heart, still some divine delay Upon the threshold holds the earliest stars. O pale equivocal hour, whose suppliant feet Haunt the mute reaches of the sleeping wind, Art thou a watcher stealing to entreat Prayer and sepulture for thy fallen kind? Poor plaintive waif of a predestined race, Their ruin gapes for thee. Why linger here? Go hence in silence. Veil thine orphaned face, Lest I should look on it and call it dear. 41 For if I love thee thou wilt sooner die; Some sudden ruin will plunge upon thy head, Midnight will fall from the revengeful sky And hurl thee down among thy shuddering dead. Avert thine eyes. Lapse softly from my sight, Call not my name, nor heed if thine I crave, So shalt thou sink through mitigated night And bathe thee in the all-effacing wave. But upward still thy perilous footsteps fare Along a high-hung heaven drenched in light, Dilating on a tide of crystal air That floods the dark hills to their utmost height. Strange hour, is this thy waning face that leans Out of mid-heaven and makes my soul its glass? What victory is imaged there? What means Thy tarrying smile? Oh, veil thy lips and pass. Nay . . . pause and let me name thee! For I see, O with what flooding ecstasy of light, Strange hour that wilt not loose thy hold on me, Thou’rt not day’s latest, but the first of night! And after thee the gold-foot stars come thick, From hand to hand they toss the flying fire, Till all the zenith with their dance is quick About the wheeling music of the Lyre. Dread hour that lead’st the immemorial round, With lifted torch revealing one by one The thronging splendours that the day held bound, And how each blue abyss enshrines its sun— Be thou the image of a thought that fares Forth from itself, and flings its ray ahead, Leaping the barriers of ephemeral cares, To where our lives are but the ages’ tread, And let this year be, not the last of youth, 42 But first—like thee!—of some new train of hours, If more remote from hope, yet nearer truth, And kin to the unpetitionable powers. ~ Edith Wharton,

770: Ballad Of The Old Cypress In front of the temple of Chu-ko Liang there is an old cypress. Its branches are like green bronze; its roots like rocks; around its great girth of forty spans its rimy bark withstands the washing of the rain. Its jet-colored top rises two thousand feet to greet the sky. Prince and statesman have long since paid their debt to time; but the tree continues to be cherished among men. When the clouds come, continuous vapors link it with the mists of the long Wu Gorge; and when the moon appears, the cypress tree shares the chill of the Snowy Mountains' whiteness. I remember a year or so ago, where the road wound east round my Brocade River pavilion, the First Ruler and Chu-ko Liang shared the same shrine. There, too, were towering cypresses, on the ancient plain outside the city. The paintwork of the temple's dark interior gleamed dully through derelict doors and windows. But this cypress here, though it holds its ground well, clinging with wide-encompassing, snake-like hold, yet, because of its lonely height rising into the gloom of the sky, meets much of the wind's fierce blast. Nothing but the power of Divine Providence could have kept it standing for so long; its straightness must be the work of the Creator himself! If a great hall had collapsed and beams for it were needed, ten thousand oxen might turn their heads inquiringly to look at such a mountain of a load. But it is already marvel enough to astonish the world, without any need to undergo a craftsman's embellishing. It has never refused the axe: there is simply no one who could carry it away if it were felled. Its bitter heart has not escaped the ants; but there are always phoenixes roosting in its scented leaves. Men of ambition, and you who dwell unseen, do not cry out in despair! From of old the really great has never been found a use for. Another Translation: In front of K'ung-ming Shrine stands an old cypress, With branches like green bronze and roots like granite; Its hoary bark, far round, glistens with raindrops, And blueblack hues, high up, blend in with Heaven's: Long ago Statesman, King 21 kept Time's appointment, But still this standing tree has men's devotion; United with the mists of ghostly gorges, Through which the moon brings cold from snowy mountains. (I recall near my hut on Brocade River Another Shrine is shared by King and Statesman On civil, ancient plains with stately cypress: The paint there now is dim, windows shutterless. . .) Wide, wide though writhing roots maintain its station, Far, far in lonely heights, many's the tempest When its hold is the strength of Divine Wisdom And straightness by the work of the Creator. . . Yet if a crumbling Hall needed a rooftree, Yoked herds would, turning heads, balk at this mountain: By art still unexposed all have admired it; But axe though not refused, who could transport it? How can its bitter core deny ants lodging, All the while scented boughs give Phoenix housing? Oh, ambitious unknowns, sigh no more sadly: Using timber as big 22 was never easy! ~ Du Fu,

771: George Eliot Dead! Is she dead? And all that light extinguished! Mend your words, Those gropings of the blind along plain paths Where all the Heavens are shining! Know you not, Though the Eternal Luminary dips Below our cramped horizon, leaving here Only a train of glory, he but goes To dawn on other and neglected worlds, Benighted of his presence! So with her, Whose round imagination, like the sun, Drew the sad mists of the low-lying earth Up to her own great altitude, and there Made them in smiling tears evaporate. Announce the sun's self dead, and o'er him roll An epitaph of darkness;-then aver She too has set for ever. Think it thus, If for sweet comfort's sake. What we call death Is but another sentinel despatched To relieve life, weary of being on guard, Whose active service is not ended here, But after intermission is renewed In other fields of duty. This to her Was an uncertain promise, since it seems, Unto the eye of seriousness, unreal, That, like a child, death should but play with life, Blowing it out, to blow it in again. This contradiction over, now she stands Certain of all uncertainty, and dwells Where death the sophist puzzles life no more, But with disdainful silence or clear proof Confuted is for ever. Yet our loss By others' gain is mended not, and we Sit in the darkness that her light hath left. Comfort our grief with symbols as we will, Her empty throne stares stony in our face, 241 And with a dumb relentlessness proclaims That she has gone for ever, for ever gone, Returning not. . . . How plain I see her now, The twilight tresses, deepening into night, The brow a benediction, and the eyes Seat where compassion never set, and like That firm, fixed star, which altereth not its place While all the planets round it sink and swim, Shone with a steady guidance. O, and a voice Matched with whose modulations softest notes Of dulcimer by daintiest fingers stroked, Or zephyrs wafted over summer seas, On summer shores subsiding, sounded harsh. Listening whereto, steeled obduracy felt The need to kneel, necessity to weep, And craving to be comforted; a shrine Of music and of incense and of flowers, Where hearts, at length self-challenged, were content Still to be sad and sinful, so they might Feel that exonerating pity steal In subtle absolution on their guilt. Dead? Never dead! That this, man's insignificant domain, Which is not boundary of space, should be The boundary of life, revolts the mind, Even when bounded. Into soaring space Soar, spacious spirit! unembarrassed now By earthly boundaries, and circle up Into the Heaven of Heavens, and take thy place Where the Eternal Morning broadens out To recognise thy coming. Realm on Realm Of changeless revolution round thee roll, Thou moving with them, and among the stars Shine thou a star long looked for; or, unbuoyed, Beyond the constellations of our ken, Traverse the infinite azure with thy heart, And with love's light elucidate the Spheres; While we, below, this meek libation pour, Mingled of honey and hyssop, on thy grave! 242 ~ Alfred Austin,

772: Gordon ON through the Libyan sand Rolls ever, mile on mile, League on long league, cleaving the rainless land, Fed by no friendly wave, the immemorial Nile. II Down through the cloudless air, Undimm’d, from heaven’s sheer height, Bend their inscrutable gaze, austere and bare, In long-proceeding pomp, the stars of Libyan night. III Beneath the stars, beside the unpausing flood, Earth trembles at the wandering lion’s roar; Trembles again, when in blind thirst of blood Sweep the wild tribes along the startled shore. IV They sweep and surge and struggle, and are gone: The mournful desert silence reigns again, The immemorial River rolleth on, The order’d stars gaze blank upon the plain. O awful Presence of the lonely Nile, O awful Presence of the starry sky, Lo, in this little while Unto the mind’s trueseeing inward eye There hath arisen there Another haunting Presence as sublime, As great, as sternly fair; Yea, rather fairer far Than stream, or sky, or star, To live while star shall burn or river roll, Unmarr’d by marring Time, The crown of Being, a heroic soul. VI Beyond the weltering tides of worldly change He saw the invisible things, 30 The eternal Forms of Beauty and of Right; Wherewith well pleas’d his spirit wont to range, Rapt with divine delight, Richer than empires, royaler than kings. VII Lover of children, lord of fiery fight, Saviour of empires, servant of the poor, Not in the sordid scales of earth, unsure, Deprav’d, adulterate, He measur’d small and great, But by some righteous balance wrought in heaven, To his pure hand by Powers empyreal given; Therewith, by men unmov’d, as God he judged aright. VIII As on the broad sweet-water’d river tost Falls some poor grain of salt, And melts to naught, nor leaves embittering trace; As in the o’er-arching vault With unrepell’d assault A cloudy climbing vapor, lightly lost, Vanisheth utterly in the starry space; So from our thought, when his enthron’d estate We inly contemplate, All wrangling phantoms fade, and leave us face to face. IX Dwell in us, sacred spirit, as in thee Dwelt the eternal Love, the eternal Life, Nor dwelt in only thee; not thee alone We honor reverently, But in thee all who in some succoring strife, By day or dark, world-witness’d or unknown, Crush’d by the crowd, or in late harvest hail’d, Warring thy war have triumph’d, or have fail’d. Nay, but not only there Broods thy great Presence, o’er the Libyan plain. It haunts a kindlier clime, a dearer air, The liberal air of England, thy lov’d home. Thou through her sunlit clouds and flying rain Breathe, and all winds that sweep her island shore— Rough fields of riven foam, Where in stern watch her guardian breakers roar. Ay, thron’d with all her mighty memories, Wherefrom her nobler sons their nurture draw, With all of good or great For aye incorporate That rears her race to faith and generous shame, To high-aspiring awe, To hate implacable of thick thronging lies, To scorn of gold and gauds and clamorous fame; With all we guard most dear and most divine, All records rank’d with thine, Here be thy home, brave soul, thy undecaying shrine. ~ Ernest Myers,

773:In The Garret Four little chests all in a row, Dim with dust, and worn by time, All fashioned and filled, long ago, By children now in their prime. Four little keys hung side by side, With faded ribbons, brave and gay When fastened there, with childish pride, Long ago, on a rainy day. Four little names, one on each lid, Carved out by a boyish hand, And underneath there lieth hid Histories of the happy band Once playing here, and pausing oft To hear the sweet refrain, That came and went on the roof aloft, In the falling summer rain. 'Meg' on the first lid, smooth and fair. I look in with loving eyes, For folded here, with well-known care, A goodly gathering lies, The record of a peaceful life-- Gifts to gentle child and girl, A bridal gown, lines to a wife, A tiny shoe, a baby curl. No toys in this first chest remain, For all are carried away, In their old age, to join again In another small Meg's play. Ah, happy mother! Well I know You hear, like a sweet refrain, Lullabies ever soft and low In the falling summer rain. 'Jo' on the next lid, scratched and worn, And within a motley store Of headless dolls, of schoolbooks torn, Birds and beasts that speak no more, Spoils brought home from the fairy ground Only trod by youthful feet, Dreams of a future never found, Memories of a past still sweet, Half-writ poems, stories wild, April letters, warm and cold, Diaries of a wilful child, Hints of a woman early old, A woman in a lonely home, Hearing, like a sad refrain-- 'Be worthy, love, and love will come,' In the falling summer rain. My Beth! the dust is always swept From the lid that bears your name, As if by loving eyes that wept, By careful hands that often came. Death canonized for us one saint, Ever less human than divine, And still we lay, with tender plaint, Relics in this household shrine-- The silver bell, so seldom rung, The little cap which last she wore, The fair, dead Catherine that hung By angels borne above her door. The songs she sang, without lament, In her prison-house of pain, Forever are they sweetly blent With the falling summer rain. Upon the last lid's polished field-- Legend now both fair and true A gallant knight bears on his shield, 'Amy' in letters gold and blue. Within lie snoods that bound her hair, Slippers that have danced their last, Faded flowers laid by with care, Fans whose airy toils are past, Gay valentines, all ardent flames, Trifles that have borne their part In girlish hopes and fears and shames, The record of a maiden heart Now learning fairer, truer spells, Hearing, like a blithe refrain, The silver sound of bridal bells In the falling summer rain. Four little chests all in a row, Dim with dust, and worn by time, Four women, taught by weal and woe To love and labor in their prime. Four sisters, parted for an hour, None lost, one only gone before, Made by love's immortal power, Nearest and dearest evermore. Oh, when these hidden stores of ours Lie open to the Father's sight, May they be rich in golden hours, Deeds that show fairer for the light, Lives whose brave music long shall ring, Like a spirit-stirring strain, Souls that shall gladly soar and sing In the long sunshine after rain ~ Louisa May Alcott,

774: The Mountains The Mountains What ails you, Ocean, that nor near nor far, Find you a bourne to ease your burdened breast, But throughout time inexorable are Never at rest? With foaming mouth and fluttering crest you leap Impatiently towards never-shifting beach, Then wheel, and hurry to some distant deep Beyond your reach. Nor golden sands nor sheltering combes can slake Your fretful longing for some shore unknown, And through your shrineless pilgrimage you make Unending moan. The Sea Nimbused by sunlight or enwreathed in snow, Lonely you stand, and loftily you soar, While I immeasurably ebb and flow From shore to shore. I see the palm-dates mellowing in the sun, I hear the snow-fed torrents bound and brawl, And if, where'er I range, content with none, I know them all. Inward the ice-floes where the walrus whet Their pendent tusks, I sweep and swirl my way, Or dally where 'neath dome and minaret The dolphins play. Beneath or bountiful or bitter sky If I myself can never be at rest, I lullaby the winds until they lie Husht on my breast. The Mountains Till they awake, and from your feeble lap 526 Whirl through the air, and in their rage rejoice: Then you with levin-bolt and thunderclap Mingle your voice. But I their vain insanity survey, And on my silent brow I let them beat. What is there it is worth my while to say To storm or sleet? I hear the thunder rumbling through the rain, I feel the lightning flicker round my head; The blizzards buffet me, but I remain Dumb as the dead! Urged by the goad of stern taskmaster Time, The Seasons come and go, the years roll round. I watch them from my solitude sublime, Uttering no sound. For hate and love I have nor love nor hate; To be alone is not to be forlorn: The only armour against pitiless Fate Is pitying scorn. The Sea Yet do I sometimes seem to hear afar A tumult in your dark ravines as though You weary of your loneliness, and are Wrestling with woe. The Mountains When the white wolves of Winter to their lair Throng, and yet deep and deeper sleeps the snow, I loose the avalanche, to shake and scare The vale below. And, when its sprouting hopes and brimming glee Are bound and buried in a death-white shroud, Then at the thought that I entombed can be, I laugh aloud. The Sea 527 I grieve with grief, at anguish I repine, I dirge the keel the hurricane destroys: For all the sorrows of the world are mine, And all its joys. And when there is no space 'twixt surf and sky, And all the universe seems cloud and wave, It is the immitigable wind, not I, That scoops men's grave. I wonder how the blast can hear them moan For pity, yet keep deaf unto their prayers. I have too many sorrows of my own, Not to feel theirs. And when the season of sweet joy comes round, My bosom to their rapture heaves and swells; And closer still I creep to catch the sound Of wedding bells. I see the children digging in the sand, I hear the sinewy mariners carouse, And lovers in the moonlight, hand-in-hand, Whispering their vows. You in your lofty loneliness disdain Suffering below and comfort from above. The sweetest thing in all the world is pain Consoled by Love. ~ Alfred Austin,

775:The first thing you notice about New Orleans are the burying grounds - the cemeteries - and they're a cold proposition, one of the best things there are here. Going by, you try to be as quiet as possible, better to let them sleep. Greek, Roman, sepulchres- palatial mausoleums made to order, phantomesque, signs and symbols of hidden decay - ghosts of women and men who have sinned and who've died and are now living in tombs. The past doesn't pass away so quickly here. You could be dead for a long time. The ghosts race towards the light, you can almost hear the heavy breathing spirits, all determined to get somewhere. New Orleans, unlike a lot of those places you go back to and that don't have the magic anymore, still has got it. Night can swallow you up, yet none of it touches you. Around any corner, there's a promise of something daring and ideal and things are just getting going. There's something obscenely joyful behind every door, either that or somebody crying with their head in their hands. A lazy rhythm looms in the dreamy air and the atmosphere pulsates with bygone duels, past-life romance, comrades requesting comrades to aid them in some way. You can't see it, but you know it's here. Somebody is always sinking. Everyone seems to be from some very old Southern families. Either that or a foreigner. I like the way it is. There are a lot of places I like, but I like New Orleans better. There's a thousand different angles at any moment. At any time you could run into a ritual honoring some vaguely known queen. Bluebloods, titled persons like crazy drunks, lean weakly against the walls and drag themselves through the gutter. Even they seem to have insights you might want to listen to. No action seems inappropriate here. The city is one very long poem. Gardens full of pansies, pink petunias, opiates. Flower-bedecked shrines, white myrtles, bougainvillea and purple oleander stimulate your senses, make you feel cool and clear inside. Everything in New Orleans is a good idea. Bijou temple-type cottages and lyric cathedrals side by side. Houses and mansions, structures of wild grace. Italianate, Gothic, Romanesque, Greek Revival standing in a long line in the rain. Roman Catholic art. Sweeping front porches, turrets, cast-iron balconies, colonnades- 30-foot columns, gloriously beautiful- double pitched roofs, all the architecture of the whole wide world and it doesn't move. All that and a town square where public executions took place. In New Orleans you could almost see other dimensions. There's only one day at a time here, then it's tonight and then tomorrow will be today again. Chronic melancholia hanging from the trees. You never get tired of it. After a while you start to feel like a ghost from one of the tombs, like you're in a wax museum below crimson clouds. Spirit empire. Wealthy empire. One of Napoleon's generals, Lallemaud, was said to have come here to check it out, looking for a place for his commander to seek refuge after Waterloo. He scouted around and left, said that here the devil is damned, just like everybody else, only worse. The devil comes here and sighs. New Orleans. Exquisite, old-fashioned. A great place to live vicariously. Nothing makes any difference and you never feel hurt, a great place to really hit on things. Somebody puts something in front of you here and you might as well drink it. Great place to be intimate or do nothing. A place to come and hope you'll get smart - to feed pigeons looking for handouts ~ Bob Dylan,

776: Poet’s Corner I stand within the Abbey walls, Where soft the slanting sunlight falls In gleams of mellow grace: The organ swells, the anthem soars, And waves of prayerful music pours Throughout the solemn space. Slowly the chanted yearning dies: Then spoken supplications rise, Upfloating to the sky; The organ peals anew, again Is silent, and there linger then Only my soul and I. But what are these mute busts that gaze On me from out the vanished days, And bid me pause and scan Tablet, inscription, title, date, All that records the vain estate Of transitory man? Read I aright? And can it be, Old Abbey, that dead bards in thee A resting-place have found? Is not this consecrated air? This is the house, the home, of prayer, This, this is sacred ground. And who were they? Their fretful life With heavenly precept was at strife; No pious peace they knew: Like thunderstorms, against the wind They pressed, and from their lurid mind Alarming lightnings flew. Creeds were to them but chains to break; No formulas their thirst could slake, No faith their hunger feed; Their prayers were breathed to unscaled crags, 374 They worshipped where the eagle flags, And the snow-streams flash and speed. Their temple was the earth, the air, The stars that in night's silence share; Unto the plunging brine Listening, they heard a sacred hymn, And deep within the woodlands dim Found transept, aisle, and shrine. All shapes of sensuous beauty stole A pathway to the poet's soul; An unresisting slave To smiles that win, to tears that melt, Whatever hearts can feel, he felt, Whatever ask for, gave. His heart to love as quick he lent, As flower to wandering wind its scent, Or lark to sun its song; He spent himself in gusts of joy, Chased the fair phantoms that decoy And youth's brief reign prolong. Yet it was wise as well as just Not upon his rebellious dust The Abbey gates to close, But bid him hither wend, and find, What life refused his eager mind, Glory and yet repose. For should there come that threatened day, When creeds shall fade, when faith decay, And worship shall have ceased, Then, when all formal guides shall fail, Mankind will in the Poet hail A prophet and a priest. He will instruct us still to strain Towards something to redress our pain, To elevate our joy; Something responding to that sense 375 Of restlessness that calls us hence, And makes existence cloy. What though commandment, dogma, rite, One after one, shall perish quite, The Poet still will keep The Sanctuary's lamp alight, And, in the body's deepest night, Forbid the soul to sleep. Then, apprehended right, his lays Shall seem a hymn of prayer and praise To purify from stain; Shall bridge with love the severed years, Instil the sacredness of tears, The piety of pain. Devotion at his touch shall wake, The fountains of emotion quake With tenderness divine; His melody our cravings lift Upward, and have the saving gift Of sacramental wine. Let him then rest where now he lies, So that if narrower ritual dies, Devout feet still may come, Confessing, what his strains impart, The deep religion of the heart, That never will be dumb. ~ Alfred Austin,

777: On The Death Of Mr. Crashaw Poet and Saint! to thee alone are given The two most sacred names of earth and heaven, The hard and rarest union which can be Next that of godhead with humanity. Long did the Muses banish'd slaves abide, And built vain pyramids to mortal pride; Like Moses thou (though spells and charms withstand) Hast brought them nobly home back to their Holy Land. Ah wretched we, poets of earth! but thou Wert living the same poet which thou'rt now. Whilst angels sing to thee their airs divine, And joy in an applause so great as thine, Equal society with them to hold, Thou need'st not make new songs, but say the old. And they (kind spirits!) shall all rejoice to see How little less than they exalted man may be. Still the old heathen gods in numbers dwell, The heavenliest thing on earth still keeps up Hell. Nor have we yet quite purg'd the Christian land; Still idols here like calves at Bethel stand. And though Pan's death long since all oracles broke, Yet still in rhyme the fiend Apollo spoke: Nay with the worst of heathen dotage we (Vain men!) the monster Woman deify; Find stars, and tie our fates there in a face, And Paradise in them by whom we lost it, place. What different faults corrupt our Muses thus Wanton as girls, as old wives fabulous! Thy spotless Muse, like Mary, did contain The boundless Godhead; she did well disdain That her eternal verse employ'd should be On a less subject than eternity; And for a sacred mistress scorn'd to take But her whom God himself scorn'd not his spouse to make. It (in a kind) her miracle did do; A fruitful mother was, and virgin too. 35 How well, blest swan, did fate contrive thy death; And make thee render up thy tuneful breath In thy great mistress' arms! thou most divine And richest offering of Loretto's shrine! Where like some holy sacrifice t' expire A fever burns thee, and Love lights the fire. Angels (they say) brought the fam'd chapel there, And bore the sacred load in triumph through the air. 'Tis surer much they brought thee there, and they, And thou, their charge, went singing all the way. Pardon, my Mother Church, if I consent That angels led him when from thee he went, For even in error sure no danger is When join'd with so much piety as his. Ah, mighty God, with shame I speak't, and grief, Ah that our greatest faults were in belief! And our weak reason were even weaker yet, Rather than thus our wills too strong for it. His faith perhaps in some nice tenents might Be wrong; his life, I'm sure, was in the right. And I myself a Catholic will be, So far at least, great saint, to pray to thee. Hail, bard triumphant! and some care bestow On us, the poets militant below! Oppos'd by our old enemy, adverse chance, Attack'd by envy, and by ignorance, Enchain'd by beauty, tortured by desires, Expos'd by tyrant Love to savage beasts and fires. Thou from low earth in nobler flames didst rise, And like Elijah, mount alive the skies. Elisha-like (but with a wish much less, More fit thy greatness, and my littleness) Lo here I beg (I whom thou once didst prove So humble to esteem, so good to love) Not that thy spirit might on me doubled be, I ask but half thy mighty spirit for me; And when my Muse soars with so strong a wing, 'Twill learn of things divine, and first of thee to sing. 36 ~ Abraham Cowley,

778:Fame requires every kind of excess. I mean true fame, a devouring neon, not the somber renown of waning statesmen or chinless kings. I mean long journeys across gray space. I mean danger, the edge of every void, the circumstance of one man imparting an erotic terror to the dreams of the republic. Understand the man who must inhabit these extreme regions, monstrous and vulval, damp with memories of violation. Even if half-mad he is absorbed into the public's total madness; even if fully rational, a bureaucrat in hell, a secret genius of survival, he is sure to be destroyed by the public's contempt for survivors. Fame, this special kind, feeds itself on outrage, on what the counselors of lesser men would consider bad publicity-hysteria in limousines, knife fights in the audience, bizarre litigation, treachery, pandemonium and drugs. Perhaps the only natural law attaching to true fame is that the famous man is compelled, eventually, to commit suicide. (Is it clear I was a hero of rock'n'roll?) Toward the end of the final tour it became apparent that our audience wanted more than music, more even than its own reduplicated noise. It's possible the culture had reached its limit, a point of severe tension. There was less sense of simple visceral abandon at our concerts during these last weeks. Few cases of arson and vandalism. Fewer still of rape. No smoke bombs or threats of worse explosives. Our followers, in their isolation, were not concerned with precedent now. They were free of old saints and martyrs, but fearfully so, left with their own unlabeled flesh. Those without tickets didn't storm the barricades, and during a performance the boys and girls directly below us, scratching at the stage, were less murderous in their love of me, as if realizing finally that my death, to be authentic, must be self-willed- a succesful piece of instruction only if it occured by my own hand, preferrably ina foreign city. I began to think their education would not be complete until they outdid me as a teacher, until one day they merely pantomimed the kind of massive response the group was used to getting. As we performed they would dance, collapse, clutch each other, wave their arms, all the while making absolutely no sound. We would stand in the incandescent pit of a huge stadium filled with wildly rippling bodies, all totally silent. Our recent music, deprived of people's screams, was next to meaningless, and there would have been no choice but to stop playing. A profound joke it would have been. A lesson in something or other. In Houston I left the group, saying nothing, and boarded a plane for New York City, that contaminated shrine, place of my birth. I knew Azarian would assume leadership of the band, his body being prettiest. As to the rest, I left them to their respective uproars- news media, promotion people, agents, accountants, various members of the managerial peerage. The public would come closer to understanding my disappearance than anyone else. It was not quite as total as the act they needed and nobody could be sure whether I was gone for good. For my closest followers, it foreshadowed a period of waiting. Either I'd return with a new language for them to speak or they'd seek a divine silence attendant to my own. I took a taxi past the cemetaries toward Manhattan, tides of ash-light breaking across the spires. new York seemed older than the cities of Europe, a sadistic gift of the sixteenth century, ever on the verge of plague. The cab driver was young, however, a freckled kid with a moderate orange Afro. I told him to take the tunnel. Is there a tunnel?" he said. ~ Don DeLillo,

779: A Song Of Trafalgar LIKE an angry sun, like a splendid star, War gleams down the long years' track; They strain at the leash, the dogs of war, And who shall hold them back? 'Let loose the pack: we are English bred, We will meet them full and fair With the flag of England over our head, And his hand to keep it there!' So spake our fathers. Our flag, unfurled, Blew brave to the north and south; An iron answer we gave the world, For we spoke by the cannon's mouth. But he who taught us the word to say Grew dumb as his Victory sang, And England mourned on her triumph day, And wept while her joy-bells rang. Long hour by hour, and long day by day, The swift years crept apace, The patient, the coral-insect way, To cover the dear dead face. O foolish rabble of envious years, Who wist not the dead must rise, His name is music still in our ears, His face a light to our eyes! Bring hither your laurels, the fading sign Of a deathless love and pride; These cling more close than the laurels twine, They are strong as the world is wide: At the feet of Virtue in Valour clad Shall glory and love be laid, While Glory sings to an English lad, Or Love to an English maid. 32 Wherever the gleams of an English fire On an English roof-tree shine, Wherever the fire of a youth's desire Is laid upon Honour's shrine, Wherever brave deeds are treasured and told, In the tale of the deeds of yore Like jewels of price in a chain of gold Are the name and the fame he bore. Wherever the track of our English ships Lies white on the ocean foam, His name is sweet to our English lips As the names of the flowers at home; Wherever the heart of an English boy Grows big with a deed of worth, Such names as his name have begot the same, Such hearts will bring it to birth. They say that his England, grown tired and old, Lies drunk by her heavy hoard; They say her hands have the grasp of the gold But not the grip of the sword, That her robe of glory is rent and shred, And that winds of shame blow through: Speak for your England, O mighty Dead, In the deeds you would have her do! Small skill have we to fight with the pen Who fought with the sword of old, For the sword that is wielded of Englishmen Is as much as one hand can hold. Yet the pen and the tongue are safe to use, And the coward and the wise choose these; But fools and brave were our English crews When Nelson swept the seas. 'Tis the way of a statesman to fear and fret, 33 To ponder and pause and plan, But the way of Nelson was better yet, For that was the way of a man; They would teach us smoothness, who once were rough, They have bidden us palter and pray, But the way of Nelson was good enough, For that was the fighting way. If Nelson's England must stoop to bear What never honour should brook, In vain does the tomb of her hero wear The laurel his brow forsook; In vain was the speech from the lips of her guns, If now must her lips refrain; In vain has she made us, her living sons, Her dead have made her in vain. So here with your bays be the dear head crowned, Lay flowers where the dear dust lies, And wreathe his column with laurel round To point his fame to the skies; But the greenest laurel that ever grew Is the laurel that's yet to win; Crowned with his laurels he waits for You To bring Your laurels in! ~ Edith Nesbit,

780: In The Forum The last warm gleams of sunset fade From cypress spire and stonepine dome, And, in the twilight's deepening shade, Lingering, I scan the wrecks of Rome. Husht the Madonna's Evening Bell; The steers lie loosed from wain and plough; The vagrant monk is in his cell, The meek nun-novice cloistered now. Pedant's presumptuous voice no more Vexes the spot where Caesar trod, And o'er the pavement's soundless floor Come banished priest and exiled God. The lank-ribbed she-wolf, couched among The regal hillside's tangled scrubs, With doting gaze and fondling tongue Suckles the Vestal's twin-born cubs. Yet once again Evander leads Æneas to his wattled home, And, throned on Tiber's fresh-cut reeds, Talks of burnt Troy and rising Rome. From out the tawny dusk one hears The half-feigned scream of Sabine maids, The rush to arms, then swift the tears That separate the clashing blades. The Lictors with their fasces throng To quell the Commons' rising roar, As Tullia's chariot flames along, Splashed with her murdered father's gore. Her tresses free from band or comb, Love-dimpled Venus, lithe and tall, And fresh as Fiumicino's foam, Mounts her pentelic pedestal. 281 With languid lids, and lips apart, And curving limbs like wave half-furled, Unarmed she dominates the heart, And without sceptre sways the world. Nerved by her smile, avenging Mars Stalks through the Forum's fallen fanes, Or, changed of mien and healed of scars, Threads sylvan slopes and vineyard plains. With waves of song from wakening lyre Apollo routs the wavering night, While, parsley-crowned, the white-robed choir Wind chanting up the Sacred Height, Where Jove, with thunder-garlands wreathed, And crisp locks frayed like fretted foam, Sits with his lightnings half unsheathed, And frowns against the foes of Rome. You cannot kill the Gods. They still Reclaim the thrones where once they reigned, Rehaunt the grove, remount the rill, And renovate their rites profaned. Diana's hounds still lead the chase, Still Neptune's Trident crests the sea, And still man's spirit soars through space On feathered heels of Mercury. No flood can quench the Vestals' Fire; The Flamen's robes are still as white As ere the Salii's armoured choir Were drowned by droning anchorite. The saint may seize the siren's seat, The shaveling frown where frisked the Faun; Ne'er will, though all beside should fleet, The Olympian Presence be withdrawn. Here, even in the noontide glare, 282 The Gods, recumbent, take their ease; Go look, and you will find them there, Slumbering behind some fallen frieze. But most, when sunset glow hath paled, And come, as now, the twilight hour, In vesper vagueness dimly veiled I feel their presence and their power. What though their temples strew the ground, And to the ruin owls repair, Their home, their haunt, is all around; They drive the cloud, they ride the air. And, when the planets wend their way Along the never-ageing skies, ``Revere the Gods'' I hear them say; ``The Gods are old, the Gods are wise.'' Build as man may, Time gnaws and peers Through marble fissures, granite rents; Only Imagination rears Imperishable monuments. Let Gaul and Goth pollute the shrine, Level the altar, fire the fane: There is no razing the Divine; The Gods return, the Gods remain. ~ Alfred Austin,

781: Delia, An Elegy YES, DELIA loves! My fondest vows are blest; Farewel the memory of her past disdain; One kind relenting glance has heal'd my breast, And balanc'd in a moment years of pain. O'er her soft cheek consenting blushes move, And with kind stealth her secret soul betray; Blushes, which usher in the morn of love, Sure as the red'ning east foretells the day. Her tender smiles shall pay me with delight For many a bitter pang of jealous fear; For many an anxious day, and sleepless night, For many a stifled sigh, and silent tear. DELIA shall come, and bless my lone retreat; She does not scorn the shepherd's lowly life; She will not blush to leave the splendid seat, And own the title of a poor man's wife. The simple knot shall bind her gather'd hair, The russet garment clasp her lovely breast: DELIA shall mix amongst the rural fair, By charms alone distinguish'd from the rest. And meek Simplicity, neglected maid, Shall bid my fair in native graces shine: She, only she, shall lend her modest aid, Chaste, sober priestess, at sweet beauty's shrine! How sweet to muse by murmuring springs reclin'd; Or loitering careless in the shady grove, Indulge the gentlest feelings of the mind, And pity those who live to aught but love! When DELIA's hand unlocks her shining hair, And o'er her shoulder spreads the flowing gold, Base were the man who one bright tress would spare 44 For all the ore of India's coarser mold. By her dear side with what content I'd toil, Patient of any labour in her sight; Guide the slow plough, or turn the stubborn soil, Till the last, ling'ring beam of doubtful light. But softer tasks divide my DELIA's hours; To watch the firstlings at their harmless play; With welcome shade to screen the languid flowers, That sicken in the summer's parching ray. Oft will she stoop amidst her evening walk, With tender hand each bruised plant to rear; To bind the drooping lily's broken stalk, And nurse the blossoms of the infant year. When beating rains forbid our feet to roam, We'll shelter'd sit, and turn the storied page; There see what passions shake the lofty dome With mad ambition or ungovern'd rage: What headlong ruin oft involves the great; What conscious terrors guilty bosoms prove; What strange and sudden turns of adverse fate Tear the sad virgin from her plighted love. DELIA shall read, and drop a gentle tear; Then cast her eyes around the low-roof'd cot, And own the fates have dealt more kindly here, That blest with only love our little lot. For love has sworn (I heard the awful vow) The wav'ring heart shall never be his care, That stoops at any baser shrine to bow : And what he cannot rule, he scorns to share. My heart in DELIA is so fully blest, It has not room to lodge another joy; My peace all leans upon that gentle breast, And only there misfortune can annoy. 45 Our silent hours shall steal unmark'd away In one long tender calm of rural peace; And measure many a fair unblemish'd day Of chearful leisure and poetic ease. The proud unfeeling world their lot shall scorn Who 'midst inglorious shades can poorly dwell: Yet if some youth, for gentler passions born, Shall chance to wander near our lowly cell, His feeling breast with purer flames shall glow; And leaving pomp, and state, and cares behind, Shall own the world has little to bestow Where two fond hearts in equal love are join'd. ~ Anna Laetitia Barbauld,

782:Theism and materialism, so indifferent when taken retrospectively, point, when we take them prospectively, to wholly different outlooks of experience. For, according to the theory of mechanical evolution, the laws of redistribution of matter and motion, tho they are certainly to thank for all the good hours which our organisms have ever yielded us and for all the ideals which our minds now frame, are yet fatally certain to undo their work again, and to redissolve everything that they have once evolved. You all know the picture of the last state of the universe which evolutionary science foresees. I cannot state it better than in Mr. Balfour's words: That is the sting of it, that in the vast driftings of the cosmic weather, tho many a jeweled shore appears, and many an enchanted cloud-bank floats away, long lingering ere it be dissolved—even as our world now lingers, for our joy-yet when these transient products are gone, nothing, absolutely NOTHING remains, of represent those particular qualities, those elements of preciousness which they may have enshrined. Dead and gone are they, gone utterly from the very sphere and room of being. Without an echo; without a memory; without an influence on aught that may come after, to make it care for similar ideals. This utter final wreck and tragedy is of the essence of scientific materialism as at present understood. The lower and not the higher forces are the eternal forces, or the last surviving forces within the only cycle of evolution which we can definitely see. Mr. Spencer believes this as much as anyone; so why should he argue with us as if we were making silly aesthetic objections to the 'grossness' of 'matter and motion,' the principles of his philosophy, when what really dismays us is the disconsolateness of its ulterior practical results? No the true objection to materialism is not positive but negative. It would be farcical at this day to make complaint of it for what it IS for 'grossness.' Grossness is what grossness DOES—we now know THAT. We make complaint of it, on the contrary, for what it is NOT—not a permanent warrant for our more ideal interests, not a fulfiller of our remotest hopes. The notion of God, on the other hand, however inferior it may be in clearness to those mathematical notions so current in mechanical philosophy, has at least this practical superiority over them, that it guarantees an ideal order that shall be permanently preserved. A world with a God in it to say the last word, may indeed burn up or freeze, but we then think of him as still mindful of the old ideals and sure to bring them elsewhere to fruition; so that, where he is, tragedy is only provisional and partial, and shipwreck and dissolution not the absolutely final things. This need of an eternal moral order is one of the deepest needs of our breast. And those poets, like Dante and Wordsworth, who live on the conviction of such an order, owe to that fact the extraordinary tonic and consoling power of their verse. Here then, in these different emotional and practical appeals, in these adjustments of our concrete attitudes of hope and expectation, and all the delicate consequences which their differences entail, lie the real meanings of materialism and spiritualism—not in hair-splitting abstractions about matter's inner essence, or about the metaphysical attributes of God. Materialism means simply the denial that the moral order is eternal, and the cutting off of ultimate hopes; spiritualism means the affirmation of an eternal moral order and the letting loose of hope. Surely here is an issue genuine enough, for anyone who feels it; and, as long as men are men, it will yield matter for a serious philosophic debate. ~ William James,

783:There is evidence that the honoree [Leonard Cohen] might be privy to the secret of the universe, which, in case you're wondering, is simply this: everything is connected. Everything. Many, if not most, of the links are difficult to determine. The instrument, the apparatus, the focused ray that can uncover and illuminate those connections is language. And just as a sudden infatuation often will light up a person's biochemical atmosphere more pyrotechnically than any deep, abiding attachment, so an unlikely, unexpected burst of linguistic imagination will usually reveal greater truths than the most exacting scholarship. In fact. The poetic image may be the only device remotely capable of dissecting romantic passion, let alone disclosing the inherent mystical qualities of the material world. Cohen is a master of the quasi-surrealistic phrase, of the "illogical" line that speaks so directly to the unconscious that surface ambiguity is transformed into ultimate, if fleeting, comprehension: comprehension of the bewitching nuances of sex and bewildering assaults of culture. Undoubtedly, it is to his lyrical mastery that his prestigious colleagues now pay tribute. Yet, there may be something else. As various, as distinct, as rewarding as each of their expressions are, there can still be heard in their individual interpretations the distant echo of Cohen's own voice, for it is his singing voice as well as his writing pen that has spawned these songs. It is a voice raked by the claws of Cupid, a voice rubbed raw by the philosopher's stone. A voice marinated in kirschwasser, sulfur, deer musk and snow; bandaged with sackcloth from a ruined monastery; warmed by the embers left down near the river after the gypsies have gone. It is a penitent's voice, a rabbinical voice, a crust of unleavened vocal toasts -- spread with smoke and subversive wit. He has a voice like a carpet in an old hotel, like a bad itch on the hunchback of love. It is a voice meant for pronouncing the names of women -- and cataloging their sometimes hazardous charms. Nobody can say the word "naked" as nakedly as Cohen. He makes us see the markings where the pantyhose have been. Finally, the actual persona of their creator may be said to haunt these songs, although details of his private lifestyle can be only surmised. A decade ago, a teacher who called himself Shree Bhagwan Rajneesh came up with the name "Zorba the Buddha" to describe the ideal modern man: A contemplative man who maintains a strict devotional bond with cosmic energies, yet is completely at home in the physical realm. Such a man knows the value of the dharma and the value of the deutschmark, knows how much to tip a waiter in a Paris nightclub and how many times to bow in a Kyoto shrine, a man who can do business when business is necessary, allow his mind to enter a pine cone, or dance in wild abandon if moved by the tune. Refusing to shun beauty, this Zorba the Buddha finds in ripe pleasures not a contradiction but an affirmation of the spiritual self. Doesn't he sound a lot like Leonard Cohen? We have been led to picture Cohen spending his mornings meditating in Armani suits, his afternoons wrestling the muse, his evenings sitting in cafes were he eats, drinks and speaks soulfully but flirtatiously with the pretty larks of the street. Quite possibly this is a distorted portrait. The apocryphal, however, has a special kind of truth. It doesn't really matter. What matters here is that after thirty years, L. Cohen is holding court in the lobby of the whirlwind, and that giants have gathered to pay him homage. To him -- and to us -- they bring the offerings they have hammered from his iron, his lead, his nitrogen, his gold. ~ Tom Robbins,

784: Mariana In The South With one black shadow at its feet, The house thro' all the level shines, Close-latticed to the brooding heat, And silent in its dusty vines: A faint-blue ridge upon the right, An empty river-bed before, And shallows on a distant shore, In glaring sand and inlets bright. But "Aye Mary," made she moan, And "Aye Mary," night and morn, And "Ah," she sang, "to be all alone, To live forgotten, and love forlorn." She, as her carol sadder grew, From brow and bosom slowly down Thro' rosy taper fingers drew Her streaming curls of deepest brown To left and right, and made appear, Still-lighted in a secret shrine, Her melancholy eyes divine, The home of woe without a tear. And "Aye Mary," was her moan, "Madonna, sad is night and morn;" And "Ah," she sang, "to be all alone, To live forgotten, and love forlorn." Till all the crimson changed, and past Into deep orange o'er the sea, Low on her knees herself she cast, Before Our Lady murmur'd she: Complaining, "Mother, give me grace To help me of my weary load." And on the liquid mirror glow'd The clear perfection of her face. "Is this the form," she made her moan, "That won his praises night and morn?" And "Ah," she said, "but I wake alone, I sleep forgotten, I wake forlorn." 351 Nor bird would sing, nor lamb would bleat, Nor any cloud would cross the vault, But day increased from heat to heat, On stony drought and steaming salt; Till now at noon she slept again, And seem'd knee-deep in mountain grass, And heard her native breezes pass, And runlets babbling down the glen. She breathed in sleep a lower moan, And murmuring, as at night and morn She thought, "My spirit is here alone, Walks forgotten, and is forlorn." Dreaming, she knew it was a dream: She felt he was and was not there. She woke: the babble of the stream Fell, and, without, the steady glare Shrank one sick willow sere and small. The river-bed was dusty-white; And all the furnace of the light Struck up against the blinding wall. She whisper'd, with a stifled moan More inward than at night or morn, "Sweet Mother, let me not here alone Live forgotten and die forlorn." And, rising, from her bosom drew Old letters, breathing of her worth, For "Love", they said, "must needs be true, To what is loveliest upon earth." An image seem'd to pass the door, To look at her with slight, and say, "But now thy beauty flows away, So be alone for evermore." "O cruel heart," she changed her tone, "And cruel love, whose end is scorn, Is this the end to be left alone, To live forgotten, and die forlorn?" But sometimes in the falling day An image seem'd to pass the door, To look into her eyes and say, 352 "But thou shalt be alone no more." And flaming downward over all From heat to heat the day decreased, And slowly rounded to the east The one black shadow from the wall. "The day to night," she made her moan, "The day to night, the night to morn, And day and night I am left alone To live forgotten, and love forlorn." At eve a dry cicala sung, There came a sound as of the sea; Backward the lattice-blind she flung, And lean'd upon the balcony. There all in spaces rosy-bright Large Hesper glitter'd on her tears, And deepening thro' the silent spheres Heaven over Heaven rose the night. And weeping then she made her moan, "The night comes on that knows not morn, When I shall cease to be all alone, To live forgotten, and love forlorn." ~ Alfred Lord Tennyson,

785: Light silken curtain, colorless and soft, Dreamlike before me floating! what abides Behind thy pearly veil's Opaque, mysterious woof? Where sleek red kine, and dappled, crunch day-long Thick, luscious blades and purple clover-heads, Nigh me I still can mark Cool fields of beaded grass. No more; for on the rim of the globed world I seem to stand and stare at nothingness. But songs of unseen birds And tranquil roll of waves Bring sweet assurance of continuous life Beyond this silvery cloud. Fantastic dreams, Of tissue subtler still Than the wreathed fog, arise, And cheat my brain with airy vanishings And mystic glories of the world beyond. A whole enchanted town Thy baffling folds concealAn Orient town, with slender-steepled mosques, Turret from turret springing, dome from dome, Fretted with burning stones, And trellised with red gold. Through spacious streets, where running waters flow, Sun-screened by fruit-trees and the broad-leaved palm, Past the gay-decked bazaars, Walk turbaned, dark-eyed men. Hark! you can hear the many murmuring tongues, While loud the merchants vaunt their gorgeous wares. The sultry air is spiced With fragrance of rich gums, 77 And through the lattice high in yon dead wall, See where, unveiled, an arch, young, dimpled face, Flushed like a musky peach, Peers down upon the mart! From her dark, ringleted and bird-poised head She hath cast back the milk-white silken veil: 'Midst the blank blackness there She blossoms like a rose. Beckons she not with those bright, full-orbed eyes, And open arms that like twin moonbeams gleam? Behold her smile on me With honeyed, scarlet lips! Divine Scheherazade! I am thine. I come! I come!-Hark! from some far-off mosque The shrill muezzin calls The hour of silent prayer, And from the lattice he hath scared my love. The lattice vanisheth itself-the street, The mart, the Orient town; Only through still, soft air That cry is yet prolonged. I wake to hear The distant fog-horn peal: before mine eyes Stands the white wall of mist, Blending with vaporous skies. Elusive gossamer, impervious Even to the mighty sun-god's keen red shafts! With what a jealous art Thy secret thou dost guard! Well do I know deep in thine inmost folds, Within an opal hollow, there abides The lady of the mist, The Undine of the airA slender, winged, ethereal, lily form, 78 Dove-eyed, with fair, free-floating, pearl-wreathed hair, In waving raiment swathed Of changing, irised hues. Where her feet, rosy as a shell, have grazed The freshened grass, a richer emerald glows: Into each flower-cup Her cool dews she distills. She knows the tops of jagged mountain-peaks, She knows the green soft hollows of their sides, And unafraid she floats O'er the vast-circled seas. She loves to bask within the moon's wan beams, Lying, night-long upon the moist, dark earth, And leave her seeded pearls With morning on the grass. Ah! that athwart these dim, gray outer courts Of her fantastic palace I might pass, And reach the inmost shrine Of her chaste solitude, And feel her cool and dewy fingers press My mortal-fevered brow, while in my heart She poured with tender love Her healing Lethe-balm! See! the close curtain moves, the spell dissolves! Slowly it lifts: the dazzling sunshine streams Upon a newborn world And laughing summer seas. Swift, snowy-breasted sandbirds twittering glance Through crystal air. On the horizon's marge, Like a huge purple wraith, The dusky fog retreats. ~ Emma Lazarus,

786: Lenox Hill (In Lenox Hill Hospital, after surgery, my mother said the sirens sounded like the elephants of Mihiragula when his men drove them off cliffs in the Pir Panjal Range.) The Hun so loved the cry, one falling elephant's, he wished to hear it again. At dawn, my mother heard, in her hospital-dream of elephants, sirens wail through Manhattan like elephants forced off Pir Panjal's rock cliffs in Kashmir: the soldiers, so ruled, had rushed the elephant, The greatest of all footprints is the elephant's, said the Buddha. But not lifted from the universe, those prints vanished forever into the universe, though nomads still break news of those elephants as if it were just yesterday the air spread the dye ("War's annals will fade into night / Ere their story die"), the punishing khaki whereby the world sees us die out, mourning you, O massacred elephants! Months later, in Amherst, she dreamt: She was, with diamonds, being stoned to death. I prayed: If she must die, let it only be some dream. But there were times, Mother, while you slept, that I prayed, 'Saints, let her die.' Not, I swear by you, that I wished you to die but to save you as you were, young, in song in Kashmir, and I, one festival, crowned Krishna by you, Kashmir listening to my flute. You never let gods die. Thus I swear, here and now, not to forgive the universe that would let me get used to a universe without you. She, she alone, was the universe as she earned, like a galaxy, her right not to die, defying the Merciful of the Universe, Master of Disease, "in the circle of her traverse" of drug-bound time. And where was the god of elephants, plump with Fate, when tusk to tusk, the universe, dyed green, became ivory? Then let the universe, like Paradise, be considered a tomb. Mother, they asked me, So how's the writing? I answered My mother 17 is my poem. What did they expect? For no verse sufficed except the promise, fading, of Kashmir and the cries that reached you from the cliffs of Kashmir (across fifteen centuries) in the hospital. Kashmir, she's dying! How her breathing drowns out the universe as she sleeps in Amherst. Windows open on Kashmir: There, the fragile wood-shrines—so far away—of Kashmir! O Destroyer, let her return there, if just to die. Save the right she gave its earth to cover her, Kashmir has no rights. When the windows close on Kashmir, I see the blizzard-fall of ghost-elephants. I hold back—she couldn't bear it—one elephant's story: his return (in a country far from Kashmir) to the jungle where each year, on the day his mother died, he touches with his trunk the bones of his mother. 'As you sit here by me, you're just like my mother,' she tells me. I imagine her: a bride in Kashmir, she's watching, at the Regal, her first film with Father. If only I could gather you in my arms, Mother, I'd save you—now my daughter—from God. The universe opens its ledger. I write: How helpless was God's mother! Each page is turned to enter grief's accounts. Mother, I see a hand. Tell me it's not God's. Let it die. I see it. It's filling with diamonds. Please let it die. Are you somewhere alive, somewhere alive, Mother? Do you hear what I once held back: in one elephant's cry, by his mother's bones, the cries of those elephants that stunned the abyss? Ivory blots out the elephants. I enter this: The Beloved leaves one behind to die. For compared to my grief for you, what are those of Kashmir, and what (I close the ledger) are the griefs of the universe when I remember you—beyond all accounting—O my mother? ~ Agha Shahid Ali,

787:Perched upon the stones of a bridge The soldiers had the eyes of ravens Their weapons hung black as talons Their eyes gloried in the smoke of murder To the shock of iron-heeled sticks I drew closer in the cripple’s bitter patience And before them I finally tottered Grasping to capture my elusive breath With the cockerel and swift of their knowing They watched and waited for me ‘I have come,’ said I, ‘from this road’s birth, I have come,’ said I, ‘seeking the best in us.’ The sergeant among them had red in his beard Glistening wet as he showed his teeth ‘There are few roads on this earth,’ said he, ‘that will lead you to the best in us, old one.’ ‘But you have seen all the tracks of men,’ said I ‘And where the mothers and children have fled Before your advance. Is there naught among them That you might set an old man upon?’ The surgeon among this rook had bones Under her vellum skin like a maker of limbs ‘Old one,’ said she, ‘I have dwelt In the heat of chests, among heart and lungs, And slid like a serpent between muscles, Swum the currents of slowing blood, And all these roads lead into the darkness Where the broken will at last rest. ‘Dare say I,’ she went on,‘there is no Place waiting inside where you might find In slithering exploration of mysteries All that you so boldly call the best in us.’ And then the man with shovel and pick, Who could raise fort and berm in a day Timbered of thought and measured in all things Set the gauge of his eyes upon the sun And said, ‘Look not in temples proud, Or in the palaces of the rich highborn, We have razed each in turn in our time To melt gold from icon and shrine And of all the treasures weeping in fire There was naught but the smile of greed And the thick power of possession. Know then this: all roads before you From the beginning of the ages past And those now upon us, yield no clue To the secret equations you seek, For each was built of bone and blood And the backs of the slave did bow To the laboured sentence of a life In chains of dire need and little worth. All that we build one day echoes hollow.’ ‘Where then, good soldiers, will I Ever find all that is best in us? If not in flesh or in temple bound Or wretched road of cobbled stone?’ ‘Could we answer you,’ said the sergeant, ‘This blood would cease its fatal flow, And my surgeon could seal wounds with a touch, All labours will ease before temple and road, Could we answer you,’ said the sergeant, ‘Crows might starve in our company And our talons we would cast in bogs For the gods to fight over as they will. But we have not found in all our years The best in us, until this very day.’ ‘How so?’ asked I, so lost now on the road, And said he, ‘Upon this bridge we sat Since the dawn’s bleak arrival, Our perch of despond so weary and worn, And you we watched, at first a speck Upon the strife-painted horizon So tortured in your tread as to soak our faces In the wonder of your will, yet on you came Upon two sticks so bowed in weight Seeking, say you, the best in us And now we have seen in your gift The best in us, and were treasures at hand We would set them humbly before you, A man without feet who walked a road.’ Now, soldiers with kind words are rare Enough, and I welcomed their regard As I moved among them, ’cross the bridge And onward to the long road beyond I travel seeking the best in us And one day it shall rise before me To bless this journey of mine, and this road I began upon long ago shall now end Where waits for all the best in us. ―Avas Didion Flicker Where Ravens Perch ~ Steven Erikson,

788: The First Fire OCTOBER 1st, 1815. Ha, old acquaintance! many a month has past Since last I viewed thy ruddy face; and I, Shame on me! had mean time well nigh forgot That such a friend existed. Welcome now!— When summer suns ride high, and tepid airs Dissolve in pleasing languor; then indeed We think thee needless, and in wanton pride Mock at thy grim attire and sooty jaws, And breath sulphureous, generating spleen,— As Frenchmen say; Frenchmen, who never knew The sober comforts of a good coal fire. —Let me imbibe thy warmth, and spread myself Before thy shrine adoring:—magnet thou Of strong attraction, daily gathering in Friends, brethren, kinsmen, variously dispersed, All the dear charities of social life, To thy close circle. Here a man might stand, And say, This is my world! Who would not bleed Rather than see thy violated hearth Prest by a hostile foot? The winds sing shrill; Heap on the fuel! Not the costly board, Nor sparkling glass, nor wit, nor music, cheer Without thy aid. If thrifty thou dispense Thy gladdening influence, in the chill saloon The silent shrug declares the' unpleased guest. —How grateful to belated traveller Homeward returning, to behold the blaze From cottage window, rendering visible The cheerful scene within! There sits the sire, Whose wicker chair, in sunniest nook enshrined, His age's privilege,—a privilege for which Age gladly yields up all precedence else In gay and bustling scenes,—supports his limbs. Cherished by thee, he feels the grateful warmth Creep through his feeble frame and thaw the ice Of fourscore years, and thoughts of youth arise. —Nor less the young ones press within, to see 131 Thy face delighted, and with husk of nuts, Or crackling holly, or the gummy pine, Feed thy immortal hunger: cheaply pleased They gaze delighted, while the leaping flames Dart like an adder's tongue upon their prey; Or touch with lighted reed thy wreaths of smoke; Or listen, while the matron sage remarks Thy bright blue scorching flame and aspect clear, Denoting frosty skies. Thus pass the hours, While Winter spends without his idle rage. —Companion of the solitary man, From gayer scenes withheld! With thee he sits, Converses, moralizes; musing asks How many æras of uncounted time Have rolled away since thy black unctuous food Was green with vegetative life, and what This planet then: or marks, in sprightlier mood, Thy flickering smiles play round the' illumined room, And fancies gay discourse, life, motion, mirth, And half forgets he is a lonely creature. —Nor less the bashful poet loves to sit Snug, at the midnight hour, with only thee Of his lone musings conscious. Oft he writes, And blots, and writes again; and oft, by fits, Gazes intent with eyes of vacancy On thy bright face; and still at intervals, Dreading the critic's scorn, to thee commits, Sole confidant and safe, his fancies crude. —O wretched he, with bolts and massy bars In narrow cell immured, whose green damp walls, That weep unwholesome dews, have never felt Thy purifying influence! Sad he sits Day after day, till in his youthful limbs Life stagnates, and the hue of hope is fled From his wan cheek.—And scarce less wretched he— When wintry winds blow loud and frosts bite keen,— The dweller of the clay-built tenement, Poverty-struck, who, heartless, strives to raise From sullen turf, or stick plucked from the hedge, 132 The short-lived blaze; while chill around him spreads The dreary fen, and Ague, sallow-faced, Stares through the broken pane;—Assist him, ye On whose warm roofs the sun of plenty shines, And feel a glow beyond material fire! ~ Anna Laetitia Barbauld,

789: Ave Maria In the ages of Faith, before the day When men were too proud to weep or pray, There stood in a red-roofed Breton town Snugly nestled 'twixt sea and down, A chapel for simple souls to meet, Nightly, and sing with voices sweet, Ave Maria! There was an idiot, palsied, bleared, With unkempt locks and a matted beard, Hunched from the cradle, vacant-eyed, And whose head kept rolling from side to side; Yet who, when the sunset-glow grew dim, Joined with the rest in the twilight hymn, Ave Maria! But when they up-got and wended home, Those up the hillside, these to the foam, He hobbled along in the narrowing dusk, Like a thing that is only hull and husk; On as he hobbled, chanting still, Now to himself, now loud and shrill, Ave Maria! When morning smiled on the smiling deep, And the fisherman woke from dreamless sleep, And ran up his sail, and trimmed his craft, While his little ones leaped on the sand and laughed, The senseless cripple would stand and stare, Then suddenly holloa his wonted prayer, Ave Maria! Others might plough, and reap, and sow, Delve in the sunshine, spin in snow, Make sweet love in a shelter sweet, Or trundle their dead in a winding-sheet; But he, through rapture, and pain, and wrong, Kept singing his one monotonous song, Ave Maria! 187 When thunder growled from the ravelled wrack, And ocean to welkin bellowed back, And the lightning sprang from its cloudy sheath, And tore through the forest with jaggèd teeth, Then leaped and laughed o'er the havoc wreaked, The idiot clapped with his hands, and shrieked, Ave Maria! Children mocked, and mimicked his feet, As he slouched or sidled along the street; Maidens shrank as he passed them by, And mothers with child eschewed his eye; And half in pity, half scorn, the folk Christened him, from the words he spoke, Ave Maria. One year when the harvest feasts were done, And the mending of tattered nets begun, And the kittiwake's scream took a weirder key From the wailing wind and the moaning sea, He was found, at morn, on the fresh-strewn snow, Frozen, and faint, and crooning low, Ave Maria! They stirred up the ashes between the dogs, And warmed his limbs by the blazing logs, Chafed his puckered and bloodless skin, And strove to quiet his chattering chin; But, ebbing with unreturning tide, He kept on murmuring till he died, Ave Maria! Idiot, soulless, brute from birth, He could not be buried in sacred earth; So they laid him afar, apart, alone, Without or a cross, or turf, or stone, Senseless clay unto senseless clay, To which none ever came nigh to say, Ave Maria! When the meads grew saffron, the hawthorn white, 188 And the lark bore his music out of sight, And the swallow outraced the racing wave, Up from the lonely, outcast grave Sprouted a lily, straight and high, Such as She bears to whom men cry, Ave Maria! None had planted it, no one knew How it had come there, why it grew; Grew up strong, till its stately stem Was crowned with a snow-white diadem,One pure lily, round which, behold! Was written by God in veins of gold, ``Ave Maria!'' Over the lily they built a shrine, Where are mingled the mystic bread and wine; Shrine you may see in the little town That is snugly nestled 'twixt deep and down. Through the Breton land it hath wondrous fame, And it bears the unshriven idiot's name, Ave Maria. Hunchbacked, gibbering, blear-eyed, halt, From forehead to footstep one foul fault, Crazy, contorted, mindless-born, The gentle's pity, the cruel's scorn, Who shall bar you the gates of Day, So you have simple faith to say, Ave Maria? ~ Alfred Austin,

790: The Blessing When, by a decree of the sovereign power, The poet makes his appearance in a bored world, With fists clenched at the horror, his outraged mother Calls on a pitying God, at whom these curses are hurled: "Why was I not made to litter a brood of vipers Rather than conceive this human mockery? My curses on that night whose ephemeral pleasures Filled my womb with this avenging treachery! Since I must be chosen among all women that are To bear the lifetime's grudge of a sullen husband, And since I cannot get rid of this caricature, --Fling it away like old letters to be burned, On what you have devised for my punishment I will let all your hate of me rebound, I will torture this stunted growth until its bent Branches let fall every blighted bud to the ground!" And so she prepares herself in Hell's pit. A place on the pyre made for a mother's crimes, Blind, in the fury of her foaming hatred, To the meaning and purpose of the eternal designs. Meanwhile, under the care of an unseen angel, The disinherited Child revels in the sun's Bright force; all that he eats and drinks can fill Him with memories of the food that was heaven's. The wind his plaything, any cloud a friend, The Spirit watching can only weep to see How in childhood his way of the cross is lightened With the wild bird-song of his innocent gaiety. Those he would love look at him with suspicion Or else, emboldened by his calm, experiment With various possible methods of exciting derision By trying out their cruelty on his complaint. They mix ashes or unspeakable filth with the bread And the wine of his daily communion, drop Whatever he may have touched with affected dread, 442 And studiously avoid wherever he may step. His mistress, parading her contempt in the street, Cries: "Since he finds my beauty a thing to worship, I will be one of the ancient idols he talks about, And make myself with gold out of the same workshop! I will never have enough of his kneelings and offerings Until I am sure that the choice foods, the wines, The 'nard,' the 'incense,' the 'myrrh' that he brings He brings as other men would to the Virgin's shrines. And when I am sick to death of trying not to laugh At the farce of my black masses, I'll try the force Of the hand he calls 'frail,' my nails will dig a path Like harpies', to the heart that beats for me, of course! Like a nestling trembling and palpitating I will pull that red heart out of his breast And throw it down for my favorite dog's eating --Let him do whatever he likes with the rest!" A serene piety, lifting the poet's gaze, Reveals heaven opening on a shining throne, And the lower vision of the world's ravening rage Is shut off by the sheet lightnings of his brain. "Be blessed, oh my God, who givest suffering As the only divine remedy for our folly, As the highest and purest essence preparing The strong in spirit for ecstasies most holy. I know that among the uplifted legions Of saints, a place awaits the Poet's arrival, And that among the Powers, Virtues, Dominations He too is summoned to Heaven's festival. I know that sorrow is the one human strength On which neither earth nor hell can impose, And that all the universe and all time's length Must be wound into the mystic crown for my brows. But all the treasury of buried Palmyra, The earth's unknown metals, the sea's pearls, Mounted by Thy hand, would be deemed an inferior 443 Glitter, to his diadem that shines without jewels. For Thou knowest it will be made of purest light Drawn from the holy hearth of every primal ray, To which all human eyes, if they were one bright Eye, are only a tarnished mirror's fading day!" ~ Charles Baudelaire,

791: Poem On His Birthday In the mustardseed sun, By full tilt river and switchback sea Where the cormorants scud, In his house on stilts high among beaks And palavers of birds This sandgrain day in the bent bay's grave He celebrates and spurns His driftwood thirty-fifth wind turned age; Herons spire and spear. Under and round him go Flounders, gulls, on their cold, dying trails, Doing what they are told, Curlews aloud in the congered waves Work at their ways to death, And the rhymer in the long tongued room, Who tolls his birthday bell, Toesl towards the ambush of his wounds; Herons, stepple stemmed, bless. In the thistledown fall, He sings towards anguish; finches fly In the claw tracks of hawks On a seizing sky; small fishes glide Through wynds and shells of drowned Ship towns to pastures of otters. He In his slant, racking house And the hewn coils of his trade perceives Herons walk in their shroud, The livelong river's robe Of minnows wreathing around their prayer; And far at sea he knows, Who slaves to his crouched, eternal end Under a serpent cloud, Dolphins dyive in their turnturtle dust, The rippled seals streak down To kill and their own tide daubing blood Slides good in the sleek mouth. 133 In a cavernous, swung Wave's silence, wept white angelus knells. Thirty-five bells sing struck On skull and scar where his lovews lie wrecked, Steered by the falling stars. And to-morrow weeps in a blind cage Terror will rage apart Before chains break to a hammer flame And love unbolts the dark And freely he goes lost In the unknown, famous light of great And fabulous, dear God. Dark is a way and light is a place, Heaven that never was Nor will be ever is alwas true, And, in that brambled void, Plenty as blackberries in the woods The dead grow for His joy. There he might wander bare With the spirits of the horseshoe bay Or the stars' seashore dead, Marrow of eagles, the roots of whales And wishbones of wild geese, With blessed, unborn God and His Ghost, And every soul His priest, Gulled and chanter in youg Heaven's fold Be at cloud quaking peace, But dark is a long way. He, on the earth of the night, alone With all the living, prays, Who knows the rocketing wind will blow The bones out of the hills, And the scythed boulders bleed, and the last Rage shattered waters kick Masts and fishes to the still quick stars, Faithlessly unto Him Who is the light of old 134 And air shaped Heaven where souls grow wild As horses in the foam: Oh, let me midlife mourn by the shrined And druid herons' vows The voyage to ruin I must run, Dawn ships clouted aground, Yet, though I cry with tumbledown tongue, Count my blessings aloud: Four elements and five Senses, and man a spirit in love Thangling through this spun slime To his nimbus bell cool kingdom come And the lost, moonshine domes, And the sea that hides his secret selves Deep in its black, base bones, Lulling of spheres in the seashell flesh, And this last blessing most, That the closer I move To death, one man through his sundered hulks, The louder the sun blooms And the tusked, ramshackling sea exults; And every wave of the way And gale I tackle, the whole world then, With more triumphant faith That ever was since the world was said, Spins its morning of praise, I hear the bouncing hills Grow larked and greener at berry brown Fall and the dew larks sing Taller this thuderclap spring, and how More spanned with angles ride The mansouled fiery islands! Oh, Holier then their eyes, And my shining men no more alone As I sail out to die ~ Dylan Thomas,

792: The Cathedral Of Rheims He who walks through the meadows of Champagne At noon in Fall, when leaves like gold appear, Sees it draw near Like some great mountain set upon the plain, From radiant dawn until the close of day, Nearer it grows To him who goes Across the country. When tall towers lay Their shadowy pall Upon his way, He enters, where The solid stone is hollowed deep by all Its centuries of beauty and of prayer. Ancient French temple! thou whose hundred kings Watch over thee, emblazoned on thy walls, Tell me, within thy memory-hallowed halls What chant of triumph, or what war-song rings? Thou hast known Clovis and his Frankish train, Whose mighty hand Saint Remy's hand did keep And in thy spacious vault perhaps may sleep An echo of the voice of Charlemagne. For God thou has known fear, when from His side Men wandered, seeking alien shrines and new, But still the sky was bountiful and blue And thou wast crowned with France's love and pride. Sacred thou art, from pinnacle to base; And in thy panes of gold and scarlet glass The setting sun sees thousandfold his face; Sorrow and joy, in stately silence pass Across thy walls, the shadow and the light; Around thy lofty pillars, tapers white Illuminate, with delicate sharp flames, The brows of saints with venerable names, And in the night erect a fiery wall. A great but silent fervour burns in all Those simple folk who kneel, pathetic, dumb, And know that down below, beside the Rhine Cannon, horses, soldiers, flags in line - 310 With blare of trumpets, mighty armies come. Suddenly, each knows fear; Swift rumours pass, that every one must hear, The hostile banners blaze against the sky And by the embassies mobs rage and cry. Now war has come, and peace is at an end. On Paris town the German troops descend. They are turned back, and driven to Champagne. And now, as to so many weary men, The glorious temple gives them welcome, when It meets them at the bottom of the plain. At once, they set their cannon in its way. There is no gable now, nor wall That does not suffer, night and day, As shot and shell in crushing torrents fall. The stricken tocsin quivers through the tower; The triple nave, the apse, the lonely choir Are circled, hour by hour, With thundering bands of fire And Death is scattered broadcast among men. And then That which was splendid with baptismal grace; The stately arches soaring into space, The transepts, columns, windows gray and gold, The organ, in whose tones the ocean rolled, The crypts, of mighty shades the dwelling places, The Virgin's gentle hands, the Saints' pure faces, All, even the pardoning hands of Christ the Lord Were struck and broken by the wanton sword Of sacrilegious lust. O beauty slain, O glory in the dust! Strong walls of faith, most basely overthrown! The crawling flames, like adders glistening Ate the white fabric of this lovely thing. Now from its soul arose a piteous moan, The soul that always loved the just and fair. Granite and marble loud their woe confessed, The silver monstrances that Popes had blessed, 311 The chalices and lamps and crosiers rare Were seared and twisted by a flaming breath; The horror everywhere did range and swell, The guardian Saints into this furnace fell, Their bitter tears and screams were stilled in death. Around the flames armed hosts are skirmishing, The burning sun reflects the lurid scene; The German army, fighting for its life, Rallies its torn and terrified left wing; And, as they near this place The imperial eagles see Before them in their flight, Here, in the solemn night, The old cathedral, to the years to be Showing, with wounded arms, their own disgrace. ~ Emile Verhaeren,

793: Invocation Goddess of Liberty! O thou Whose tearless eyes behold the chain, And look unmoved upon the slain, Eternal peace upon thy brow,- Before thy shrine the races press, Thy perfect favor to imploreThe proudest tyrant asks no more, The ironed anarchist no less. Thine altar-coals that touch the lips Of prophets kindle, too, the brand By Discord flung with wanton hand Among the houses and the ships. Upon thy tranquil front the star Burns bleak and passionless and white, Its cold inclemency of light More dreadful than the shadows are. Thy name we do not here invoke Our civic rites to sanctify: Enthroned in thy remoter sky, Thou heedest not our broken yoke. Thou carest not for such as we: Our millions die to serve the still And secret purpose of thy will. They perish-what is that to thee? The light that fills the patriot's tomb Is not of thee. The shining crown Compassionately offered down 317 To those who falter in the gloom, And fall, and call upon thy name, And die desiring-'tis the sign Of a diviner love than thine, Rewarding with a richer fame. To him alone let freemen cry Who hears alike the victor's shout, The song of faith, the moan of doubt, And bends him from his nearer sky. God of my country and my race! So greater than the gods of oldSo fairer than the prophets told Who dimly saw and feared thy face,- Who didst but half reveal thy will And gracious ends to their desire, Behind the dawn's advancing fire Thy tender day-beam veiling still,- To whom the unceasing suns belong, And cause is one with consequence,To whose divine, inclusive sense The moan is blended with the song,- Whose laws, imperfect and unjust, Thy just and perfect purpose serve: The needle, howsoe'er it swerve, Still warranting the sailor's trust,- God, lift thy hand and make us free To crown the work thou hast designed. O, strike away the chains that bind 318 Our souls to one idolatry! The liberty thy love hath given We thank thee for. We thank thee for Our great dead fathers' holy war Wherein our manacles were riven. We thank thee for the stronger stroke Ourselves delivered and incurred When-thine incitement half unheardThe chains we riveted we broke. We thank thee that beyond the sea Thy people, growing ever wise, Turn to the west their serious eyes And dumbly strive to be as we. As when the sun's returning flame Upon the Nileside statue shone, And struck from the enchanted stone The music of a mighty fame, Let Man salute the rising day Of Liberty, but not adore. 'Tis Opportunity-no moreA useful, not a sacred, ray. It bringeth good, it bringeth ill, As he possessing shall elect. He maketh it of none effect Who walketh not within thy will. Give thou more or less, as we Shall serve the right or serve the wrong. Confirm our freedom but so long 319 As we are worthy to be free. But when (O, distant be the time!) Majorities in passion draw Insurgent swords to murder Law, And all the land is red with crime; Or-nearer menace!-when the band Of feeble spirits cringe and plead To the gigantic strength of Greed, And fawn upon his iron hand;- Nay, when the steps to state are worn In hollows by the feet of thieves, And Mammon sits among the sheaves And chuckles while the reapers mourn: Then stay thy miracle!-replace The broken throne, repair the chain, Restore the interrupted reign And veil again thy patient face. Lo! here upon the world's extreme We stand with lifted arms and dare By thine eternal name to swear Our country, which so fair we deem- Upon whose hills, a bannered throng, The spirits of the sun display Their flashing lances day by day And hear the sea's pacific song- Shall be so ruled in right and grace That men shall say: 'O, drive afield The lawless eagle from the shield, 320 And call an angel to the place!' ~ Ambrose Bierce,

794: Artemis To Actaeon Thou couldst not look on me and live: so runs The mortal legend—thou that couldst not live Nor look on me (so the divine decree)! That saw’st me in the cloud, the wave, the bough, The clod commoved with April, and the shapes Lurking ‘twixt lid and eye-ball in the dark. Mocked I thee not in every guise of life, Hid in girls’ eyes, a naiad in her well, Wooed through their laughter, and like echo fled, Luring thee down the primal silences Where the heart hushes and the flesh is dumb? Nay, was not I the tide that drew thee out Relentlessly from the detaining shore, Forth from the home-lights and the hailing voices, Forth from the last faint headland’s failing line, Till I enveloped thee from verge to verge And hid thee in the hollow of my being? And still, because between us hung the veil, The myriad-tinted veil of sense, thy feet Refused their rest, thy hands the gifts of life, Thy heart its losses, lest some lesser face Should blur mine image in thine upturned soul Ere death had stamped it there. This was thy thought. And mine? The gods, they say, have all: not so! This have they—flocks on every hill, the blue Spirals of incense and the amber drip Of lucid honey-comb on sylvan shrines, First-chosen weanlings, doves immaculate, Twin-cooing in the osier-plaited cage, And ivy-garlands glaucous with the dew: Man’s wealth, man’s servitude, but not himself! And so they pale, for lack of warmth they wane, Freeze to the marble of their images, And, pinnacled on man’s subserviency, Through the thick sacrificial haze discern Unheeding lives and loves, as some cold peak Through icy mists may enviously descry 18 Warm vales unzoned to the all-fruitful sun. So they along an immortality Of endless-envistaed homage strain their gaze, If haply some rash votary, empty-urned, But light of foot, with all-adventuring hand, Break rank, fling past the people and the priest, Up the last step, on to the inmost shrine, And there, the sacred curtain in his clutch, Drop dead of seeing—while the others prayed! Yes, this we wait for, this renews us, this Incarnates us, pale people of your dreams, Who are but what you make us, wood or stone, Or cold chryselephantine hung with gems, Or else the beating purpose of your life, Your sword, your clay, the note your pipe pursues, The face that haunts your pillow, or the light Scarce visible over leagues of labouring sea! O thus through use to reign again, to drink The cup of peradventure to the lees, For one dear instant disimmortalised In giving immortality! So dream the gods upon their listless thrones. Yet sometimes, when the votary appears, With death-affronting forehead and glad eyes, Too young, they rather muse, too frail thou art, And shall we rob some girl of saffron veil And nuptial garland for so slight a thing? And so to their incurious loves return. Not so with thee; for some indeed there are Who would behold the truth and then return To pine among the semblances—but I Divined in thee the questing foot that never Revisits the cold hearth of yesterday Or calls achievement home. I from afar Beheld thee fashioned for one hour’s high use, Nor meant to slake oblivion drop by drop. Long, long hadst thou inhabited my dreams, Surprising me as harts surprise a pool, Stealing to drink at midnight; I divined Thee rash to reach the heart of life, and lie Bosom to bosom in occasion’s arms. 19 And said: Because I love thee thou shalt die! For immortality is not to range Unlimited through vast Olympian days, Or sit in dull dominion over time; But this—to drink fate’s utmost at a draught, Nor feel the wine grow stale upon the lip, To scale the summit of some soaring moment, Nor know the dulness of the long descent, To snatch the crown of life and seal it up Secure forever in the vaults of death! And this was thine: to lose thyself in me, Relive in my renewal, and become The light of other lives, a quenchless torch Passed on from hand to hand, till men are dust And the last garland withers from my shrine. ~ Edith Wharton,

795: Summer Afternoon (Bodiam Castle, Sussex) THOU couldst not look on me and live: so runs The mortal legend -- thou that couldst not live Nor look on me (so the divine decree)! That sawst me in the cloud, the wave, the bough, The clod commoved with April, and the shapes Lurking 'twixt lid and eye-ball in the dark. Mocked I thee not in every guise of life, Hid in girls' eyes, a naiad in her well, Wooed through their laughter, and like echo fled, Luring thee down the primal silences Where the heart hushes and the flesh is dumb? Nay, was not I the tide that drew thee out Relentlessly from the detaining shore, Forth from the home-lights and the hailing voices, Forth from the last faint headland's failing line, Till I enveloped thee from verge to verge And hid thee in the hollow of my being? And still, because between us hung the veil, The myriad-tinted veil of sense, thy feet Refused their rest, thy hands the gifts of life, Thy heart its losses, lest some lesser face Should blur mine image in thine upturned soul Ere death had stamped it there. This was thy thought. And mine? The gods, they say, have all: not so! This have they -- flocks on every hill, the blue Spirals of incense and the amber drip Of lucid honey-comb on sylvan shrines, First-chosen weanlings, doves immaculate, Twin-cooing in the osier-plaited cage, And ivy-garlands glaucous with the dew: Man's wealth, man's servitude, but not himself! And so they pale, for lack of warmth they wane, Freeze to the marble of their images, And, pinnacled on man's subserviency, Through the thick sacrificial haze discern Unheeding lives and loves, as some cold peak Through icy mists may enviously descry Warm vales unzoned to the all-fruitful sun. 59 So they along an immortality Of endless-vistaed homage strain their gaze, If haply some rash votary, empty-urned, But light of foot, with all-adventuring hand, Break rank, fling past the people and the priest, Up the last step, on to the inmost shrine, And there, the sacred curtain in his clutch, Drop dead of seeing -- while the others prayed! Yea, this we wait for, this renews us, this Incarnates us, pale people of your dreams, Who are but what you make us, wood or stone, Or cold chryselephantine hung with gems, Or else the beating purpose of your life, Your sword, your clay, the note your pipe pursues, The face that haunts your pillow, or the light Scarce visible over leagues of laboring sea! O thus through use to reign again, to drink The cup of peradventure to the lees, For one dear instant disimmortalized In giving immortality! So dream the gods upon their listless thrones. Yet sometimes, when the votary appears, With death-affronting forehead and glad eyes, Too young, they rather muse, too frail thou art, And shall we rob some girl of saffron veil And nuptial garland for so slight a thing? And so to their incurious loves return. Not so with thee; for some indeed there are Who would behold the truth and then return To pine among the semblances -- but I Divined in thee the questing foot that never Revisits the cold hearth of yesterday Or calls achievement home. I from afar Beheld thee fashioned for one hour's high use, Nor meant to slake oblivion drop by drop. Long, long hadst thou inhabited my dreams, Surprising me as harts surprise a pool, Stealing to drink at midnight; I divined Thee rash to reach the heart of life, and lie Bosom to bosom in occasion's arms, 60 And said: Because I love thee thou shalt die! For immortality is not to range Unlimited through vast Olympian days, Or sit in dull dominion over time; But this -- to drink fate's utmost at a draught, Nor feel the wine grow stale upon the lip, To scale the summit of some soaring moment, Nor know the dulness of the long descent, To snatch the crown of life and seal it up Secure forever in the vaults of death! And this was thine: to lose thyself in me, Relive in my renewal, and become The light of other lives, a quenchless torch Passed on from hand to hand, till men are dust And the last garland withers from my shrine. ~ Edith Wharton,

796: The Three Pilgrims In days, when the fruit of men's labour was sparing, And hearts were weary and nigh to break, A sweet grave man with a beautiful bearing Came to us once in the fields and spake. He told us of Roma, the marvellous city, And of One that came from the living God, The Virgin's Son, who in heavenly pity, Bore for his people the rood and rod, And how at Roma the gods were broken, The new was strong, and the old nigh dead, And love was more than a bare word spoken, For the sick were healed and the poor were fed; And we sat mute at his feet, and hearkened: The grave men came in an hour and went, But a new light shone on a land long darkened; The toil was weary, the fruit was spent: So we came south, till we saw the city, Speeding three of us, hand in hand, Seeking peace and the bread of pity, Journeying out of the Umbrian land; Till we saw from the hills in a dazzled coma Over the vines that the wind made shiver, Tower on tower, the great city Roma, Palace and temple, and winding river: And we stood long in a dream and waited, Watching and praying and purified, And came at last to the walls belated, Entering in at the eventide: And many met us with song and dancing, Mantled in skins and crowned with flowers, Waving goblets and torches glancing, Faces drunken, and grinned in ours: 230 And one, that ran in the midst, came near us'Crown yourselves for the feast,' he said, But we cried out, that the God might hear us, 'Where is Jesus, the living bread?' And they took us each by the hand with laughter; Their eyes were haggard and red with wine: They haled us on, and we followed after, 'We will show you the new God's shrine.' Ah, woe to out tongues, that, forever unsleeping, Harp and uncover the old hot care, The soothing ash from the embers sweeping, Wherever the soles of our sad feet fare. Ah, we were simple of mind, now knowing, How dreadful the heart of a man might be; But the knowledge of evil is mighty of growing; Only the deaf and the blind are free. We came to a garden of beauty and pleasureIt was not the way that our own feet chooseWhere a revel was whirling in many a measure, And the myriad roar of a great crowd rose; And the midmost round of the garden was reddened With pillars of fire in a great high ringOne look-and our souls forever were deadened, Though our feet yet move, and our dreams yet sting; For we saw that each was a live man flaming, Limbs that a human mother bore, And a thing of horror was done, past naming, And the crowd spun round, and we saw no more. And he that ran in the midst, descrying, Lifted his hand with a foul red sneer, And smote us each and the other, crying, 'Thus we worship the new God here. 'The Caesar comes, and the peoples paeans 231 Hail his name for the new made light, Pitch and the flesh of the Galileans, Torches fit for a Roman night;' And we fell down to the earth, and sickened, Moaning, three of us, head by head, 'Where is He, whom the good God quickened? Where is Jesus, the living bread?' Yet ever we heard, in the foul mirth turning, Man and woman and child go by, And ever the yells of the charred men burning, Piercing heavenward, cry on cry: And we lay there, till the frightful revel, Died in the dawn with a few short moans, Of some that knelt in the wan and level Shadows, that fell from the blackened bones. Numb with horror and sick with pity, The heart of each as an iron weight, We crept in the dawn from the awful city, Journeying out of the seaward gate. The great sun came from the sea before us; A soft wind blew from the scented south; But our eyes knew not of the steps that bore us Down to the ships at the Timber's mouth; And we prayed then, as we turned our faces Over the sea to the living God, That our ways might be in the fierce bare places, Where never the foot of a live man trod: And we set sail in the noon, not caring Whether the prow of the dark ship came, No more over the old ways faring; For the sea was cold, but the land was flame: And the keen ship sped, and a deadly coma Blotted away from our eyes forever, Tower on tower, the great city Roma, 232 Palace and temple and yellow river. ~ Archibald Lampman,

797: Benedetta Minelli I. THE NOVICE. IT is near morning. Ere the next night fall I shall be made the bride of heaven. Then home To my still marriage chamber I shall come, And spouseless, childless, watch the slow years crawl. These lips will never meet a softer touch Than the stone crucifix I kiss; no child Will clasp this neck. Ah, virgin-mother mild, Thy painted bliss will mock me overmuch. This is the last time I shall twist the hair My mother's hand wreathed, till in dust she lay: The name, her name, given on my baptism-day, This is the last time I shall ever bear. O weary world, O heavy life, farewell! Like a tired child that creeps into the dark To sob itself asleep, where none will mark,-So creep I to my silent convent cell. Friends, lovers whom I loved not, kindly hearts Who grieve that I should enter this still door, Grieve not. Closing behind me evermore, Me from all anguish, as all joy, it parts. Love, whom alone I loved; who stand'st far off, Lifting compassionate eyes that could not save, Remember, this my spirit's quiet grave Hides me from worldly pity, worldly scoff. 'T was less thy hand than Heaven's which came between, And dashed my cup down. See, I shed no tears: And if I think at all of vanished years, 'T is but to bless thee, dear, for what has been. 60 My soul continually does cry to thee; In the night-watches ghost-like stealing out From its flesh tomb, and hovering thee about; So live that I in heaven thy face may see! Live, noble heart, of whom this heart of mine Was half unworthy. Build up actions great, That I down looking from the crystal gate Smile o'er our dead hopes urned in such a shrine. Live, keeping aye they spirit undefiled, That, when we stand before our Master's feet, I with an angel's love may crown complete The woman's faith, the worship of the child. Dawn, solemn bridal morn; ope, bridal door; I enter. My vowed soul may Heaven take; My heart its virgin spousal for thy sake; O love, keeps sacred thus forevermore. II. THE SISTER OF MERCY. IS it then so?--Good friends, who sit and sigh While I lie smiling, are my life's sands run? Will my next matins, hymned beyond the sun, Mingle with those of saints and martyrs high? Shall I with these my gray hairs turned to gold, My aged limbs new clad in garments white, Stand all transfigured in the angels' sight, Singing triumphantly that moan of old,-Thy will be done? It was done. O my God, Thou know'st, when over grief's tempestuous sea My broken-wingèd soul fled home to Thee, I writhed, but never murmured at Thy rod. It fell upon me, stern at first, then soft As parent's kisses, till the wound was healed; 61 And I went forth a laborer in Thy field:-They best can bind who have been bruisèd oft. And Thou wert pitiful. I came heart-sore, And drank Thy cup because earth's cups ran dry: Thou slew'st me not for that impiety, But madest the draught so sweet, I thirst no more. I came for silence, heavy rest, or death: Thou gavest instead life, peace, and holy toil: My sighing lips from sorrow didst assoil, And fill with righteous thankfulness each breath. Therefore I praise Thee that Thou shuttest Thine ears Unto my misery: didst Thy will, not mine: That to this length of days Thy hand divine, My feet from falling kept, mine eyes from tears. Sisters, draw near. Hear my last words serene: When I was young I walked in mine own ways, Worshipped--not God: sought not alone His praise; So he cut down my gourd while it was green. And then He o'er me threw His holy shade, That though no other mortal plants might grow, Mocking the beauty that was long laid low, I dwelt in peace, and His commands obeyed. I thank Him for all joy and for all pain: For healèd pangs, for years of calm content: For blessedness of spending and being spent In His high service where all loss is gain. I bless Him for my life and for my death; But most, that in my death my life is crowned, Since I see there, with angels gathering round, My angel. Ay, love, thou hast kept thy faith, I mine. The golden portals will not close Like those of earth, between us. Reach thy hand! No miserere, sisters. Chant out grand Te Deum laudamus. Now,--'t is all repose. 62 ~ Dinah Maria Mulock Craik,

798: Who Would Not Die For England! Who would not die for England! This great thought, Through centuries of Glory handed down By storied vault in monumental fane, And homeless grave in lone barbaric lands, Homeless but not forgotten, so can thrill With its imperious call the hearts of men, That suddenly from dwarf ignoble lives They rise to heights of nobleness, and spurn The languid couch of safety, to embrace Duty and Death that evermore were twin. ``Who would not die for England!'' Thus He said, Who at the holiest of all English hearths, The holiest and the highest, had been given A seat, an English Princess for his Bride,Now at that hearth weeping her widowed tears, Bitter and barren as the winter rain. ``It is not meet that I, whom this famed Isle, This generous, mighty, and majestic Land, Ennobled as her son, should not repay Her splendid gift of kinship. Let me go, Go where they go, Her world-researching race, That slumber pillowed on the half-drawn sword, And wake at whisper of her will, to greet Duty and Death that evermore were twin.'' Who would not die for England! And for Her He dies, who, whether in the fateful fight, Or in the marish jungle, where She bids, Far from encircling fondness, far from kiss Of clinging babes, hushes his human heart, And, stern to every voice but Hers, obeys Duty and Death that evermore were twin. 606 So across the far-off foam, Bring him hither, bring him home, Over avenues of wave,English ground,-to English grave; Where his soldier dust may rest, England's Flag above his breast, And, love-tended, long may bloom English flowers about his tomb. Who would not die for England, that can give A sepulture like this, 'mid hamlet crofts, And comely cottages with old-world flowers, And rustic seats for labour-palsied limbs, The pensioners of Peace! I linger here, Pondering the dark inexplicable Night, Here by this river-girt sequestered shrine Whose vanished walls were reared anew by Him, Of Princes the most princely, if it be That Wisdom, Love, and Virtue more adorn Sarcophagus of Kings than dripping spears, Lone wailing hearths and hecatombs of slain. And He too died for England, He who lived Scorning all joy save that great joy of all, The love of one true woman, She a Queen, Empress and Queen, yet not the more revered, Not the more loved, for those resounding names, Than for the lowlier titles, Gracious, Good, The Worthiest of Women ever crowned. Sweetest Consort, sagest Prince! Snows on snows have melted since England lost you;-late to learn Worth that never can return; Learned to know you as you were, Known, till then, alone to Her! Luminous as sun at noon, Tender as the midnight moon, Steadfast as the steered-by star, Wise as Time and Silence are: Deaf to vain-belittling lie, Deaf to gibing jealousy; 607 Thinking only of the goal, And, like every lofty soul, Scanning with a far-off smile The revilings of the vile. Yes, He too died for England! thence withdrawn Dim to that undiscoverable land Where our lost loved ones dwell with wistful eyes, And lips that look but speak not. . . . But away! Away from these soft-whispering waves that make A dulcet dirge around the new-delved grave, To bluff East-Anglia, where on wind-swept lawns The sanguine crocus peeps from underground To feel the sun and only finds the snow; And, whinnying on the norland blast, the surge Leaps against iron coast with iron hoof, As though the hosts of Denmark foamed afresh, Caparisoned for ravin! And I see A cradle, not a coffin, and therein Another Child to England; and, veiled Fate Over it bent with deep-divining gaze, And with oracular lips, like nurse inspired, Foretelling the fair Future. ``Another Albert shalt Thou be, so known, So known, so honoured, and His name shall stand The sponsor to your spotlessness, until Dawns the full day when, conscious of your soul, Your soul, your self, and that high mission laid On all of such begetting, you may seize The sceptre of your will, and, thus-wise armed Against the sirens of disloyal sense, Like to your pure progenitor abide In God's stern presence, and surrender never That last prerogative of all your race, To live and die for England!'' ~ Alfred Austin,

799: Saint Monica AMONG deep woods is the dismantled scite Of an old Abbey, where the chaunted rite, By twice ten brethren of the monkish cowl, Was duly sung; and requiems for the soul Of the first founder: For the lordly chief, Who flourish'd paramount of many a fief, Left here a stipend yearly paid, that they, The pious monks, for his repose might say Mass and orisons to Saint Monica. Beneath the falling archway overgrown With briars, a bench remains, a single stone, Where sat the indigent, to wait the dole Given at the buttery; that the baron's soul The poor might intercede for; there would rest, Known by his hat of straw with cockles drest, And staff and humble weed of watchet gray, The wandering pilgrim; who came there to pray The intercession of Saint Monica. Stern Reformation and the lapse of years Have reft the windows, and no more appears Abbot or martyr on the glass anneal'd; And half the falling cloisters are conceal'd By ash and elder: the refectory wall Oft in the storm of night is heard to fall, When, wearied by the labours of the day, The half awaken'd cotters, starting say, 'It is the ruins of Saint Monica.' Now with approaching rain is heard the rill, Just trickling thro' a deep and hollow gill By osiers, and the alder's crowding bush, Reeds, and dwarf elder, and the pithy rush, Choak'd and impeded: to the lower ground Slowly it creeps; there traces still are found Of hollow squares, embank'd with beaten clay, Where brightly glitter'd in the eye of day The peopled waters of Saint Monica. 63 The chapel pavement, where the name and date, Or monkish rhyme, had mark'd the graven plate, With docks and nettles now is overgrown; And brambles trail above the dead unknown.­ Impatient of the heat, the straggling ewe Tinkles her drowsy bell, as nibbling slow She picks the grass among the thistles gray, Whose feather'd seed the light air bears away, O'er the pale relicks of Saint Monica. Reecho'd by the walls, the owl obscene Hoots to the night; as thro' the ivy green Whose matted tods the arch and buttress bind, Sobs in low gusts the melancholy wind: The Conium there, her stalks bedropp'd with red, Rears, with Circea, neighbour of the dead; Atropa too, that, as the beldams say, Shews her black fruit to tempt and to betray, Nods by the mouldering shrine of Monica. Old tales and legends are not quite forgot. Still Superstition hovers o'er the spot, And tells how here, the wan and restless sprite, By some way-wilder'd peasant seen at night, Gibbers and shrieks, among the ruins drear; And how the friar's lanthorn will appear Gleaming among the woods, with fearful ray, And from the church-yard take its wavering way, To the dim arches of Saint Monica. The antiquary comes not to explore, As once, the unrafter'd roof and pathless floor; For now, no more beneath the vaulted ground Is crosier, cross, or sculptur'd chalice found, Nor record telling of the wassail ale, What time the welcome summons to regale, Given by the matin peal on holiday, The villagers rejoicing to obey, Feasted, in honour of Saint Monica. Yet often still at eve, or early morn, Among these ruins shagg'd with fern and thorn, A pensive stranger from his lonely seat Observes the rapid martin, threading fleet 64 The broken arch: or follows with his eye, The wall-creeper that hunts the burnish'd fly; Sees the newt basking in the sunny ray, Or snail that sinuous winds his shining way, O'er the time-fretted walls of Monica. He comes not here, from the sepulchral stone To tear the oblivious pall that Time has thrown, But meditating, marks the power proceed From the mapped lichen, to the plumed weed, From thready mosses to the veined flower, The silent, slow, but ever active power Of Vegetative Life, that o'er Decay Weaves her green mantle, when returning May Dresses the ruins of Saint Monica. Oh Nature ! ever lovely, ever new, He whom his earliest vows has paid to you Still finds, that life has something to bestow; And while to dark Forgetfulness they go, Man, and the works of man; immortal Youth, Unfading Beauty, and eternal Truth, Your Heaven-indited volume will display, While Art's elaborate monuments decay, Even as these shatter'd aisles, deserted Monica ! ~ Charlotte Smith,

800: The Visions Of Petrarch Being one day at my window all alone, So manie strange things happened me to see, As much it grieueth me to thinke thereon. At my right hand a Hynde appear'd to mee, So faire as mote the greatest God delite; Two eager dogs did her pursue in chace, Of which the one was blacke, the other white: With deadly force so in their cruell race They pincht the haunches of that gentle beast, That at the last, and in short time I spide, Vnder a Rocke where she alas opprest, Fell to the ground, and there vntimely dide. Cruell death vanquishing so noble beautie, Oft makes me wayle so hard a destinie. After at sea a tall ship did appeare, Made all of Heben and white Yuorie, The sailes of golde, of silke the tackle were, Milde was the winde, calme seem'd the sea to bee, The skie eachwhere did show full bright and faire; With rich treasures this gay ship fraigted was: But sudden storme did so turmoyle the aire, And tumbled vp the sea, that she (alas) Strake on a rock, that vnder water lay, And perished past all recouerie. O how great ruth and sorrowfull assay, Doth vex my sprite with perplexitie, Thus in a moment to see lost and drown'd, So great riches, as like cannot be found. Then heauenly branches did I see arise Out of the fresh and lustie Lawrell tree, Amidst the yong greene wood: of Paradise Some noble plant I thought my selfe to see: Such store of birds therein yshrowded were, Chaunting in shade their sundrie melodie, That with their sweetnes I was rauish't nere. While on the Lawrell fixed was mine eie, The skie gan euerie where to ouercast, 430 And darkned was the welkin all about, When sudden flash of heauens fire out brast, And rent this royall tree quite by the roote, Which makes me much and euer to complaine: For no such shadow shalbe had againe. Within this wood, out of a rocke did rise A spring of water, mildly tumbling downe, Whereto approched not in anie wise The homely shepheard, nor the ruder clowne; But manie Muses, and the Nymphes withall, That sweetly in accord did tune their voyce To the soft sounding of the waters fall, That my glad hart thereat did much reioyce. But while herein I tooke my chiefe delight, I saw (alas) the gaping earth deuoure The spring, the place, and all cleane out of sight. Which yet aggreeues my hart euen to this houre, And wounds my soule with rufull memorie, To see such pleasures gon so suddenly. I saw a Phoenix in the wood alone, With purple wings, and crest of golden hewe; Strange bird he was, whereby I thought anone, That of some heauenly wight I had the vewe; Vntill he came vnto the broken tree, And to the spring, that late deuoured was. What say I more? each thing at last we see Doth passe away: the Phoenix there alas Spying the tree destroid, the water dride, Himself smote with his beake, as in disdaine, And so foorthwith in great despight he dide: That yet my heart burnes in exceeding paine, For ruth and pitie of so haples plight. O let mine eyes no more see such a sight. At last so faire a Ladie did I spie, That thinking yet on her I burne and quake; On hearbs and flowres she walked pensiuely, Milde, but yet loue she proudly did forsake: White seem'd her robes, yet wouen so they were, As snow and golde together had been wrought. 431 Aboue the wast a darke clowde shrouded her, A stinging Serpent by the heele her caught; Wherewith she languisht as the gathered floure, And well assur'd she mounted vp to ioy. Alas, on earth so nothing doth endure, But bitter griefe and sorrowfull annoy: Which make this life wretched and miserable, Tossed with stormes of fortune variable. When I beheld this tickle trustles state Of vaine worlds glorie, flitting too and fro, And mortall men tossed by troublous fate In restles seas of wretchednes and woe, I wish I might this wearie life forgoe, And shortly turne vnto my happie rest, Where my free spirite might not anie moe Be vext with sights, that doo her peace molest. And ye faire Ladie, in whose bounteous brest All heauenly grace and vertue shrined is, When ye these rythmes doo read, and vew the rest, Loath this base world, and thinke of heauens blis: And though ye be the fairest of Gods creatures, Yet thinke, that death shall spoyle your goodly features. ~ Edmund Spenser,

801: Winter - The Fourth Pastoral, Or Daphne Lycidas. Thyrsis, the music of that murm'ring spring, Is not so mournful as the strains you sing. Nor rivers winding thro' the vales below, So sweetly warble, or so smoothly flow. Now sleeping flocks on their soft fleeces lie, The moon, serene in glory, mounts the sky, Wile silent birds forget their tuneful lays, Oh sing of Daphne's fate, and Daphne's praise! Thyrsis. Behold the groves that shine with silver frost, Their beauty wither'd, and their verdure lost. Here shall I try the sweet Alexis' strain, That call'd the list'ning Dryads to the plain? Thames heard the numbers as he flow'd along, And bade his willows learn the moving song. Lycidas. So may kind rains their vital moisture yield, And swell the future harvest of the field. Begin; this charge the dying Daphne gave, And said; 'Ye shepherds, sing around my grave! Sing, while beside the shaded tomb I mourn, And with fresh bays her rural shrine adorn.' Thyrsis. Ye gentle Muses, leave your crystal spring, Let Nymphs and Sylvans cypress garlands bring; Ye weeping Loves, the stream with myrtles hide, And break your vows, as when Adonis died; And with your golden darts, now useless grown, Inscribe a verse on this relenting stone: 'Let nature change, let heav'n and earth deplore, Fair Daphne's dead, and love is now no more!' 'Tis done, and nature's various charms decay, See gloomy clouds obscure the cheerful day! Now hung with pearls the dropping trees appear, Their faded honours scatter'd on her bier. 286 See, where on earth the flow'ry glories lie, With her they flourish'd, and with her they die. Ah what avail the beauties nature wore? Fair Daphne's dead, and beauty is no more! For her the flocks refuse their verdant food, Nor thirsty heifers seek the gliding flood. The silver swans her hapless fate bemoan, In notes more sad than when they sing their own; In hollow caves sweet Echo silent lies, Silent, or only to her name replies; Her name with pleasure once she taught the shore, Now Daphne's dead, and pleasure is no more! No grateful dews descend from ev'ning skies, Nor morning odours from the flow'rs arise; No rich perfumes refresh the fruitful field, Nor fragrant herbs their native incense yield. The balmy Zephyrs, silent since her death, Lament the ceasing of a sweeter breath; Th' industrious bees neglect their golden store; Fair Daphne's dead, and sweetness is no more! No more the mounting larks, while Daphne sings, Shall list'ning in mid air suspend their wings; No more the birds shall imitate her lays, Or hush'd with wonder, hearken from the sprays; No more the streams their murmur shall forbear, A sweeter music than their own to hear, But tell the reeds, and tell the vocal shore, Fair Daphne's dead, and music is no more! Her fate is whisper'd by the gentle breeze, And told in sighs to all the trembling trees; The trembling trees, in ev'ry plain and wood, Her fate remurmur to the silver flood; The silver flood, so lately calm, appears Swell'd with new passion, and o'erflows with tears; The winds and trees and floods her death deplore, Daphne, our grief! our glory now no more! But see! where Daphne wond'ring mounts on high Above the clouds, above the starry sky! Eternal beauties grace the shining scene, Fields ever fresh, and groves for ever green! There while you rest in Amaranthine bow'rs, Or from those meads select unfading flow'rs, 287 Behold us kindly, who your name implore, Daphne, our Goddess, and our grief no more! Lycidas. How all things listen, while thy Muse complains! Such silence waits on Philomela's strains, In some still ev'ning, when the whisp'ring breeze Pants on the leaves, and dies upon the trees. To thee, bright goddess, oft a lamb shall bleed, If teeming ewes increase my fleecy breed. While plants their shade, or flow'rs their odours give, Thy name, thy honour, and thy praise shall live! Thyrsis. But see, Orion sheds unwholesome dews, Arise, the pines a noxious shade diffuse; Sharp Boreas blows, and Nature feels decay, Time conquers all, and we must Time obey. Adieu, ye vales, ye mountains, streams and groves, Adieu, ye shepherd's rural lays and loves; Adieu, my flocks, farewell ye sylvan crew, Daphne, farewell, and all the world adieu! ~ Alexander Pope,

802: The Nymph Complaining For The Death Of Her Fawn The wanton troopers riding by Have shot my fawn, and it will die. Ungentle men! They cannot thrive To kill thee. Thou ne'er didst, alive, Them any harm: alas nor could Thy death yet do them any good. I'm sure I never wished them ill, Nor do I for all this; nor will: But, if my simple pray'rs may yet Prevail with Heaven to forget Thy murder, I will join my tears Rather than fail. But, O my fears! It cannot die so. Heaven's King Keeps register of every thing, And nothing may we use in vain: Ev'n beasts must be with justice slain, Else men are made their deodands. Though they should wash their guilty hands In this warm life-blood, which doth part From thine, and wound me to the heart, Yet could they not be clean; their stain Is dyed in such a purple grain. There is not such another in The world to offer for their sin. Unconstant Sylvio, when yet I had not found him counterfeit, One morning (I remember well), Tied in this silver chain and bell, Gave it to me: nay and I know What he said then -I'm sure I do. Said he, "Look how your huntsman here Hath taught a fawn to hunt his dear." But Sylvio soon had me beguiled: This waxed tame, while he grew wild, And quite regardless of my smart, Left me his fawn, but took his heart. Thenceforth I set myself to play My solitary time away, With this: and very well content, 158 Could so mine idle life have spent. For it was full of sport, and light Of foot and heart; and did invite Me to its game: it seemed to bless Itself to me. How could I less Than love it? O I cannot be Unkind t' a beast that loveth me. Had it lived long, I do not know Whether it too might have done so As Sylvio did: his gifts might be Perhaps as false or more than he. But I am sure, for aught that I Could in so short a time espy, Thy love was far more better then The love of false and cruel men. With sweetest milk and sugar first I it at mine own fingers nursed. And as it grew, so every day It waxed more white and sweet than they. It had so sweet a breath! And oft I blushed to see its foot more soft And white (shall I say?) than my hand Nay, any lady's of the land! It is a wond'rous thing how fleet 'Twas on those little silver feet; With what a pretty skipping grace It oft would challenge me the race; And when 't had left me far away, 'Twould stay, and run again, and stay. For it was nimbler much than hinds; And trod as if on the four winds. I have a garden of my own, But so with roses overgrown And lilies, that you would it guess To be a little wilderness; And all the spring-time of the year It only loved to be there. Among the beds of lilies I Have sought it oft, where it should lie, Yet could not, till itself would rise, Find it, although before mine eyes; For in the flaxen lilies' shade, 159 It like a bank of lilies laid. Upon the roses it would feed, Until its lips ev'n seemed to bleed: And then to me 'twould boldly trip, And print those roses on my lip. But all its chief delight was still On roses thus itself to fill, And its pure virgin limbs to fold In whitest sheets of lilies cold. Had it lived long, it would have been Lilies without, roses within. O help! O help! I see it faint And die as calmly as a saint! See how it weeps! The tears do come Sad, slowly dropping like a gum. So weeps the wounded balsam; so The holy frankincense doth flow; The brotherless Heliades Melt in such amber tears as these. I in a golden vial will Keep these two crystal tears; and fill It till it do o'erflow with mine, Then place it in Diana's shrine. Now my sweet fawn is vanished to Whither the swans and turtles go: In fair Elysium to endure, With milk-white lambs and ermins pure. O do not run too fast, for I Will but bespeak thy grave, and die. First, my unhappy statue shall Be cut in marble; and withal Let it be weeping too: but there Th' engraver sure his art may spare; For I so truly thee bemoan That I shall weep though I be stone, Until my tears, still dropping, wear My breast, themselves engraving there. There at my feet shalt thou be laid, Of purest alabaster made; For I would have thine image be White as I can, though not as thee. 160 ~ Andrew Marvell,

803: The Angel In The House. Book Ii. Canto Xii. Preludes I The Married Lover Why, having won her, do I woo? Because her spirit's vestal grace Provokes me always to pursue, But, spirit-like, eludes embrace; Because her womanhood is such That, as on court-days subjects kiss The Queen's hand, yet so near a touch Affirms no mean familiarness, Nay, rather marks more fair the height Which can with safety so neglect To dread, as lower ladies might, That grace could meet with disrespect, Thus she with happy favour feeds Allegiance from a love so high That thence no false conceit proceeds Of difference bridged, or state put by; Because, although in act and word As lowly as a wife can be, Her manners, when they call me lord, Remind me 'tis by courtesy; Not with her least consent of will, Which would my proud affection hurt, But by the noble style that still Imputes an unattain'd desert; Because her gay and lofty brows, When all is won which hope can ask, Reflect a light of hopeless snows That bright in virgin ether bask; Because, though free of the outer court I am, this Temple keeps its shrine Sacred to Heaven; because, in short, She's not and never can be mine. II The Amaranth Feasts satiate; stars distress with height; Friendship means well, but misses reach, 173 And wearies in its best delight Vex'd with the vanities of speech; Too long regarded, roses even Afflict the mind with fond unrest; And to converse direct with Heaven Is oft a labour in the breast; Whate'er the up-looking soul admires, Whate'er the senses' banquet be, Fatigues at last with vain desires, Or sickens by satiety; But truly my delight was more In her to whom I'm bound for aye Yesterday than the day before, And more to-day than yesterday. Husband And Wife I, while the shop-girl fitted on The sand-shoes, look'd where, down the bay, The sea glow'd with a shrouded sun. ‘I'm ready, Felix; will you pay?’ That was my first expense for this Sweet Stranger, now my three days' Wife. How light the touches are that kiss The music from the chords of life! II Her feet, by half-a-mile of sea, In spotless sand left shapely prints; With agates, then, she loaded me; (The lapidary call'd them flints); Then, at her wish, I hail'd a boat, To take her to the ships-of-war, At anchor, each a lazy mote Black in the brilliance, miles from shore. III The morning breeze the canvas fill'd, Lifting us o'er the bright-ridged gulf, And every lurch my darling thrill'd 174 With light fear smiling at itself; And, dashing past the ‘Arrogant,’ Asleep upon the restless wave, After its cruise in the Levant, We reach'd the ‘Wolf,’ and signal gave For help to board: with caution meet, My bride was placed within the chair, The red flag wrapp'd about her feet, And so swung laughing through the air. IV ‘Look, Love,’ she said, ‘there's Frederick Graham, ‘My cousin, whom you met, you know.’ And seeing us, the brave man came, And made his frank and courteous bow, And gave my hand a sailor's shake, And said, ‘You ask'd me to the Hurst: ‘I never thought my luck would make ‘Your wife and you my guests the first.’ And Honor, cruel, ‘Nor did we: ‘Have you not lately changed your ship?’ ‘Yes: I'm Commander, now,’ said he, With a slight quiver of the lip. We saw the vessel, shown with pride; Took luncheon; I must eat his salt! Parting he said, (I fear my bride Found him unselfish to a fault), His wish, he saw, had come to pass, (And so, indeed, her face express'd), That that should be, whatever 'twas, Which made his Cousin happiest. We left him looking from above; Rich bankrupt! for he could afford To say most proudly that his love Was virtue and its own reward. But others loved as well as he, (Thought I, half-anger'd), and if fate, Unfair, had only fashion'd me As hapless, I had been as great. As souls, ambitious, but low-born, 175 If raised past hope by luck or wit, All pride of place will proudly scorn, And live as they'd been used to it, So we two wore our strange estate: Familiar, unaffected, free, We talk'd, until the dusk grew late, Of this and that; but, after tea, As doubtful if a lot so sweet As ours was ours in very sooth, Like children, to promote conceit, We feign'd that it was not the truth; And she assumed the maiden coy, And I adored remorseless charms, And then we clapp'd our hands for joy, And ran into each other's arms. ~ Coventry Patmore,

804: At Shelley’s House At Lerici Maiden, with English hair, and eyes The colour of Italian skies, What seek you by this shore? ``I seek, sir, for the latest home Where Shelley dwelt, and, o'er the foam Speeding, returned no more.'' Come, then, with me: I seek it, too. Are you his kith? For strangely you Resemble him in mien. ``No, save it be that all are kin Who cherish the same thoughts within, And gaze on things unseen.'' It should be easy, sure, to find. Waves close in front, woods close behind, Green shutters, whitewashed walls; A little space of rocky ground, Where climbs the wave, and, round and round The seagull curves and calls. Lo! there it stands. A quiet spot, Untenanted, it seems forgot, Like shrine from which the God Hath vanished, and but left behind A something in the air, the wind, Recalling where he trod. Upon this balcony how oft, When waves were smooth and winds were soft, As now, he must have stood, And dreamed of days when men should be Bondless as this unfettered sea, And peaceful as that wood. What would he find if came he now? A phantom crown on kingly brow, Veiled sceptre, trembling throne; Pulpits where threat and curse have ceased, 171 And shrines whereat half-sceptic priest Worships, too oft, alone. With muffled psalm and whispered hymn, At secret dawn or twilight dim, A pious remnant pray; For their maimed rites indulgence plead, And, half uncertain of their creed, Explain their God away. Gone the conventions Shelley cursed: The first are last, the last are first; The lame, the halt, the blind, Now in the seat of power, along With the far-seeing and the strong, Mould mandates for mankind. No longer doth man's will decide, And woman's feebler impulse guide; He yields to her his might: Duty hath grown an old-world tale, And chaste Obedience rends her veil, For epicene delight. Where now do towering despots reign Over lithe knee and servile brain, The scared, the base, the bought? Monarchs themselves now bend with awe Before the kingliness of Law, The majesty of Thought. Yes, Kings have gone, or reign as slaves; Religion mumbles round our graves, But shapes our lives no more: Tradition, thrice-spurned Sibyl, burns The leaves mob Sovereignty spurns, Contemptuous of her lore. Fair Maiden with the sea-blue eyes, With whom, beneath these sea-blue skies, Shelley had loved to live, Forgive me if his dream, unborn 172 Then, but now adult, moves my scorn: Would He too not forgive? For where both Crown and Cowl defied Sue for the ruth they once denied, What would he find instead? A fiercer despot, fouler creed, The Rule of Gold, the rites of Greed, And a bitterer cry for bread. Wake, poet! and retune your strings. The earth now swarms with petty kings, Seated on self-made thrones, And altar-tables richly spread, Where Roguery consecrates the bread, And Opulence atones. Here Shelley prayed that War might cease From earth, and Pentecostal Peace Descend with dovelike breath. Look round this bay! each treeless gorge, Each scarred ravine, incessant forge The instruments of death. From Salterbrand's unfreezing peaks To sunny Manfredonia's creeks, Have alien satraps gone; But, guarding Italy the Free, Her murderous mammoth-monsters, see, Come grimly wallowing on. Yes, here He dwelt and dreamed: and there, Gleams Porto Venere the fair, The mockery of a name. Where fervent Venus once was Queen, Hot Mars now ravishes the scene, And fans a fiercer flame. Fair Maiden with the English brow, Although from me, who shortly now Must tread life's downward slope, Illusions one by one depart, 173 Still foster in your virgin heart The embryo of Hope. The hills remain, the woods, the waves; And they alone are dupes or slaves Who, spurning Nature's breast, Too high would soar, too deep would sound, And madden vainly round and round The orbit of unrest. Pity, too, lingers. As I speak, The teardrops tremble on your cheek, Too silent to deceive; And with assuaging hand you show How tenderness still tempers woe, And none need singly grieve. Yes! sweet it were, with you for guide, To float across that dimpling tide, And, on its farther shore, To prove if Venus still holds sway, And, wandering with you round the bay, Tempt back one's youth once more. But, child! it is not Shelley's world. Fancy's light sails had best be furled, Before they surge and swell. What helm can steer the heart? or who Keep moored, inspired by such as You? Heaven prosper you! Farewell. ~ Alfred Austin,

805: On Australian Hills Earth, outward tuning on her path in space This pensive southern face, Swathing its smile and shine In that soft veil that day and darkness twine, The silver-threaded twilight thin and fine, With April dews impearled, Looms like another and diviner world. Here April brings her garnered harvest-sheaf, Her withered autumn leaf, Tintings of bronze and brass; Her full-plumed reeds, her mushroom in the grass, Her furrowed fields, where plough and sower pass, Her laden apple bough. All are transfigured and transmuted now. The eastward ranges, so unearthly blue, Bloom with their richest hue; Slowly each rose-flushed crest Deepens to violet where the shadows rest, Darkens and darkens to the paling west; The waning sun-fires die; The first star swims in the pellucid sky. Soundless to listening ear, on grass and flowers, The footfall of the hours; Formless and void to sight The evolutions of invading night, The creeping onslaught and the gradual flight, Until the field is won, And we look forth to see that day is done. Then, from their grave of darkness, wood and lawn Wake to a second dawn. From unseen wells below 150 The pearly moon-tides rise and overflow, Till vale and peak and wide air-spaces glow In the transfiguring stream, And earth and life are but a heavenly dream. And now we hear the fairy-echoes fall Where distant curlews call, And how the silence thrills With the night-voices of the glens and hills, Rustling in reeds and tinkling in the rills, Bubbling in creek and pool Where frogs are wooing in the shallows cool. And more than these, in this delicious time, The melody sublime That inward spirit hears-The faint and far-off music of the spheres, Immortal harmonies, too fine for ears Dulled in the dusty ways, Deaf with the din of the laborious days. Whereto, responsive as the vibrant wire Of some aeolian lyre Fanned by celestial wings, The summoned soul in mystic concord brings The deep notes latent in its trembling strings, Joining the choir divine Of all the worlds that in the ether shine. O sacred hour! O sweet night, calm and fair! Thou dost rebuke despair; Thou dost assuage the pain Of passionate spirit and distempered brain, And with thy balms, distilled like gentle rain, Dost heal the fret and smart And nerve the courage of this coward's heart. 151 And lift me up, a Moses on the Mount To the pure source and fount Of law transcending law, Of life that hallows life. I know no more Of life's great Giver than I knew before, But these His creatures tell That He is living, and that all is well. Oh, to be there to-night! To see that rose of sunset flame and fade On ghostly mountain height, The soft dusk gathering each leaf and blade From the departing light, Each tree-fern feather of the wildwood glade. From arid streets to pass Down those green aisles where golden wattles bloom, Over the fragrant grass, And smell the eucalyptus in a gloom That is as clear as glass, The dew-fresh scents of bracken and of broom . . . These city clamours mute, To hear the woodland necromancers play Each his enchanted lute; That dear bird-laugh, so exquisitely gay, The magpie's silver flute In vesper carol to the dying day. To hear the live wind blow, The delicate stir and whisper of the trees As light breaths come and go, The brooklet murmuring to the vagrant breeze, The bull-frog twanging low His deep-toned mandolin to chime with these. 152 And then the whispering rills, The hushed lone wheel, or hoof, or axeman's tool; The brooding dark that stills The sweet Pan-piping of the grove and pool; The dimly glimmering hills; The sleeping night, so heavenly clean and cool. Oh, for that mother-breast That takes the broken spirit for repair, The worn-out brain for rest-That healing silence, that untainted air, That Peace of God . . . . . . Blest, blest The very memory that I once was there. The thought that someday yet, In flesh, not dreams, I may return again, And at those altars, set In the pure skies, above the smoky plain, Remember and forget The joy of living and its price of pain . . . . . . That sullied earth reserves Such spacious refuge virgin and apart, That wasting life preserves Such sweet retreat for the distracted heart, Such fount of strength for nerves Torn in the ruthless struggle of the mart . . . . . . That Government divine O'er all this reek of blunders and of woes Keeps an unravaged shrine Not here, not there, but in the souls of those Who neither weep nor whine, But trust the guidance of the One Who Knows. 153 ~ Ada Cambridge,

806: Happy Dust For Margot Snow that fallest from heaven, bear me aloft on thy wings To the domes of the star-girdled Seven, the abode of ineffable things, Quintessence of joy and of strength, that, abolishing future and past, Mak'st the Present an infinite length, my soul all-One with the Vast, The Lone, the Unnameable God, that is ice of His measureless cold, Without being or form or abode, without motion or matter, the fold Where the shepherded Universe sleeps, with nor sense nor delusion nor dream, No spirit that wantons or weeps, no thought in its silence supreme. I sit, and am utterly still; in mine eyes is my fathomless lust Ablaze to annihilate Will, to crumble my being to dust, To calcine the dust to an ash, to burn up the ash to an air, To abolish the air with a flash of the final, the fulminant flare. All this I have done, and dissolved the primordial germ of my thought; I have rolled myself up, and revolved the wheel of my being to Naught. Is there even the memory left? That I was, that I am? It is lost. As I utter the Word, I am cleft by the last swift spear of the frost. Snow! I am nothing at last; I sit, and am utterly still; They are perished, the phantoms, and past; they were born of my weariness-will When I craved, craved being and form, when the consciousness-cloud was a mist Precurser of stupor and storm, when I and my shadow had kissed, 31 And brought into life all the shapes that confused the clear space with their marks, Vain spectres whose vapour escapes, a whirlwind of ruinous sparks, No substance have any of these; I have dreamed them in sickness of lust, Delirium born of disease-ah, whence was the master, the "must" Imposed on the All? is it true, then, that something in me Is subject to fate? Are there two, after all, that can be? I have brought all that is to an end; for myself am sufficient and sole. Do I trick myself now? Shall I rend once again this homologous Whole? I have stripped every garment from space; I have strangled the secre of Time, All being is fled from my face, with Motion's inhibited rime. Stiller and stiller I sit, till even Infinity fades; 'Tis an idol-'tis weakness of wit that breeds, in inanity, shades! Yet the fullness of Naught I become, the deepest and steadiest Naught, Contains in its nature the sum of the functions of being and thought. Still as I sit, and destroy all possible trace of the past, All germ of the future, nor joy nor knowledge alive at the last, It is vain, for the Silence is dowered with a nature, the seed of a name: Necessity, fearfully flowered with the blossom of possible Aim. I am Necessity? Scry Necessity mother of Fate! And Fate determines me "I"; and I have the Will to create. Vast is the sphere, but it turns on itself like the pettiest star. And I am the looby that learns that all things equally are. Inscrutable Nothing, the Gods, the cosmos of Fire and of Mist. Suns,atoms, the clouds and the clouds ineluctably dare 32 to existI have made the Voyage of Thought, the Voyage of Vision, I swam To the heart of the Ocean of Naught from the source of the Spring of I am: I know myself wholly the brother alike of the All and the One; I know that all things are each other, that their sum and their substance is None; But the knowledge itself can excel, its fulness hath broken its bond; All's Truth, and all's falsehood as well, and-what of the region beyond? So, still though I sit, as for ever, I stab to the heart of my spine; I destroy the last seed of endeavour to seal up my soul in the shrine Of Silence, Eternity, Peace; I abandon the Here and the Now; I cease from the effort to cease; I absolve the dead I from its Vow, I am wholly content to be dust, whether that be a mote or a star, To live and to love and to lust, acknowledge what seem for what are, Not to care what I am, if I be, whence I came, whither go, how I thrive, If my spirit be bound or be free, save as Nature contrive. What I am, that I am, 'tis enough. I am part of a glorious game. Am I cast for madness or love? I am cast to esteem them the same. Am I only a dream in the sleep of some butterfly? Phantom of fright Conceived, who knows how, or how deep, in the measureless womb of the night? I imagine impossible thought, metaphysical voids that beget Ideas intagible wrought to things less conceivable yet. It may be. Little I reck -but, assume the existence of earth. Am I born to be hanged by the neck, a curse from the 33 hour of my birth? Am I born to abolish man's guilt? His horrible heritage, awe? Or a seed in his wantoness spilt by a jester? I care not a straw, For I understand Do what thou wilt; and that is the whole of the Law. ~ Aleister Crowley,

807: The Blessed Damozel The blessed damozel lean'd out From the gold bar of Heaven; Her eyes were deeper than the depth Of waters still'd at even; She had three lilies in her hand, And the stars in her hair were seven. Her robe, ungirt from clasp to hem, No wrought flowers did adorn, But a white rose of Mary's gift, For service meetly worn; Her hair that lay along her back Was yellow like ripe corn. Her seem'd she scarce had been a day One of God's choristers; The wonder was not yet quite gone From that still look of hers; Albeit, to them she left, her day Had counted as ten years. (To one, it is ten years of years. . . . Yet now, and in this place, Surely she lean'd o'er me--her hair Fell all about my face .... Nothing: the autumn-fall of leaves. The whole year sets apace.) It was the rampart of God's house That she was standing on; By God built over the sheer depth The which is Space begun; So high, that looking downward thence She scarce could see the sun. It lies in Heaven, across the flood Of ether, as a bridge. Beneath, the tides of day and night With flame and darkness ridge 372 The void, as low as where this earth Spins like a fretful midge. Around her, lovers, newly met 'Mid deathless love's acclaims, Spoke evermore among themselves Their heart-remember'd names; And the souls mounting up to God Went by her like thin flames. And still she bow'd herself and stoop'd Out of the circling charm; Until her bosom must have made The bar she lean'd on warm, And the lilies lay as if asleep Along her bended arm. From the fix'd place of Heaven she saw Time like a pulse shake fierce Through all the worlds. Her gaze still strove Within the gulf to pierce Its path; and now she spoke as when The stars sang in their spheres. The sun was gone now; the curl'd moon Was like a little feather Fluttering far down the gulf; and now She spoke through the still weather. Her voice was like the voice the stars Had when they sang together. (Ah sweet! Even now, in that bird's song, Strove not her accents there, Fain to be hearken'd? When those bells Possess'd the mid-day air, Strove not her steps to reach my side Down all the echoing stair?) "I wish that he were come to me, For he will come," she said. "Have I not pray'd in Heaven?--on earth, Lord, Lord, has he not pray'd? 373 Are not two prayers a perfect strength? And shall I feel afraid? "When round his head the aureole clings, And he is cloth'd in white, I'll take his hand and go with him To the deep wells of light; As unto a stream we will step down, And bathe there in God's sight. "We two will stand beside that shrine, Occult, withheld, untrod, Whose lamps are stirr'd continually With prayer sent up to God; And see our old prayers, granted, melt Each like a little cloud. "We two will lie i' the shadow of That living mystic tree Within whose secret growth the Dove Is sometimes felt to be, While every leaf that His plumes touch Saith His Name audibly. "And I myself will teach to him, I myself, lying so, The songs I sing here; which his voice Shall pause in, hush'd and slow, And find some knowledge at each pause, Or some new thing to know." (Alas! We two, we two, thou say'st! Yea, one wast thou with me That once of old. But shall God lift To endless unity The soul whose likeness with thy soul Was but its love for thee?) "We two," she said, "will seek the groves Where the lady Mary is, With her five handmaidens, whose names Are five sweet symphonies, 374 Cecily, Gertrude, Magdalen, Margaret and Rosalys. "Circlewise sit they, with bound locks And foreheads garlanded; Into the fine cloth white like flame Weaving the golden thread, To fashion the birth-robes for them Who are just born, being dead. "He shall fear, haply, and be dumb: Then will I lay my cheek To his, and tell about our love, Not once abash'd or weak: And the dear Mother will approve My pride, and let me speak. "Herself shall bring us, hand in hand, To Him round whom all souls Kneel, the clear-rang'd unnumber'd heads Bow'd with their aureoles: And angels meeting us shall sing To their citherns and citoles. "There will I ask of Christ the Lord Thus much for him and me:-Only to live as once on earth With Love,--only to be, As then awhile, for ever now Together, I and he." She gaz'd and listen'd and then said, Less sad of speech than mild,-"All this is when he comes." She ceas'd. The light thrill'd towards her, fill'd With angels in strong level flight. Her eyes pray'd, and she smil'd. (I saw her smile.) But soon their path Was vague in distant spheres: And then she cast her arms along The golden barriers, 375 And laid her face between her hands, And wept. (I heard her tears.) ~ Dante Gabriel Rossetti,

808: The Angel In The House. Book Ii. Canto V. Preludes. I Rejected ‘Perhaps she's dancing somewhere now!’ The thoughts of light and music wake Sharp jealousies, that grow and grow Till silence and the darkness ache. He sees her step, so proud and gay, Which, ere he spake, foretold despair; Thus did she look, on such a day, And such the fashion of her hair; And thus she stood, when, kneeling low, He took the bramble from her dress, And thus she laugh'd and talk'd, whose ‘No’ Was sweeter than another's ‘Yes.’ He feeds on thoughts that most deject; He impudently feigns her charms, So reverenced in his own respect, Dreadfully clasp'd by other arms; And turns, and puts his brows, that ache, Against the pillow where 'tis cold. If only now his heart would break! But, oh, how much a heart can hold. II Rachel You loved her, and would lie all night Thinking how beautiful she was, And what to do for her delight. Now both are bound with alien laws! Be patient; put your heart to school; Weep if you will, but not despair; The trust that nought goes wrong by rule Should ease this load the many bear. Love, if there's heav'n, shall meet his dues, Though here unmatch'd, or match'd amiss Meanwhile, the gentle cannot choose But learn to love the lips they kiss. Ne'er hurt the homely sister's ears 147 With Rachel's beauties; secret be The lofty mind whose lonely tears Protest against mortality. III The Heart's Prophecies Be not amazed at life; 'tis still The mode of God with His elect Their hopes exactly to fulfil, In times and ways they least expect. The Queen’s Room. There's nothing happier than the days In which young Love makes every thought Pure as a bride's blush, when she says ‘I will’ unto she knows not what; And lovers, on the love-lit globe, For love's sweet sake, walk yet aloof, And hear Time weave the marriage-robe, Attraction warp and reverence woof! II My Housekeeper, my Nurse of yore, Cried, as the latest carriage went, ‘Well, Mr. Felix, Sir, I'm sure ‘The morning's gone off excellent! ‘I never saw the show to pass ‘The ladies, in their fine fresh gowns, ‘So sweetly dancing on the grass, ‘To music with its ups and downs. ‘We'd such work, Sir, to clean the plate; ‘'Twas just the busy times of old. ‘The Queen's room, Sir, look'd quite like state. ‘Miss Smythe, when she went up, made bold ‘To peep into the Rose Boudoir, ‘And cried, 'How charming! all quite new!' ‘And wonder'd who it could be for. ‘All but Miss Honor look'd in too. ‘But she's too proud to peep and pry. ‘None's like that sweet Miss Honor, Sir! 148 ‘Excuse my humbleness, but I ‘Pray Heav'n you'll get a wife like her! ‘The Poor love dear Miss Honor's ways ‘Better than money. Mrs. Rouse, ‘Who ought to know a lady, says ‘No finer goes to Wilton House. ‘Miss Bagshaw thought that dreary room ‘Had kill'd old Mrs. Vaughan with fright; ‘She would not sleep in such a tomb ‘For all her host was worth a night! ‘Miss Fry, Sir, laugh'd; they talk'd the rest ‘In French; and French Sir's Greek to me. ‘But, though they smiled, and seem'd to jest, ‘No love was lost, for I could see ‘How serious-like Miss Honor was—’ ‘Well, Nurse, this is not my affair. ‘The ladies talk'd in French with cause. ‘Good-day; and thank you for your prayer.’ III I loiter'd through the vacant house, Soon to be hers; in one room stay'd, Of old my mother's. Here my vows Of endless thanks were oftenest paid. This room its first condition kept; For, on her road to Sarum Town, Therein an English Queen had slept, Before the Hurst was half-pull'd down. The pictured walls the place became: Here ran the Brook Anaurus, where Stout Jason bore the wrinkled dame Whom serving changed to Juno; there, Ixion's selfish hope, instead Of the nuptial goddess, clasp'd a cloud; And, here, translated Psyche fed Her gaze on Love, not disallow'd. IV And in this chamber had she been, And into that she would not look, 149 My Joy, my Vanity, my Queen, At whose dear name my pulses shook! To others how express at all My worship in that joyful shrine? I scarcely can myself recall What peace and ardour then were mine! And how more sweet than aught below, The daylight and its duties done, It felt to fold the hands, and so Relinquish all regards but one; To see her features in the dark; To lie and meditate once more The grace I did not fully mark, The tone I had not heard before; And from my pillow then to take Her notes, her picture, and her glove, Put there for joy when I should wake, And press them to the heart of love; And then to whisper ‘Wife!’ and pray To live so long as not to miss That unimaginable day Which farther seems the nearer 'tis; And still from joy's unfathom'd well To drink, in dreams, while on her brows Of innocence ineffable Blossom'd the laughing bridal rose. ~ Coventry Patmore,

809: Recollection Of The Arabian Nights WHEN the breeze of a joyful dawn blew free In the silken sail of infancy, The tide of time flow'd back with me, The forward-flowing tide of time; And many a sheeny summer-morn, Adown the Tigris I was borne, By Bagdat's shrines of fretted gold, High-walled gardens green and old; True Mussulman was I and sworn, For it was in the golden prime Of good Haroun Alraschid. Anight my shallop, rustling thro' The low and bloomed foliage, drove The fragrant, glistening deeps, and clove The citron-shadows in the blue: By garden porches on the brim, The costly doors flung open wide, Gold glittering thro' lamplight dim, And broider'd sofas on each side: In sooth it was a goodly time, For it was in the golden prime Of good Haroun Alraschid. Often where clear-stemm'd platans guard The outlet, did I turn away The boat-head down a broad canal From the main river sluiced, where all The sloping of the moon-lit sward Was damask-work, and deep inlay Of braided blooms unmown, which crept Adown to where the water slept. A goodly place, a goodly time, For it was in the golden prime Of good Haroun Alraschid. A motion from the river won Ridged the smooth level, bearing on My shallop thro' the star-strown calm, 540 Until another night in night I enter'd, from the clearer light, Imbower'd vaults of pillar'd palm, Imprisoning sweets, which, as they clomb Heavenward, were stay'd beneath the dome Of hollow boughs.--A goodly time, For it was in the golden prime Of good Haroun Alraschid. Still onward; and the clear canal Is rounded to as clear a lake. From the green rivage many a fall Of diamond rillets musical, Thro' little crystal arches low Down from the central fountain's flow Fall'n silver-chiming, seemed to shake The sparkling flints beneath the prow. A goodly place, a goodly time, For it was in the golden prime Of good Haroun Alraschid. Above thro' many a bowery turn A walk with vary-colour'd shells Wander'd engrain'd. On either side All round about the fragrant marge From fluted vase, and brazen urn In order, eastern flowers large, Some dropping low their crimson bells Half-closed, and others studded wide With disks and tiars, fed the time With odour in the golden prime Of good Haroun Alraschid. Far off, and where the lemon grove In closest coverture upsprung, The living airs of middle night Died round the bulbul as he sung; Not he: but something which possess'd The darkness of the world, delight, Life, anguish, death, immortal love, Ceasing not, mingled, unrepress'd, Apart from place, withholding time, 541 But flattering the golden prime Of good Haroun Alraschid. Black the garden-bowers and grots Slumber'd: the solemn palms were ranged Above, unwoo'd of summer wind: A sudden splendour from behind Flush'd all the leaves with rich gold-green, And, flowing rapidly between Their interspaces, counterchanged The level lake with diamond-plots Of dark and bright. A lovely time, For it was in the golden prime Of good Haroun Alraschid. Dark-blue the deep sphere overhead, Distinct with vivid stars inlaid, Grew darker from that under-flame: So, leaping lightly from the boat, With silver anchor left afloat, In marvel whence that glory came Upon me, as in sleep I sank In cool soft turf upon the bank, Entranced with that place and time, So worthy of the golden prime Of good Haroun Alraschid. Thence thro' the garden I was drawn-A realm of pleasance, many a mound, And many a shadow-chequer'd lawn Full of the city's stilly sound, And deep myrrh-thickets blowing round The stately cedar, tamarisks, Thick rosaries of scented thorn, Tall orient shrubs, and obelisks Graven with emblems of the time, In honour of the golden prime Of good Haroun Alraschid. With dazed vision unawares From the long alley's latticed shade Emerged, I came upon the great 542 Pavilion of the Caliphat. Right to the carven cedarn doors, Flung inward over spangled floors, Broad-based flights of marble stairs Ran up with golden balustrade, After the fashion of the time, And humour of the golden prime Of good Haroun Alraschid. The fourscore windows all alight As with the quintessence of flame, A million tapers flaring bright From twisted silvers look'd to shame The hollow-vaulted dark, and stream'd Upon the mooned domes aloof In inmost Bagdat, till there seem'd Hundreds of crescents on the roof Of night new-risen, that marvellous time To celebrate the golden prime Of good Haroun Alraschid. Then stole I up, and trancedly Gazed on the Persian girl alone, Serene with argent-lidded eyes Amorous, and lashes like to rays Of darkness, and a brow of pearl Tressed with redolent ebony, In many a dark delicious curl, Flowing beneath her rose-hued zone; The sweetest lady of the time, Well worthy of the golden prime Of good Haroun Alraschid. Six columns, three on either side, Pure silver, underpropt a rich Throne of the massive ore, from which Down-droop'd, in many a floating fold, Engarlanded and diaper'd With inwrought flowers, a cloth of gold. Thereon, his deep eye laughter-stirr'd With merriment of kingly pride, Sole star of all that place and time, 543 I saw him--in his golden prime, The good Haroun Alraschid. ~ Alfred Lord Tennyson,

810: On Returning To England There! once again I stand on home, Though round me still there swirls the foam, Leaping athwart the vessel's track To bid a wanderer welcome back, And though as yet through softening haze White cliffs but vaguely greet my gaze. For, England! yours the waves, the spray, And, be one's foothold what it may, Wherever billow wafts or wends, Your soil is trodden, your shore extends. How stern! how sweet! Though fresh from lands Where soft seas heave on slumbering strands, And zephyrs moistened by the south Seem kisses from an infant's mouth, My northern blood exults to face The rapture of this rough embrace, Glowing in every vein to feel The cordial caress of steel From spear-blue air and sword-blue sea, The armour of your liberty. Braced by the manly air, I reach My soul out to the approaching beach, And own, the instant I arrive, The dignity of being alive! And now with forward-faring feet Eager I leap to land, and greet The hearty grasp, the honest gaze, The voice that means the thing it says, The gait of men by birthright free, Unceremonial courtesy. None frown, none cringe, but, fearless-eyed, Are kindly all; since, side by side, Authority and Freedom reign In twin equality, and drain Their sanction from the self-same breast, And Law is wise Will manifest. Yes, this is England, frank and fair: I tread its turf, I breathe its air, 363 And catch from every stalwart lung The music of my mother tongue. And who are these that cluster round With hastening feet and silvery sound, And eyes as liquid as the dawn, When laughs the dew on Kentish lawn? These England's daughters, frank yet arch, Supple as April, strong as March: Like pink-white windflowers in the grove, That came while east and west wind strove For mastery, and Spring seemed late, Hardy alike and delicate. How well their faces fit the scene, The copses gray, the hedgerows green, The white-veiled blackthorn, gorse afire, The cottage yew, the village spire; The pastures flecked with frisking lambs Around their gravely grazing dams; The children loitering home from school, Their hands and pinafores all full Of cuckoo-pint and bluebell spike, Gathered in dingle, dell, and dyke; The comely homes one just can see Through flowering belts of bush and tree, That all combine, all, all conspire, To more than satisfy desire, To make one love this lovely earth, And bless Heaven for one's British birth. Bewitching climes! where late I sought In change of scene a change of thought, Refreshment from familiar ground, And, what I sought for, more than found, Where old enchantment haunteth still Ligurian coast and Tuscan hill, Climes I have ventured oft and long To celebrate in faltering song, Where fearless almond, faery larch, Smiling, disarm the frown of March, Snow hath no terrors, frost no sting, And playful Winter mimics Spring, 364 Deem me not thankless, nor deny Fresh welcome from your shore and sky, Repose from thought so oft implored, And ne'er refused, if, now restored By you to health, by you to home, Glad I return, late glad to roam. For dear to me though wayside shrine By silent gorge or murmuring brine; Dear though the barefoot peasant folk Who lop the vine and steer the yoke Of soft-eyed, sleek-skinned, creamy beeves, Up narrow ways to broad slant eaves; The stony mule-tracks twisting slow Up slopes where cherry-blossoms blow 'Mid olive gray and ilex brown, On to some sun-bronzed mountain town; The hush and cool of marble domes, Where, wed to reverie, one roams Through transept, chancel, cloister, cell, Where still with far-off faces dwell Sages and saints devoutly limned By hands long dust and eyes long dimmed; Dear though all these, and ne'er forgot, No southern shore, no sunniest spot, Not Roccabruna's hamlet crest, Not Eza's brow, not Taggia's breast, Not Bellosguardo's sunset hour, Not Dante's seat nor Giotto's Tower, Nor even Spiaggiascura's foam, Moisten and melt my heart like home. For here the cuckoo seems more glad, The nightingale more sweetly sad, Primroses more akin in gaze To childlike wonder, childlike ways; And all things that one sees and hears, Since rooted in the bygone years, And blending with their warm caress A touch of homely tenderness, Bid the quick instinct in one's blood Pay tribute unto motherhood. How should strange lands, it boots not where, Divorce one from one's native air, 365 Or in a loyal breast dethrone Unreasoning reverence for one's own? Yet love and reason surely blend To stir this passion and commend? And who will blame if, though one seeks In gentler tides, and sterner peaks That tower above a wider plain, Contrast to northern hill and main, I cherish still and hold apart The fondest feeling in my heart For where, beneath one's parent sky, Our dear ones live, our dead ones lie? And you, dear friend, who linger still Beside the iris-crested rill That silvers through your olives gray From convent-capped Fiesole, Think not that I forget, forswear, The scenes we lately vowed so fair. To these your wandering footsteps bring The freshness of an English Spring; And even Florence sunnier glows, When Phyllis prattles and Ivor crows. And, though among them still you stray, Sweet-lengthening-out a Tuscan May, You too will here return before Our Northern roses blow once more, To prove to all of kindred birth, For winsome grace and sterling worth, Nothing can match, where'er we roam, An English wife in English home. ~ Alfred Austin,

811: The Last Battle Of The Cid Low he lay upon his dying couch, the knight without a stain, The unconquered Cid Campeadór, the bright breast-plate of Spain, The incarnate honour of Castille, of Aragon and Navarre, Very crown of Spanish chivalry, Rodrigo of Bivar! Sick he lay, and grieved in spirit, for that Paynim dogs should dare Camp around his knightly citadel, Valencia the fair! For that he no more should face them, in his beauteous armour dight, To whom God and Santiago aye gave victory in the fight. Faintly rising o'er the ramparts came the murmur of the siege, And he could but pray for Christendom, his country and his liege; For his well-belovèd city, granite-girdled, pennon-starred, And the royal wealth of treasure that its stately portals barred. “Santiago, at whose altar I did watch mine armour bright, And was girt with golden spur and brand, a consecrated knight!— Santiago, by my vow redeemed at Compostela's shrine, Let the Paynim life-blood only touch these blessed walls of mine! “Santiago, warrior saintly, who with Don Fernando's host Stormed and won the gates of Coimbra, guard my fortress on the coast! Keep the holy leper's blessing, though the snow is on my hair;— Strike the base-born unbelievers!—save Valencia the fair!” Lo, a sudden cloud of glory filled his chamber as he prayed! Lo, San Pedro stood beside him, all in shining robes arrayed! “For thy love, Rodrigo Diaz, to Cardeña's house,” said he, “I have offered intercessions, and the Lord hath answered me. “Thou must die, O well-beloved!—thirty days, and thou must die! Yet in death shall Santiago grant thee still a victory. Thou shalt ride forth to the battle—Santiago shall be there— For the Faith and Don Alfonso and Valencia the fair.” Silence reigned within the chamber; none stood near the hero's bed; All that dazzling flood of glory slowly, softly vanishèd. He could only hear the murmur from the ramparts rise and fall; He could only see the cross-bars stretching dimly on the wall. 206 In San Pedro's chapel lay the Cid, his eyes with rapture dim, And proclaimed the wondrous favour that the Lord had granted him. Then he parted from his vassals, and went humbly to confess; And the warrior-bishop clothed his soul in its baptismal dress. 'Twas the holy day of Pentecost that saw Ruy Diaz die— Evermore the spotless mirror of Castillian chivalry! They, in whom his will was shrinèd, Alvar Fanez and his knights, Stood to watch the hero vanquished who had won a thousand fights. DoXimena, the faithful, with her tears bedewed his feet, And anointed all his body with pure incense, rich and sweet. Then in silence and in sorrow the twelve days of waiting fled; And the warders on the ramparts dared not whisper, “He is dead.” In the midnight, dark and quiet, fell the torches' lurid glare On the palaces and portals of Valencia the fair; And a solemn, slow procession, mounted all in royal state, Like the spectre of an army, passed beneath the city gate. In the van was borne the ensign, known and dreaded far and wide, With four hundred noblest knights ranged proudly by its side. Toward Castille and Cardeña were those haughty faces set,— And that banner never more did crown Valencia's parapet. Then came mules, with treasure laden, stepping softly on before, Compassed round with knights in armour—to the full four hundred more. Then a band of belted nobles, stern and silent; and amid Their levelled lances, he of Bivar—the Campeadór—the Cid. On his milk-white steed, Babieca, whom none else did e'er bestride, Clad in all his princely trappings, did the lifeless warrior ride; Girt with helm and spur and blazoned shield, and grasping in his hand The bright crosslet of Tizona, his thrice-consecrated brand. Geronymo and Gil Diaz held the slackened bridlerein— His true bishop and true vassal—as they moved on to the plain; And Ximena and her maidens, 'mid the torchlight weird and dim, With six hundred knights in harness, followed slowly after him. In the solemn hush and darkness, with no joyful clarion-cry, 207 And no clash and clank of weapons, riding all so silently;— Thus they passed out from the city e'er the summer morning broke, And were found arrayed for battle when the infidels awoke. Great and mighty was the Moorish host, by thirty monarchs led, But a greater was the army with Rodrigo at the head; For, behold! came Santiago to the bloody battle-plain— Santiago, with a hundred thousand warriors in his train. Each in robe of shining whiteness, with a red cross on his breast,— Each with fiery sword uplifted or with golden lance at rest; Santiago, saintly leader, on a charger white as snow— Sent to aid the Cid Campeadór in vanquishing the foe. All the Paynims looked amazèd on the dreadful beauteous sight, As the tender light of morning softly crept out from the night; Then they harnessed them in silence, sternly grasping shield and spear, And pressed on in serried column, full of wonder, full of fear. There was one loud shock of battle, then they wildly turned to flee, And the Cid and Santiago swept their hosts into the sea. Twenty kings and twenty armies in that bloody fight were slain, And were left, with upturned faces, stiff and stark upon the plain. Fair and shining came the daylight, all in liquid summer sheen— But no more was Santiago, or his white-robed warriors, seen; Only one small train of nobles, riding on, with stately pace, To San Pedro de Cardeña and the great Cid's resting-place. By the altar in the chapel, where the monarch's throne doth stand, Sat the dead Cid, robed in purple, with his good sword in his hand. And again the Moorish ensign fluttered proudly in the air, Lifted high above the ramparts of Valencia the fair. ~ Ada Cambridge,

812: Epistle To William Wilberforce, Esq. ON THE REJECTION OF THE BILL FOR ABOLISHING THE SLAVE TRADE, 1791. Cease, Wilberforce, to urge thy generous aim! Thy Country knows the sin, and stands the shame! The Preacher, Poet, Senator in vain Has rattled in her sight the Negro's chain; With his deep groans assailed her startled ear, And rent the veil that hid his constant tear; Forced her averted eyes his stripes to scan, Beneath the bloody scourge laid bare the man, Claimed Pity's tear, urged Conscience' strong controul, And flashed conviction on her shrinking soul. The Muse too, soon awaked, with ready tongue At Mercy's shrine applausive pæans rung; And Freedom's eager sons in vain foretold A new Astrean reign, an age of gold: She knows and she persists—Still Afric bleeds, Unchecked, the human traffic still proceeds; She stamps her infamy to future time, And on her hardened forehead seals the crime. In vain, to thy white standard gathering round, Wit, Worth, and Parts and Eloquence are found: In vain, to push to birth thy great design, Contending chiefs, and hostile virtues join; All, from conflicting ranks, of power possesst To rouse, to melt, or to inform the breast. Where seasoned tools of Avarice prevail, A Nation's eloquence, combined, must fail: Each flimsy sophistry by turns they try; The plausive argument, the daring lie, The artful gloss, that moral sense confounds, The' acknowledged thirst of gain that honour wounds: Bane of ingenuous minds!—the' unfeeling sneer, Which sudden turns to stone the falling tear: They search assiduous, with inverted skill, For forms of wrong, and precedents of ill; With impious mockery wrest the sacred page, And glean up crimes from each remoter age: 60 Wrung Nature's tortures, shuddering, while you tell, From scoffing fiends bursts forth the laugh of hell; In Britain's senate, Misery's pangs give birth To jests unseemly, and to horrid mirth— Forbear!—thy virtues but provoke our doom, And swell the' account of vengeance yet to come; For, not unmarked in Heaven's impartial plan, Shall man, proud worm, contemn his fellow-man! And injured Afric, by herself redresst, Darts her own serpents at her tyrant's breast. Each vice, to minds depraved by bondage known, With sure contagion fastens on his own; In sickly languors melts his nerveless frame, And blows to rage impetuous Passion's flame: Fermenting swift, the fiery venom gains The milky innocence of infant veins; There swells the stubborn will, damps learning's fire, The whirlwind wakes of uncontrouled desire, Sears the young heart to images of woe, And blasts the buds of Virtue as they blow. Lo! where reclined, pale Beauty courts the breeze, Diffused on sofas of voluptuous ease; With anxious awe her menial train around Catch her faint whispers of half-uttered sound; See her, in monstrous fellowship, unite At once the Scythian and the Sybarite! Blending repugnant vices, misallied, Which frugal nature purposed to divide; See her, with indolence to fierceness joined, Of body delicate, infirm of mind, With languid tones imperious mandates urge; With arm recumbent wield the household scourge; And with unruffled mien, and placid sounds, Contriving torture, and inflicting wounds. Nor, in their palmy walks and spicy groves, The form benign of rural Pleasure roves; No milk-maid's song, or hum of village talk, Soothes the lone poet in his evening walk: No willing arm the flail unwearied plies, Where the mixed sounds of cheerful labour rise; 61 No blooming maids and frolic swains are seen To pay gay homage to their harvest queen: No heart-expanding scenes their eyes must prove Of thriving industry and faithful love: But shrieks and yells disturb the balmy air, Dumb sullen looks of woe announce despair, And angry eyes through dusky features glare. Far from the sounding lash the Muses fly, And sensual riot drowns each finer joy. Nor less from the gay East, on essenced wings, Breathing unnamed perfumes, Contagion springs; The soft luxurious plague alike pervades The marble palaces and rural shades; Hence thronged Augusta builds her rosy bowers, And decks in summer wreaths her smoky towers; And hence, in summer bowers, Art's costly hand Pours courtly splendours o'er the dazzled land: The manners melt;—one undistinguished blaze O'erwhelms the sober pomp of elder days; Corruption follows with gigantic stride, And scarce vouchsafes his shameless front to hide: The spreading leprosy taints every part, Infects each limb, and sickens at the heart. Simplicity, most dear of rural maids, Weeping resigns her violated shades: Stern Independence from his glebe retires, And anxious Freedom eyes her drooping fires; By foreign wealth are British morals changed, And Afric's sons, and India's, smile avenged. For you, whose tempered ardour long has borne Untired the labour, and unmoved the scorn; In Virtue's fasti be inscribed your fame, And uttered yours with Howard's honoured name; Friends of the friendless—Hail, ye generous band! Whose efforts yet arrest Heaven's lifted hand, Around whose steady brows, in union bright, The civic wreath and Christian's palm unite: Your merit stands, no greater and no less, Without, or with the varnish of success: But seek no more to break a nation's fall, 62 For ye have saved yourselves—and that is all. Succeeding times your struggles, and their fate, With mingled shame and triumph shall relate; While faithful History, in her various page, Marking the features of this motley age, To shed a glory, and to fix a stain, Tells how you strove, and that you strove in vain. ~ Anna Laetitia Barbauld,

813: were some of the most famous and important female poets of the Tamil canon. Abithana Chintamani states that there were three female poets titled ~ Avvaiyar . Among them, ~ Avvaiyar I lived during the Sangam period (c. 1st and 2nd century CE) and had cordial relation with the Tamil chieftains Paari and Athiyaman. She wrote 59 poems in the Pu?ana?u?u. ~ Avvaiyar II lived during the period of Kambar and Ottakoothar during the reign of the Chola dynasty in the 13th century. She is often imagined as an old and intelligent lady by Tamil people. She wrote many of the poems that remain very popular even now and are inculcated in school textbooks in Tamil Nadu. These books include a list of dos and don'ts, useful for daily life, arranged in simple and short sentences. There is a very famous legend that is associated with Auvaiyar (also Auvayar) (Tamil: ???????), a prominent female poets/ethicist/political activist of Sangam period (Tamil literature), and Naaval Pazham (Jambu) in Tamil Nadu. Auvaiyar, believing to have achieved everything that is to be achieved, is said to have been pondering her retirement from Tamil literary work while resting under Naaval Pazham tree. But she is met with and was wittily jousted by a disguised Lord Murugan (regarded as one of the guardian deities of Tamil language), who later revealed himself and made her realize that there was still a lot more to be done and learnt. Following this awakening, Auvaiyar is believed to have undertaken a fresh set of literary works, targeted at children. These works, even after a millennium, are often among the very first literature that children are exposed to in Tamil Nadu schools. Name Etymology The name ~ Avvaiyar is a combination of Tamil word avvai with honorific suffix ar. Avvai refers to respectable elderly woman as the word ammai which means good woman in general term for a woman of any age. Thus the name ~ Avvaiyar means a respectable good woman hence a generic title rather than a specific name of a person. Sangam age ~ Avvaiyar The ~ Avvaiyar who lived during the Sangam period is considered to be contemporary to poets Paranar, Kabilar and Thiruvalluvar. She is attributed as the author of 7 verses in Na??i?ai, 15 in Ku?untokai, 4 in Akana?u?u and 33 in Pu?ana?u?u. Legend states that she was a court poet of the rulers of the Tamil country. She travelled from one part of the country to another and from one village to another, sharing the gruel of the poor farmers and composing songs for their enjoyment. Most of her songs were about a small-time chieftain Vallal Athiyamaan Nedumaan Anji and his family. The chieftain had also used her as his ambassador to avert war with another neighbouring chieftain Tontaiman. The rest of her songs related to the various aspects of state governance. Although traditions claim that she was a sister of Kabilar, Thiruvalluvar and Athiyamaan, V. R. Ramachandra Dikshitar refutes this claim based on his studies that all four of them were most likely of different walks of life, thus from different caste backgrounds and hence impossible to be siblings. Chola age ~ Avvaiyar The medievaal period ~ Avvaiyar was the court poet of the Chola monarch and was the contemporary of Kambar and Ottakkuttar. She found great happiness in the life of small children. Her works, Aathichoodi and Konraiventhan written for young children, are even now generally read and enjoyed by them. Her two other works, Mooturai and Nalvali were written for older children. All the four works are didactic in character — they explain the basic wisdom that should govern mundane life. Shrine In Muppandal, a small village in the Kanyakumari District of Tamil Nadu. there is an image of ~ Avvaiyar . By tradition, this is stated to be the spot where the great poetess left the mortal world. Avvai Vizha Annual Avvai Vizha is organized & conducted by Government of Tamil Nadu to commemorate ~ Avvaiyar 's contribution to Tamil literature. This festival is celebrated every year in the month of Panguni on Sadhayam star day. Avvai Vizha has been started by local community long time back and still continuing willingly. Now Govt of Tamil Nadu is continuing this function and adding more values. Local community, Tamil scholars and scholars from various fields participating with passion on this occasion and deliver their speech. Avvai Vizha is conducted in the temple Avvayar situated at Thulasiyappattinam village, Vedaranyam, Nagappatinam District, in the temple premises of Arulmigu Visvanathaswamy Thirukovil. Also this place is referred to famous interaction between Lord Muruga & ~ Avvaiyar "Suttapazham Venduma Sudatha Pazham Venduma". This temple is under the control of the Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments Department. Legend Legend has it that once the great king Athiyaman gave an eternal amla Nellikani (gooseberry) fruit to ~ Avvaiyar , this is a special and powerful fruit, whoever eats it will have a healthy and long life. Athiyaman wanted ~ Avvaiyar to eat the eternal fruit as she was the right person who could serve the Tamil community. If she could live forever, so would the Tamil heritage and language. Publication in the U.S. In 2009, Red Hen Press published a selection of ~ Avvaiyar 's poetry from the 12th century, entitled Give, Eat, and Live: Poems by Avviyar. The poems were selected and translated into English by Thomas Pruiksma, a poet and translator who discovered Avviyar's work while on a Fulbright scholarship at The American College in Madurai, Tamil Nadu, India. Atthi Chudi ~ Avvaiyar,

814: Liminary The hollow crystal of my winter dream and silences, where thought for worship, white, shimmer'd within the icy mirror-gleam, vanishes down the flood of broader light. The royal weft of arduous device and starr'd with strangest gems, my shadowy pride and ritual of illusive artifice is shed away, leaving the naked side. No more is set within the secret shrine a wonder wherein day nor night has part; my passing makes the ways of earth divine with the wild splendours of a mortal heart. A whisper thrills the living fringe of green on my retreat; tiptoe the silence stands; the breathless morn waits till her step be seen, my summer bride, new life from nuptial lands. The hidden places of her beauty hold the savours shed o'er wastes of island air, and her crown'd body's wealth of torrid gold burns dusky in her summer-storm of hair. Her breasts in baffling curves, an upward hope, strain towards the lips pain'd with too eager life, and the rich noons faint on each lustrous slope where thunder-hush in the ardent brake is rife. I cannot tell what god is in her gaze, such depths of slumbrous passion drown my breath, but where the charmed shadow clings and stays Fate cowers before that high disdain of death. Oh, take me to thy bosom's sultry beat, steep all my sense in thy long breath of flame, oppress me with thy summer's heavy heat, consume all me that wears an uncrown'd name; burn this my flesh to a clear web of light, send thy keen airy spirit to search each vein, that the hard pulse may throb with strong delight, o'ermastering life and life's divinest pain. Then, then we twain will seek each farthest way, mingled in radiance over cloud and lea, our joy shall swell the exultant heart of day, 44 our love shall tinge the rose of sky and sea. And we shall know the steep pride of the hills and the dark meditation of the wood, or quench our rage where the red wine-god spills o'er glowing rocks the madness of his blood. Our link'd approach shall flush the water-maid that dreams her limpid realm with wistful eyes, our noon-tide rest shall haunt her memory's shade, vexing her dim breast with unwonted sighs. And where our fiercer joys have thrill'd the earth shall burst hard stalks and cruel cups that keep strong soul of seasons dead to fill the dearth of lesser lives whose dream is dull with sleep. And gloriously our summer's reign shall end: in some dark pass that leads into the west, burnt incense-wise, each blood shall sweetly blend, exhaled in music from the love-slain breast, some eve whose dragon-dying hides the sky and holds the hour on its empurpled wings, while pallid seers proclaim the doom-day nigh and shuddering nations watch the death of kings. See now the time (O eve of smoky brown!) the morbid season of my close content, drown'd flame, broad swathes of vapour closing down round the clear gaze that pierces, vainly pent, and knows how vain the hero-death that flung far flame against the craven face of dark (poor hero-heart the minstrel summer sung, O brooding hidden over a bitter cark!), how vain! did not the hot strength of the earth exude in drifts of colour, dwindling to dimmer odour-wafts, a hearted worth the long-defeated tribes to altar bring. The unslaked caravans of vast desire seeking in furnace-sands some fierier rose with deadly heart, the red crusades of ire following some dusky king of mighty woes unto a nameless fall in distant fight (such only freedom from the daily mesh spun by the crafty lord of wrong and right); the pride and splendour of rebellious flesh, full-sated with wild honey of summer's heart, 45 the golden lot of ignominy that cast and craved the honour of a menial part, to follow on bleeding feet, nor fell the last; how high their pyre blazed with insensate will that the last word of their red tale be told, and o'er their darkening blood, a moment, still, hung on horizon-wings the spirit's gold, the ghost of flame, in the vast crucible transmuted of some viewless Trismegist — haply the same whose touch, inaudible, dissolves the lingering leaf to evening mist. Now with the lucid flower-cups in their hands that star the pale fields of Thulean spring, and silver from the moon-made table-lands of snow, the glimmering distance vanishing, with opals that engeal the Boreal gleam and diamond-drip of ether's crystal thrill miraculous, the cortèges of dream over the hills of legend gathering, fill the imaginary avenues of gloom up to the watching windows that betray the House of Contemplation, vaulted room soaring, with shade that broods above pale day; pale day that wastes even since morning, drain'd by ambush'd mystery of its wanton breath: see now the time that rises, pale, unstain'd, the fixed light that charms the fields of death. A little yet, a little — wait, O files obedient to my dumb command — the brow may waive its frigid lordliness, the wiles of the spent heart becloud it — wait; and thou, dark presence, large above the passing world, biding the full hour of the fated stroke, ere in the sudden gust of truth be whirl'd the veils of kindly Maya, leaf or smoke, let their suspense of smouldering glory be yet mirror'd in this mind's unruffled pool or e'er beneath the implacable certainty of icy light and thought's untarnish'd rule the vacant world stand rigid; let me yet this vesper ween I am not all alone, and ponder with luxurious regret 46 over the singing golden morning flown: soon, soon enough the spirit, unreproved, shall on its proud predestin'd circle range, in dread indifferent solitude removed above the poignant pageantry of change, and the broad brows whose curves are centuries arise of Isis' carven front supreme that bids the lucid soul in silence freeze, the glittering crystal of my winter dream. ~ Christopher John Brennan,

815: On Hearing That Constantinople Was Swallowed Up By An Earthquake [A Report, though false, at that time generally believed.] Fallen are thy towers, Byzantium! towers that stood Before the Turk's dread fury, when he came, The crescent sparkling amidst Christian blood, And to the reeking den of Moloch turned Sophia's holy fane! Where, where are now, Imperial city, the late proud remains Of thy brave founder's greatness, when he clothed In worldly grandeur pure Religion's form; Then placed beside him, placed upon a throne, The lowly Nazarene's meek simple child!.... He, wandering then upon a Christian land, Stranger at home had been, nor known again His artless rites, his followers, in the domes Filled with the sparkling shrine, the rich-robed priests, And pomp of earthly greatness........But not long Lived there his name....Science and art, farewell! The foe of light and love, Mohammed, comes, And Constantine's proud race exists no more. But, sons of Mahomet, the towers he built, Though by your anger spared, have fallen now, And crushed your bloody race! A mightier arm Than his who raised, or spared, yon domes came forth; From the hot sable rolling cloud it came, And crumbled them to dust!....The wind, the air, Seem in strict silence bound, but smiling still Appears the face of day; assassin-like, Smiling, though conscious of intended death. But Nature trembles at her own repose; The brute creation dread forebodings shake; While man alone is bold.....But see where now The labouring ocean, in fantastic shapes And sudden swells, her heaving bosom rears; Like the mad Pythia, when the Delphian god 31 Spoke by her fraudful lips....But here, alas! A real God that world of waters moves To do his dreadful bidding!.... Hark! he comes! The thunder's roar, the rush of winds proclaim The Mighty One is near....But oh! when past His power, and those he spared raised up their heads, Where was the eye could bear upon the waste To gaze, and mark the ruin stretching wide! Oh! ye were blest, ye victims, ye who fell Deep in the yawning chasm!...."Where are now," The sad survivor cries, "my peaceful home, The sacred mosque I loved, the child, the wife I clasped but now; the city towering high, Proud in its strength?....Disperse, thou gloomy cloud, And let me gaze on them!" The cloud's dispersed; But he beholds no city, he can trace No vestige of his home: a putrid lake Or barren ground replace them, and proclaim, Devouring earthquake, thy resistless power. England! blest country, from such woes as these Thy temperate clime preserves thee; lightly felt, If ever, by thy comfort-breathing shores, The earthquake desolating distant lands: And....thou hast cause to lift thy voice most high, In the great choir of nations hymning praise. But ye, who wander from your native shores, While haply such calamity draws near As sunk Byzantium; ye, whose eager hearts Anticipate a glad return to scenes Ye shall behold no more, for ever swept From off the earth, unconscious heirs of woe; For you I mourn!....Methinks I see the cheek Flushed with delight, chastized perhaps by fear, When your own land approaches....See the eye Misty with tears ope wide its eager lid To catch the well-known objects! Horrid change! Fear pales that glowing cheek, and dries that eye, "It is our native shore,....but where are gone The fanes, the spires, erewhile our city's pride?" I hear you cry. "The pilot is deceived, 32 And hope deceived us too....'Tis not our land!" But soon the mournful certainty ye guess, And leap to shore; and there ye call in vain On all ye loved....Throughout the silent streets That yet remain, perhaps some meagre form May trembling steal along, and tell the tale; While on the ruins some lone maniac sits, And, as he points to where the chasm yawned, Boasts of the treasures earth preserves for him; Or, while a sudden beam of reason darts, Screams his discordant anguish, and commands Earth to give back his children!.... Angel of woe, that from the eternal hand Receivest thy dread commission, going forth To flap thy sable pinions o'er the world, And shed unnumbered evils, which appear To piety's uplifted eye as good Concealed in evil's garb;....angel of woe, Upon thy awful power I've pondered oft, In all its dark varieties, I've sought The horrid path where Madness stalks along In fancied majesty, or from his cell Sends the loud shriek, or more afflicting laugh; And, as I hurried from the o'erwhelming scene, Have shuddering owned thy awful presence there ,.... I've seen thee by the death-bed sit, and bid The silent corse to speak again, and urge The eyes for ever closed to ope once more And beam as they were wont:....and I have walked In slow procession to the opening grave, And seen thee triumph when the earth received The form beloved, and the deep bursting groan Bespoke affliction's forced composure o'er, And agony victorious! I have gazed Upon the guilty wretch, when, doomed to die, Terror has vanquished him, and his pale cheek Has proved the falsehood of his vaunting tongue, While, to his startled fancy, in the rear Of Death came judgement, and the world to come Unfolded all its horrors! There, O there, Thee I beheld, and fled from!....and I've heard 33 How on the sultry suffocating breath Of livid pestilence, thou, floating wide, Hast done thy master's bidding! Vain were then The ties of nature! from the parent's grasp The child has forced its once sustaining hand, And, horror-struck, has from contagion fled! While the fond parent, from his dying child Vainly his aid imploring, terror-winged, Has urged his selfish flight* ! And there thou wert.... But when the earthquake's varied horrors come, All, all thy ministers are waiting round, Fear, Madness, Pestilence, Pain, Famine, Death, And all the AGONIES COMBINED are there! ~ Amelia Opie,

816: The Falls Of The Chaudiere, Ottawa I have laid my cheek to Nature's, placed my puny hand in hers, Felt a kindred spirit warming all the life-blood of my face, Moved amid the very foremost of her truest worshippers, Studying each curve of beauty, marking every minute grace; Loved not less the mountain cedar than the flowers at its feet, Looking skyward from the valley, open-lipped as if in prayer, Felt a pleasure in the brooklet singing of its wild retreat, But I knelt before the splendour of the thunderous Chaudiere. All my manhood waked within me, every nerve had tenfold force, And my soul stood up rejoicing, looking on with cheerful eyes, Watching the resistless waters speeding on their downward course, Titan strength and queenly beauty diademed with rainbow dyes. Eye and ear, with spirit quickened, mingled with the lovely strife, Saw the living Genius shrined within her sanctuary fair, Heard her voice of sweetness singing, peered into her hidden life, And discerned the tuneful secret of the jubilant Chaudiere: 'Within my pearl-roofed shell, Whose floor is woven with the iris bright, Genius and Queen of the Chaudiere I dwell, As in a world of immaterial light. My throne, an ancient rock, Marked by the foot of ages long-departed, My joy, the cataract's stupendous shock, Whose roll is music to the grateful-hearted. I've seen the eras glide With muffled tread to their eternal dreams, While I have lived in vale and mountain side, With leaping torrents and sweet purling streams. The Red-Man's active life; His love, pride, passions, courage, and great deeds; His perfect freedom, and his thirst for strife; His swift revenge, at which the memory bleeds: The sanguinary years, 141 When sullen Terror, like a raging Fate, Swept down the stately tribes like slaughtered deers, And war and hatred joined to decimate The remnants of the race, And spread decay through centuries of painNo more I mark their sure, avenging pace, And forests wave where war-whoops shook the plain. Their deeds I envied not. The royal tyrant on his purple throne, I, in secluded grove or shady grot, Had purer joys than he had ever known, God made the ancient hills, The valleys and the solemn wildernesses, The merry-hearted and melodious rills, And strung with diamond dews the pine-trees' tresses; But man's hand built the palace, And he that reigns therein is simply man; Man turns God's gifts to poison in the chalice That brimmed with nectar in the primal plan. Here I abide aloneThe wild Chaudiere's eternal jubilee Has such sweet divination in its tone, And utters nature's truest prophecy In thunderings of zeal! I've seen the Atheist in terror start, Awed to contrition by the strong appeal That waked conviction in his doubting heart: 'Teachers speak throughout all nature, From the womb of Silence born, Heed ye not their words, O Scoffer? Flinging back thy scorn with scorn! To the desert spring that leapeth, Pulsing, from the parched sod, Points the famished trav'ler, saying'Brothers, here, indeed, is God!' 142 From the patriarchal fountains, Sending forth their tribes of rills, From the cedar-shadowed lakelets In the hearts of distant hills, Whispers softer than the moonbeams Wisdom's gentle heart have awed, Till its lips approved the cadence'Surely here, indeed, is God!' Lo! o'er all, the Torrent Prophet, An inspired Demosthenes, To the Doubter's soul appealing, Louder than the preacher-seas: Dreamer! wouldst have nature spurn thee For a dumb, insensate clod? Dare to doubt! and these shall teach thee Of a truth there lives a God!' By day and night, for hours, I watch the cataract's impulsive leap, Refreshed and gladdened by the cheering showers Wrung from the passion of the seething deep. Pleased when the buried waves Emerge again, like incorporeal hosts Rising, white-sheeted, from their gloomy graves, As if the depths had yielded up their ghosts. And when the midnight storm Enfolds the welkin in its robe of clouds, Through the dim vapours of the cauldron swarm The sheeted spectres in their whitest shrouds, By the lightning's flash betrayed. These gather from the insubstantial vapour The lunar rainbows, which by them are madeWoven with moonbeams by some starry taper, To decorate the halls Of my fair palace, whence I'm pained to see Thy human brethren watch the waterfalls- 143 Not with such rev'rence as I've found in thee: Too many with an eye To speculation and the worldling's dreams; Others, who seek from nature no reply, Nor read the oral language of the streams. But of the few who loved The beautiful with grateful heart and soul, Who looked on nature fondly, and were moved By one sweet glance, as by the mighty whole: Of these, the thoughtful few, Thou wert the first to seek the inner temple, And stand before the Priestess. Thou wert true To nature and thyself. Be thy example The harbinger of times When the Chaudiere's imposing majesty Will awe the spirits of the heartless mimes To worship God in truth, with nature's constancy.' Still I heard the mellow sweetness of her voice at intervals, Mingling with the fall of waters, rising with the snowy spray, Ringing through the sportive current like the joy of waterfalls, Sending up their hearty vespers at the calmy close of day. Loath to leave the scene of beauty, lover-like I stayed, and stayed, Folding to my eager bosom memories beyond compare; Deeper, stronger, more enduring than my dreams of wood and glade, Were the eloquent appeals of the magnificent Chaudiere. E'en the solid bridge is trembling, whence I look my last farewell, Dizzy with the roar and trampling of the mighty herd of waves, Speeding past the rocky Island, steadfast as a sentinel, Towards the loveliest bay that ever mirrored the Algonquin Braves. Soul of Beauty! Genius! Spirit! Priestess of the lovely strife! In my heart thy words are shrined, as in a sanctuary fair; Echoes of thy voice of sweetness, rousing all my better life, Ever haunt my wildest visions of the jubilant Chaudiere. ~ Charles Sangster,

817: The Priestess Of Panormita Hear me, Lord of the Stars! For thee I have worshipped ever With stains and sorrows and scars, With joyful, joyful endeavour. Hear me, O lily-white goat! O crisp as a thicket of thorns, With a collar of gold for Thy throat, A scarlet bow for Thy horns! Here, in the dusty air, I build Thee a shrine of yew. All green is the garland I wear, But I feed it with blood for dew! After the orange bars That ribbed the green west dying Are dead, O Lord of the Stars, I come to Thee, come to Thee crying. The ambrosial moon that arose With breasts slow heaving in splendour Drops wine from her infinite snows. Ineffably, utterly, tender. O moon! ambrosial moon! Arise on my desert of sorrow That the Magical eyes of me swoon With lust of rain to-morrow! Ages and ages ago I stood on the bank of a river Holy and Holy and holy, I know, For ever and ever and ever! A priest in the mystical shrine I muttered a redeless rune, Till the waters were redder than wine In the blush of the harlot moon. I and my brother priests Worshipped a wonderful woman With a body lithe as a beast's 86 Subtly, horribly human. Deep in the pit of her eyes I saw the image of death, And I drew the water of sighs From the well of her lullaby breath. She sitteth veiled for ever Brooding over the waste. She hath stirred or spoken never. She is fiercely, manly chaste! What madness made me awake From the silence of utmost eld The grey cold slime of the snake That her poisonous body held? By night I ravished a maid From her father's camp to the cave. I bared the beautiful blade; I dipped her thrice i' the wave; I slit her throat as a lamb's, That the fount of blood leapt high With my clamorous dithyrambs Like a stain on the shield of the sky. With blood and censer and song I rent the mysterious veil: My eyes gaze long and long On the deep of that blissful bale. My cold grey kisses awake From the silence of utmost eld The grey cold slime of the snake That her beautiful body held. But --- God! I was not content With the blasphemous secret of years; The veil is hardly rent While the eyes rain stones for tears. So I clung to the lips and laughed As the storms of death abated, The storms of the grevious graft By the swing of her soul unsated. 87 Wherefore reborn as I am By a stream profane and foul In the reign of a Tortured Lamb, In the realm of a sexless Owl, I am set apart from the rest By meed of the mystic rune That reads in peril and pest The ambrosial moon --- the moon! For under the tawny star That shines in the Bull above I can rein the riotous car Of galloping, galloping Love; And straight to the steady ray Of the Lion-heart Lord I career, Pointing my flaming way With the spasm of night for a spear! O moon! O secret sweet! Chalcedony clouds of caresses About the flame of our feet, The night of our terrible tresses! Is it a wonder, then, If the people are mad with blindness, And nothing is stranger to men Than silence, and wisdom, and kindness? Nay! let him fashion an arrow Whose heart is sober and stout! Let him pierce his God to the marrow! Let the soul of his God flow out! Whether a snake or a sun In his horoscope Heaven hath cast, It is nothing; every one Shall win to the moon at last. The mage hath wrought by his art A billion shapes in the sun. Look through to the heart of his heart, And the many are shapes of one! An end to the art of the mage, And the cold grey blank of the prison! 88 An end to the adamant age! The ambrosial moon is arisen. I have bought a lily-white goat For the price of a crown of thorns, A collar of gold for its throat, A scarlet bow for its horns. I have bought a lark in the lift For the price of a butt of sherry: With these, and God for a gift, It needs no wine to be merry! I have bought for a wafer of bread A garden of poppies and clover; For a water bitter and dead A foam of fire flowing over. From the Lamb and his prison fare And the owl's blind stupor, arise Be ye wise, and strong, and fair, And the nectar afloat in your eyes! Arise, O ambrosial moon By the strong immemorial spell, By the subtle veridical rune That is mighty in heaven and hell! Drip thy mystical dews On the tongues of the tender fauns In the shade of initiate yews Remote from the desert dawns! Satyrs and Fauns, I call. Bring your beauty to man! I am the mate for ye all' I am the passionate Pan. Come, O come to the dance Leaping with wonderful whips, Life on the stroke of a glance, Death in the stroke of the lips! I am hidden beyond, Shed in a secret sinew Smitten through by the fond 89 Folly of wisdom in you! Come, while the moon (the moon!) Sheds her ambrosial splendour, Reels in the redeless rune Ineffably, utterly, tender! Hark! the appealing cry Of deadly hurt in the hollow: --Hyacinth! Hyacinth! Ay! Smitten to death by Apollo. Swift, O maiden moon, Send thy ray-dews after; Turn the dolorous tune To soft ambiguous laughter! Mourn, O Maenads, mourn! Surely your comfort is over: All we laugh at you lorn. Ours are the poppies and clover! O that mouth and eyes, Mischevious, male, alluring! O that twitch of the thighs Dorian past enduring! Where is wisdom now? Where the sage and his doubt? Surely the sweat of the brow Hath driven the demon out. Surely the scented sleep That crowns the equal war Is wiser than only to weep --To weep for evermore! Now, at the crown of the year, The decadent days of October, I come to thee, God, without fear; Pious, chaste, and sober. I solemnly sacrifice This first-fruit flower of wine For a vehicle of thy vice As I am Thine to be mine. For five in the year gone by 90 I pray Thee give to me one; A love stronger than I, A moon to swallow the sun! May he be like a lily-white goat Crisp as a thicket of thorns, With a collar of gold for his throat, A scarlet bow for his horns! ELAINE CARR. ~ Aleister Crowley,

818: Margaery 'Truth lights our minds as sunrise lights the world. The heart that shuts out truth, excludes the light That wakes the love of beauty in the soul; And being foe to these, despises God, The sole Dispenser of the gracious bliss That brings us nearer the celestial gate. They who might feed on rose-leaves of the True, And grow in loveliness of heart and soul, Catch at Deception's airy gossamers, As children clutch at stars. To some, the world Is a bleak desert, parched with blinding sand, With here and there a mirage, fair to view, But insubstantial as the visions born Of Folly and Despair. Could we but know How nigh we are to the true light of heaven; In what a world of love we live and breathe; On what a tide of truth our souls are borne! Yet we're but bubbles in the whirl of life, Mere flecks upon its ever-restless sea, Meteors in its ever-changing sky. Eternity alone is worth the thought That we expend upon the passing hour, Chasing the gaudy butterflies that lure Our footsteps from the path that leads us home. We will not see the beacon on the rock; The prompter is unheeded; and the spark Of the true spirit quenched in utter night, As we rush headlong, wrecked on Error's shoals. Some hearts will never open; all their wards Have grown so rusty, that the golden key Of Love Divine must fail to move the bolt That Self has drawn to keep God's angels out.' So spake the merry Margery, the while Her fingers lengthened out a filigree, That seemed to me so many golden threads Of thought between her fingers and her brain, Bestrung with priceless pearls; her lightsome mood, Worn as occasion might necessitate, 86 Replaced to-night by sober-sided Sense, That made her beauty like an eve in June, Just as the moon is risen. I, to mark My approbation of her present mood, Rehearsed a rambling lyric of my own, That seemed prophetic of her thoughts to-night: Within my mind there ever lives A yearning for the True, The Beautiful and Good. God gives These, as He gives the dew That falls upon the flowers at night, The grass, the thirsty trees, Because 'tis needful; and the light That suns my mind from theseTruth-Beauty-Goodness, doth but fill A void within my soul; And I fall prone before the Will Of Him who gave the wholeThe wondrous life-the power to think, And love, and act, and speak. Standing, half-poised, upon the brink Of being-strong, yet weakStrong in vast hopes, but weak in deeds, I lift my heart and pray, That where the tangled skein of creeds Excludes the light of day From human minds, God's purposes May be made plain, that all May walk in truth's and wisdom's ways, And lay aside the thrall Of enmity, whose clouds have kept Their souls as dark as night; That they whose love and hope have slept, May come into the light, 87 And live as men, with minds to grasp Within the sphere of thought The boundless universe, and clasp The good the wise have sought, As if it were a long-lost dove, Or a stray soul returned To worship in the fane of love, That it so long had spurned. Where'er I gaze, my eyes behold Nought but the beautiful. The world is grand as it is old; The only fitting school For man, where he may learn to live, And live to learn that what He needs heaven will in mercy give. Whatever be his lot, He shapes it for himself; his mind Is his own heaven or hell: Just as he peoples it, he'll find Himself compelled to dwell With good or evil. Good abounds In this delightful sphere; But man will walk his daily rounds, And evermore give ear To the false promptings that waylay His steps at every turn; Flinging the true and good away For joys that he should spurn, As being all unworthy of His greatness as a man. Why, man!-why tremble at the scoff Of fools and bigots? Scan The mental firmament, and see How men in every age, 88 Who strove for immortalityWhose errand was to wage Not War, but Peace-men of pure minds, Who sought and found the truth, And treasured it, as one who finds The secret of lost Youth Restored and made immortal-see How they were scorned, because Their Sphinx-lives spake of mystery To those to whom the laws Of nature are as clasped books!Poets, who ruled the world Of Thought; in whose prophetic looks And minds there lay impearled, But hidden from the vulgar sight, Such universal truths, That many, blinded by the lightGray-haired, green-gosling youths, With whips of satire, looks of scorn, And finger of disdain, Have crushed these harbingers of morn, But could not kill the strain That was a part of nature's mind, And therefore can not die. That which men spurned, angels have shrined Among God's truths on high. And so 't will ever be, till man Knows more of Goodness, Truth, And Beauty-more of nature's plan, And Love that brings back youth To hearts that have grown frail and old By groping in the dark With blinded eyes; their idol, Gold, And Gain, their Pleasure-bark! 89 ''Tis well that nature hath her ministers,' She said, her voice and looks so passing sweet; 'Great-hearts that let in love, and keep it there, Like the true flame within the diamond's heart, Informing, blessing, chastening their lives. Man has but one great love-his love for God; All other loves are lesser and more less As they recede from Him, as are the streams The farthest from the fountain. God is Love. Who loves God most, loves most his fellow-men; Sees the Creator in the creature's form Where others see but man-and he, so frail The very devils are akin to him! There is no light that is not born of love; No truth where love is not its guiding star; Faith without love is noonday without sun, For love begetteth works both good and true, And these give faith its immortality.' We parted at the outer door. The stars Seemed never half so bright or numberless As they appeared to-night. Margery's laugh Tripped after me in merry cadences, Like the quick steps of fairies in the air United to the chorus of their hearts Breathed into silvery music. Happy soul! Nature's epitome in all her moods. ~ Charles Sangster,

819: The Spleen What art thou, SPLEEN, which ev'ry thing dost ape? Thou Proteus to abus'd Mankind, Who never yet thy real Cause cou'd find, Or fix thee to remain in one continued Shape. Still varying thy perplexing Form, Now a Dead Sea thou'lt represent, A Calm of stupid Discontent, Then, dashing on the Rocks wilt rage into a Storm. Trembling sometimes thou dost appear, Dissolv'd into a Panick Fear; On Sleep intruding dost thy Shadows spread, Thy gloomy Terrours round the silent Bed, And croud with boading Dreams the Melancholy Head: Or, when the Midnight Hour is told, And drooping Lids thou still dost waking hold, Thy fond Delusions cheat the Eyes, Before them antick Spectres dance, Unusual Fires their pointed Heads advance, And airy Phantoms rise. Such was the monstrous Vision seen, When Brutus (now beneath his Cares opprest, And all Rome's Fortunes rolling in his Breast, Before Philippi's latest Field, Before his Fate did to Octavius lead) Was vanquish'd by the Spleen. Falsly, the Mortal Part we blame Of our deprest, and pond'rous Frame, Which, till the First degrading Sin Let Thee, its dull Attendant, in, Still with the Other did comply, Nor clogg'd the Active Soul, dispos'd to fly, And range the Mansions of it's native Sky. Nor, whilst in his own Heaven he dwelt, Whilst Man his Paradice possest, His fertile Garden in the fragrant East, And all united Odours smelt, No armed Sweets, until thy Reign, Cou'd shock the Sense, or in the Face 179 A flusht, unhandsom Colour place. Now the Jonquille o'ercomes the feeble Brain; We faint beneath the Aromatick Pain, {6} Till some offensive Scent thy Pow'rs appease, And Pleasure we resign for short, and nauseous Ease. In ev'ry One thou dost possess, New are thy Motions, and thy Dress: Now in some Grove a list'ning Friend Thy false Suggestions must attend, Thy whisper'd Griefs, thy fancy'd Sorrows hear, Breath'd in a Sigh, and witness'd by a Tear; Whilst in the light, and vulgar Croud, Thy Slaves, more clamorous and loud, By Laughters unprovok'd, thy Influence too confess. In the Imperious Wife thou Vapours art, Which from o'erheated Passions rise In Clouds to the attractive Brain, Until descending thence again, Thro' the o'er-cast, and show'ring Eyes, Upon her Husband's soften'd Heart, He the disputed Point must yield, Something resign of the contested Field; Til Lordly Man, born to Imperial Sway, Compounds for Peace, to make that Right away, And Woman, arm'd with Spleen, do's servilely Obey. The Fool, to imitate the Wits, Complains of thy pretended Fits, And Dulness, born with him, wou'd lay Upon thy accidental Sway; Because, sometimes, thou dost presume Into the ablest Heads to come: That, often, Men of Thoughts refin'd, Impatient of unequal Sence, Such slow Returns, where they so much dispense, Retiring from the Croud, are to thy Shades inclin'd. O'er me, alas! thou dost too much prevail: I feel thy Force, whilst I against thee rail; I feel my Verse decay, and my crampt Numbers fail. Thro' thy black Jaundice I all Objects see, As Dark, and Terrible as Thee, 180 My Lines decry'd, and my Employment thought An useless Folly, or presumptuous Fault: Whilst in the Muses Paths I stray, Whilst in their Groves, and by their secret Springs My Hand delights to trace unusual Things, And deviates from the known, and common way; Nor will in fading Silks compose Faintly th' inimitable Rose, Fill up an ill-drawn Bird, or paint on Glass The Sov'reign's blurr'd and undistinguish'd Face, The threatning Angel, and the speaking Ass. Patron thou art to ev'ry gross Abuse, The sullen Husband's feign'd Excuse, When the ill Humour with his Wife he spends, And bears recruited Wit, and Spirits to his Friends. The Son of Bacchus pleads thy Pow'r, As to the Glass he still repairs, Pretends but to remove thy Cares, Snatch from thy Shades one gay, and smiling Hour, And drown thy Kingdom in a purple Show'r. When the Coquette, whom ev'ry Fool admires, Wou'd in Variety be Fair, And, changing hastily the Scene From Light, Impertinent, and Vain, Assumes a soft, a melancholy Air, And of her Eyes rebates the wand'ring Fires, The careless Posture, and the Head reclin'd, The thoughtful, and composed Face, Proclaiming the withdrawn, the absent Mind, Allows the Fop more liberty to gaze, Who gently for the tender Cause inquires; The Cause, indeed, is a Defect in Sense, Yet is the Spleen alleg'd, and still the dull Pretence. But these are thy fantastic Harms, The Tricks of thy pernicious Stage, Which do the weaker Sort engage; Worse are the dire Effects of thy more pow'rful Charms. By Thee Religion, all we know, That shou'd enlighten here below, Is veil'd in Darkness, and perplext With anxious Doubts, with endless Scruples vext, 181 And some Restraint imply'd from each perverted Text. Whilst Touch not, Taste not, what is freely giv'n, Is but thy niggard Voice, disgracing bounteous Heav'n. From Speech restrain'd, by thy Deceits abus'd, To Desarts banish'd, or in Cells reclus'd, Mistaken Vot'ries to the Pow'rs Divine, Whilst they a purer Sacrifice design, Do but the Spleen obey, and worship at thy Shrine. In vain to chase thee ev'ry Art we try, In vain all Remedies apply, In vain the Indian Leaf infuse, Or the parch'd Eastern Berry bruise; Some pass, in vain, those Bounds, and nobler Liquors use. Now Harmony, in vain, we bring, Inspire the Flute, and touch the String. From Harmony no help is had; Musick but soothes thee, if too sweetly sad, And if too light, but turns thee gayly Mad. Tho' the Physicians greatest Gains, Altho' his growing Wealth he sees Daily increas'd by Ladies Fees, Yet dost thou baffle all his studious Pains. Not skilful Lower thy Source cou'd find, Or thro' the well-dissected Body trace The secret, the mysterious ways, By which thou dost surprize, and prey upon the Mind. Tho' in the Search, too deep for Humane Thought, With unsuccessful Toil he wrought, 'Til thinking Thee to've catch'd, Himself by thee was caught, Retain'd thy Pris'ner, thy acknowleg'd Slave, And sunk beneath thy Chain to a lamented Grave. ~ Anne Kingsmill Finch,

820: The Height Of Land Here is the height of land: The watershed on either hand Goes down to Hudson Bay Or Lake Superior; The stars are up, and far away The wind sounds in the wood, wearier Than the long Ojibwa cadence In which Potàn the Wise Declares the ills of life And Chees-que-ne-ne makes a mournful sound Of acquiescence. The fires burn low With just sufficient glow To light the flakes of ash that play At being moths, and flutter away To fall in the dark and die as ashes: Here there is peace in the lofty air, And Something comes by flashes Deeper than peace: -The spruces have retired a little space And left a field of sky in violet shadow With stars like marigolds in a water-meadow. Now the Indian guides are dead asleep; There is no sound unless the soul can hear The gathering of the waters in their sources. We have come up through the spreading lakes From level to level, -Pitching our tents sometimes over a revel Of roses that nodded all night, Dreaming within our dreams, To wake at dawn and find that they were captured With no dew on their leaves; Sometimes mid sheaves Of bracken and dwarf-cornel, and again On a wide blueberry plain Brushed with the shimmer of a bluebird's wing; A rocky islet followed With one lone poplar and a single nest Of white-throat-sparrows that took no rest 116 But sang in dreams or woke to sing, -To the last portage and the height of land --: Upon one hand The lonely north enlaced with lakes and streams, And the enormous targe of Hudson Bay, Glimmering all night In the cold arctic light; On the other hand The crowded southern land With all the welter of the lives of men. But here is peace, and again That Something comes by flashes Deeper than peace, -- a spell Golden and inappellable That gives the inarticulate part Of our strange being one moment of release That seems more native than the touch of time, And we must answer in chime; Though yet no man may tell The secret of that spell Golden and inappellable. Now are there sounds walking in the wood, And all the spruces shiver and tremble, And the stars move a little in their courses. The ancient disturber of solitude Breathes a pervasive sigh, And the soul seems to hear The gathering of the waters at their sources; Then quiet ensues and pure starlight and dark; The region-spirit murmurs in meditation, The heart replies in exaltation And echoes faintly like an inland shell Ghost tremors of the spell; Thought reawakens and is linked again With all the welter of the lives of men. Here on the uplands where the air is clear We think of life as of a stormy scene, -Of tempest, of revolt and desperate shock; And here, where we can think, on the brights uplands Where the air is clear, we deeply brood on life Until the tempest parts, and it appears 117 As simple as to the shepherd seems his flock: A Something to be guided by ideals -That in themselves are simple and serene -Of noble deed to foster noble thought, And noble thought to image noble deed, Till deed and thought shall interpenetrate, Making life lovelier, till we come to doubt Whether the perfect beauty that escapes Is beauty of deed or thought or some high thing Mingled of both, a greater boon than either: Thus we have seen in the retreating tempest The victor-sunlight merge with the ruined rain, And from the rain and sunlight spring the rainbow. The ancient disturber of solitude Stirs his ancestral potion in the gloom, And the dark wood Is stifled with the pungent fume Of charred earth burnt to the bone That takes the place of air. Then sudden I remember when and where, -The last weird lakelet foul with weedy growths And slimy viscid things the spirit loathes, Skin of vile water over viler mud Where the paddle stirred unutterable stenches, And the canoes seemed heavy with fear, Not to be urged toward the fatal shore Where a bush fire, smouldering, with sudden roar Leaped on a cedar and smothered it with light And terror. It had left the portage-height A tangle of slanted spruces burned to the roots, Covered still with patches of bright fire Smoking with incense of the fragment resin That even then began to thin and lessen Into the gloom and glimmer of ruin. 'Tis overpast. How strange the stars have grown; The presage of extinction glows on their crests And they are beautied with impermanence; They shall be after the race of men And mourn for them who snared their fiery pinions, Entangled in the meshes of bright words. 118 A lemming stirs the fern and in the mosses Eft-minded things feel the air change, and dawn Tolls out from the dark belfries of the spruces. How often in the autumn of the world Shall the crystal shrine of dawning be rebuilt With deeper meaning! Shall the poet then, Wrapped in his mantle on the height of land, Brood on the welter of the lives of men And dream of his ideal hope and promise In the blush sunrise? Shall he base his flight Upon a more compelling law than Love As Life's atonement; shall the vision Of noble deed and noble thought immingled Seem as uncouth to him as the pictograph Scratched on the cave side by the cave-dweller To us of the Christ-time? Shall he stand With deeper joy, with more complex emotion, In closer commune with divinity, With the deep fathomed, with the firmament charted, With life as simple as a sheep-boy's song, What lies beyond a romaunt that was read Once on a morn of storm and laid aside Memorious with strange immortal memories? Or shall he see the sunrise as I see it In shoals of misty fire the deluge-light Dashes upon and whelms with purer radiance, And feel the lulled earth, older in pulse and motion, Turn the rich lands and inundant oceans To the flushed color, and hear as now I hear The thrill of life beat up the planet's margin And break in the clear susurrus of deep joy That echoes and reëchoes in my being? O Life is intuition the measure of knowledge And do I stand with heart entranced and burning At the zenith of our wisdom when I feel The long light flow, the long wind pause, the deep Influx of spirit, of which no man may tell The Secret, golden and inappellable? ~ Duncan Campbell Scott,

821: A Birthday "Aug." 10, 1911. Full moon to-night; and six and twenty years Since my full moon first broke from angel spheres! A year of infinite love unwearying --No circling seasons, but perennial spring! A year of triumph trampling through defeat, The first made holy and the last made sweet By this same love; a year of wealth and woe, Joy, poverty, health, sickness --- all one glow In the pure light that filled our firmament Of supreme silence and unbarred extent, Wherein one sacrament was ours, one Lord, One resurrection, one recurrent chord, One incarnation, one descending dove, All these being one, and that one being Love! You sent your spirit into tunes; my soul Yearned in a thousand melodies to enscroll Its happiness: I left no flower unplucked That might have graced your garland. I induct Tragedy, comedy, farce, fable, song, Each longing a little, each a little long, But each aspiring only to express Your excellence and my unworthiness --Nay! but my worthiness, since I was sense And spirit too of that same excellence. So thus we solved the earth's revolving riddle: I could write verse, and you could play the fiddle, While, as for love, the sun went through the signs, And not a star but told him how love twines A wreath for every decanate, degree, Minute and second, linked eternally In chains of flowers that never fading are, Each one as sempiternal as a star. Let me go back to your last birthday. Then I was already your one man of men Appointed to complete you, and fulfil From everlasting the eternal will. We lay within the flood of crimson light In my own balcony that August night, And conjuring the aright and the averse Created yet another universe. We worked together; dance and rite and spell Arousing heaven and constraining hell. We lived together; every hour of rest Was honied from your tiger-lily breast. We --- oh what lingering doubt or fear betrayed My life to fate! --- we parted. Was I afraid? I was afraid, afraid to live my love, Afraid you played the serpent, I the dove, Afraid of what I know not. I am glad Of all the shame and wretchedness I had, Since those six weeks have taught me not to doubt you, And also that I cannot live without you. Then I came back to you; black treasons rear Their heads, blind hates, deaf agonies of fear, Cruelty, cowardice, falsehood, broken pledges, The temple soiled with senseless sacrileges, Sickness and poverty, a thousand evils, Concerted malice of a million devils; --You never swerved; your high-pooped galleon Went marvellously, majestically on Full-sailed, while every other braver bark Drove on the rocks, or foundered in the dark. Then Easter, and the days of all delight! God's sun lit noontide and his moon midnight, While above all, true centre of our world, True source of light, our great love passion-pearled Gave all its life and splendour to the sea Above whose tides stood our stability. Then sudden and fierce, no monitory moan, Smote the mad mischief of the great cyclone. How far below us all its fury rolled! How vainly sulphur tries to tarnish gold! We lived together: all its malice meant Nothing but freedom of a continent! It was the forest and the river that knew The fact that one and one do not make two. We worked, we walked, we slept, we were at ease, We cried, we quarrelled; all the rocks and trees For twenty miles could tell how lovers played, And we could count a kiss for every glade. Worry, starvation, illness and distress? Each moment was a mine of happiness. Then we grew tired of being country mice, Came up to Paris, lived our sacrifice There, giving holy berries to the moon, July's thanksgiving for the joys of June. And you are gone away --- and how shall I Make August sing the raptures of July? And you are gone away --- what evil star Makes you so competent and popular? How have I raised this harpy-hag of Hell's Malice --- that you are wanted somewhere else? I wish you were like me a man forbid, Banned, outcast, nice society well rid Of the pair of us --- then who would interfere With us? --- my darling, you would now be here! But no! we must fight on, win through, succeed, Earn the grudged praise that never comes to meed, Lash dogs to kennel, trample snakes, put bit In the mule-mouths that have such need of it, Until the world there's so much to forgive in Becomes a little possible to live in. God alone knows if battle or surrender Be the true courage; either has its splendour. But since we chose the first, God aid the right, And damn me if I fail you in the fight! God join again the ways that lie apart, And bless the love of loyal heart to heart! God keep us every hour in every thought, 10 And bring the vessel of our love to port! These are my birthday wishes. Dawn's at hand, And you're an exile in a lonely land. But what were magic if it could not give My thought enough vitality to live? Do not then dream this night has been a loss! All night I have hung, a god, upon the cross; All night I have offered incense at the shrine; All night you have been unutterably mine, Miner in the memory of the first wild hour When my rough grasp tore the unwilling flower From your closed garden, mine in every mood, In every tense, in every attitude, In every possibility, still mine While the sun's pomp and pageant, sign to sign, Stately proceeded, mine not only so In the glamour of memory and austral glow Of ardour, but by image of my brow Stronger than sense, you are even here and now Miner, utterly mine, my sister and my wife, Mother of my children, mistress of my life! O wild swan winging through the morning mist! The thousand thousand kisses that we kissed, The infinite device our love devised If by some chance its truth might be surprised, Are these all past? Are these to come? Believe me, There is no parting; they can never leave me. I have built you up into my heart and brain So fast that we can never part again. Why should I sing you these fantastic psalms When all the time I have you in my arms? Why? 'tis the murmur of our love that swells Earth's dithyrambs and ocean's oracles. But this is dawn; my soul shall make its nest Where your sighs swing from rapture into rest Love's thurible, your tiger-lily breast. ~ Aleister Crowley,

822: At Delphi Apollo! Apollo! Apollo! II Where hast thou, Apollo, gone? I have wandered on and on, Through the shaggy Dorian gorges, Down from where Parnassus forges Thunder for the Phocian valleys; Where the Pleistus springs and sallies Past ravines and caverns dread, Have, like it, meanderëd; But I cannot see thee, hear thee, Find thee, feel thee, get anear thee. Though in quest of thee I go where Thou didst haunt, I find thee nowhere, Apollo! Apollo! Apollo! III Still no answer comes. . . . Apollo! Vainly do I call and holloa Into each Crissoean cleft Where the last year's leaves are left. Deem not I have pushed my way But from stony Amphissà. I have come from far-off land, Traversed foam, traversed sand, From green pastures sea-surrounded, Where thy phorminx never sounded; O'er the broad and barren acres Of the vainly furrowed breakers, Across mountains loftier far Than the peaks of Pindus are; Skirted groves of pine and fir Denser than lone Tempe's were, With no selfish tread, but only I might find thee, lovely, lonely, Lingering by thy sacred city: On me wilt thou not have pity? 152 Sun-god! Song-god! I implore thee! Glow, and let me pale before thee, Apollo! Apollo! Apollo! IV Fallen tablet, prostrate column, Solitude and silence solemn! Half-tilled patches, squalid hovels, Where life multiplies and grovelsIs this Delphi, this the shrine Of the Musagete divine? This the cavern, this the cell, Of the Pythian oracle! Where the tripod, where the altar, Incense, embassy, and psalter? Can this pool of cresses be Cradle of pure Castaly? From the rock though still it bubbles, Travels onwards, halts, and doubles, Where the Muses wont to lave Limbs as vestal as its wave, 'Mong the flashing waters flashing,Gaunt and withered crones are washing. Not a note of lyre or zittern, But, below, the booming bittern Waits his quarry to inveigle, While o'erhead the silent eagle, Blinking, stares at the blank sunAll of thee that is not gone, Apollo! Apollo! Who art thou, intruder weird! With the fine and flowing beard? Whom no snowy robes encumber, But a habit black and sombre, Yet in whose composëd eyes Lurks the light of mysteries. Priest thou seemest, but not one Of the loved Latona's son. In thy aspect is no gladness, Glance nor gleam of joyous madness, 153 Only gloom, only sadness. Underneath thy knotted girdle Thoughts congeal and passions curdle, And about thy brow ascetic Lives nor light nor line prophetic. Priest, but priest not of Apollo, Whither wouldst thou have me follow? Lead but onward, I will enter Where thy cold gaze seems to centre, Underneath yon portal dismal, Into dusk and chill abysmal. Hast thou pent him? Is He lying There within, dethroned and dying? If thou breathest, hear me crying, ``Apollo! Apollo! Apollo!'' VI No, but here He cannot be, God of light and poesy! What are these I see around, Gloomy upon gloomy ground, Making wall and roof to seem Sepulchre of morbid dream? Visages with aspect stony, Bodies lean, and lank, and bony, In whose lineaments I trace Neither love, nor joy, nor grace: Youth with limbs disused and old, Maidens pale, contorted, cold, Flames devouring, pincers wrenching Muscles naked but unblenching, Writhing snakes forked venom darting Into flesh-wounds, gaping, smarting, Furies shagged with tresses fell, Ghouls and ghosts of nether hell! Priest of beauty! Priest of song! Aid me, if thou still art strong! See me! save me! bear me whither Glows thy light that brought me hither, Apollo! Apollo! Apollo! VII 154 O the sunshine once again! O to stand a man 'mong men! Lo! the horrid nightmare pales In the light of flowing vales, In the gaze of steadfast mountains, Sidelong runnels, forward fountains, Spacious sky, receding air, Breadth and bounty everywhere. What if all the gods be dead, Nature reigneth in their stead. Let me dream the noon away Underneath this full-blown bay, Where the yellow bees are busy, Till they stagger, drowsy, dizzy, From the honeyed wine that wells Up the branches to the cells Of the myriad-clustered flowers Dropping golden flakes in showers. Here reclined, I will surrender Sense and soul unto the tender Mingling of remote and close: Gods voluptuous, gods morose; Altars at whose marble meet Downcast eyes and dancing feet; Awful dirges, glad carouse, Unveiled bosoms, shaded brows, Wreathëd steer and tonsured skull, Shapes austere with beautiful; Till the past and present swim In an ether distant, dim, And the Delphic fumes rise denser From a silver-swinging censer, And in one harmonious dream, Through a heavenly nimbus, gleam Lovely limbs and longings saintly, And pale virgins murmur faintly, ``Apollo! Apollo! Apollo!'' VIII Priest, but priest not of Apollo, Why dost thou my footsteps follow From the deep dark shrine down there 155 To this temple of the air? What, profaner! wouldst thou lay Hands upon the sacred bay, Tearing Daphne limb from limb! Hast thou, then, no dread of Him? How? For me? Avaunt, and pass! I am not fool Marsyas. Stay! Then to my forehead bind it, Round my temples wreathe and wind it; 'Chance the Avenger then will come, Haunt and grot no more be dumb, But the rills and steeps be ringing, And a long array come singing, ``Apollo! Apollo! Apollo!'' IX All in vain! Nor prayer nor taunt Tempts him back to his loved haunt. Fretted tablet, fallen column, Solitude and silence solemn! He again from Peneus ne'er Will to Castaly repair; Never more in cavern dread Will his oracles be read; Now I know that Thou art dead, Apollo! Then like fountain in mine ear Spake the god aloud and clear: ``Take it! Wear it! Tis for thee, Singer from the Northern Sea. If the least, not last of those, Suckled 'mong the genial snows. Though the Muses may have left Tempe's glen and Delphi's cleft, Wanderer! they have only gone Hence to murmuring Albion. Need was none to travel hither: Child of England, go back thither. Traverse foam, traverse sand; Back, and in thy native land 156 Thou wilt find what thou dost seek. There the oracles still speak; There the mounting fumes inspire Glowing brain and living lyre. There the Muses prompt the strain, There they renovate my reign; There thou wilt not call in vain, `Apollo! Apollo! Apollo!''' ~ Alfred Austin,

823: Ode To Remorse Dread offspring of the holy light within, Offspring of Conscience and of Sin, Stern as thine awful sire, and fraught with woe From bitter springs thy mother taught to flow,— Remorse! To man alone 'tis given Of all on earth, or all in heaven, To wretched man thy bitter cup to drain, Feel thy awakening stings, and taste thy wholesome pain. Midst Eden's blissful bowers, And amaranthine flowers, Thy birth portentous dimmed the orient day, What time our hapless sire, O'ercome by fond desire, The high command presumed to disobey; Then didst thou rear thy snaky crest, And raise thy scorpion lash to tear the guilty breast: And never, since that fatal hour, May man, of woman born, expect to' escape thy power. Thy goading stings the branded Cain Cross the' untrodden desert drove, Ere from his cradling home and native plain Domestic man had learnt to rove. By gloomy shade or lonely flood Of vast primeval solitude, Thy step his hurried steps pursued, Thy voice awoke his conscious fears, For ever sounding in his ears A father's curse, a brother's blood; Till life was misery too great to bear, And torturing thought was lost in sullen, dumb despair. The king who sat on Judah's throne, By guilty love to murder wrought, Was taught thy searching power to own, When, sent of Heaven, the seer his royal presence sought. As, wrapt in artful phrase, with sorrow feigned, He told of helpless, meek distress, 86 And wrongs that sought from power redress, The pity-moving tale his ear obtained, And bade his better feelings wake: Then, sudden as the trodden snake On the scared traveller darts his fangs, The prophet's bold rebuke aroused thy keenest pangs. And O that look, that soft upbraiding look! A thousand cutting, tender things it spoke,— The sword so lately drawn was not so keen,— Which, as the injured Master turned him round, In the strange solemn scene, And the shrill clarion gave the' appointed sound, Pierced sudden through the reins, Awakening all thy pains, And drew a silent shower of bitter tears Down Peter's blushing cheek, late pale with coward fears. Cruel Remorse! where Youth and Pleasure sport, And thoughtless Folly keeps her court,— Crouching midst rosy bowers thou lurk'st unseen; Slumbering the festal hours away, While Youth disports in that enchanting scene; Till on some fated day Thou with a tiger-spring dost leap upon thy prey, And tear his helpless breast, o'erwhelmed with wild dismay. Mark that poor wretch with clasped hands! Pale o'er his parent's grave he stands,— The grave by his ingratitude prepared; Ah then, where'er he rests his head, On roses pillowed or the softest down, Though festal wreaths his temples crown, He well might envy Guatimozin's bed, With burning coals and sulphur spread, And with less agony his torturing hour have shared. For Thou art by to point the keen reproach; Thou draw'st the curtains of his nightly couch, Bring'st back the reverend face with tears bedewed, 87 That o'er his follies yearned; The warnings oft in vain renewed, The looks of anguish and of love, His stubborn breast that failed to move, When in the scorner's chair he sat, and wholesome counsel spurned. Lives there a man whose labouring breast Is with some dark and guilty secret prest, Who hides within its inmost fold Strange crimes to mortal ear untold? In vain to sad Chartreuse he flies, Midst savage rocks and cloisters dim and drear, And there to shun thee tries: In vain untold his crime to mortal ear, Silence and whispered sounds but make thy voice more clear. Lo, where the cowled monk with frantic rage Lifts high the sounding scourge, his bleeding shoulders smites! Penance and fasts his anxious thoughts engage, Weary his days and joyless are his nights, His naked feet the flinty pavement tears, His knee at every shrine the marble wears;— Why does he lift the cruel scourge? The restless pilgrimage why urge? 'Tis all to quell thy fiercer rage, 'Tis all to soothe thy deep despair, He courts the body's pangs, for thine he cannot bear. See o'er the bleeding corse of her he loved, The jealous murderer bends unmoved, Trembling with rage, his livid lips express His frantic passion's wild and rash excess. O God, she's innocent!—transfixt he stands, Pierced thro' with shafts from thine avenging hands; Down his pale cheek no tear will flow, Nor can he shun, nor can he bear, his woe. 'Twas phantoms summoned by thy power Round Richard's couch at midnight hour, That scared the tyrant from unblest repose; With frantic haste, “To horse! to horse!” he cries, 88 While on his crowned brow cold sweat-drops rise, And fancied spears his spear oppose; But not the swiftest steed can bear away From thy firm grasp thine agonizing prey, Thou wast the fiend, and thou alone; That stood'st by Beaufort's mitred head, With upright hair and visage ghastly pale: Thy terrors shook his dying bed, Past crimes and blood his sinking heart assail, His hands are clasped,—hark to that hollow groan! See how his glazed, dim eye-balls wildly roll, 'Tis not dissolving Nature's pains; that pang is of the soul. Where guilty souls are doomed to dwell, 'Tis thou that mak'st their fiercest hell, The vulture thou that on their liver feeds, As rise to view their past unhallowed deeds; With thee condemned to stay, Till time has rolled away Long æras of uncounted years, And every stain is washed in soft repentant tears. Servant of God—but unbeloved—proceed, For thou must live and ply thy scorpion scourge; Thy sharp upbraidings urge Against the' unrighteous deed, Till thine accursed mother shall expire, And a new world spring forth from renovating fire. O! when the glare of day is fled, And calm, beneath the evening star, Reflection leans her pensive head, And calls the passions to her solemn bar; Reviews the censure rash, the hasty word, The purposed act too long deferred, Of time the wasted treasures lent, And fair occasions lost and golden hours misspent: When anxious Memory numbers o'er Each offered prize we failed to seize; Or friends laid low, whom now no more 89 Our fondest love can serve or please, And thou, dread power! bring'st back in terrors drest, The' irrevocable past, to sting the careless breast;— O! in that hour be mine to know, While fast the silent sorrows flow, And wisdom cherishes the wholesome pain, No heavier guilt, no deeper stain, Than tears of meek contrition may atone, Shed at the mercy-seat of Heaven's eternal throne. ~ Anna Laetitia Barbauld,

824: Sainte-Nitouche Though not for common praise of him, Nor yet for pride or charity, Still would I make to Vanderberg One tribute for his memory: One honest warrant of a friend Who found with him that flesh was grass— Who neither blamed him in defect Nor marveled how it came to pass; Or why it ever was that he— That Vanderberg, of all good men, Should lose himself to find himself, Straightway to lose himself again. For we had buried Sainte-Nitouche, And he had said to me that night: “Yes, we have laid her in the earth, But what of that?” And he was right. And he had said: “We have a wife, We have a child, we have a church; ’T would be a scurrilous way out If we should leave them in the lurch. “That’s why I have you here with me To-night: you know a talk may take The place of bromide, cyanide, Et cetera. For heaven’s sake, “Why do you look at me like that? What have I done to freeze you so? Dear man, you see where friendship means A few things yet that you don’t know; “And you see partly why it is That I am glad for what is gone: For Sainte-Nitouche and for the world In me that followed. What lives on— 252 “Well, here you have it: here at home— For even home will yet return. You know the truth is on my side, And that will make the embers burn. “I see them brighten while I speak, I see them flash,—and they are mine! You do not know them, but I do: I know the way they used to shine. “And I know more than I have told Of other life that is to be: I shall have earned it when it comes, And when it comes I shall be free. “Not as I was before she came, But farther on for having been The servitor, the slave of her— The fool, you think. But there’s your sin— “Forgive me!—and your ignorance: Could you but have the vision here That I have, you would understand As I do that all ways are clear “For those who dare to follow them With earnest eyes and honest feet. But Sainte-Nitouche has made the way For me, and I shall find it sweet. “Sweet with a bitter sting left?—Yes, Bitter enough, God knows, at first; But there are more steep ways than one To make the best look like the worst; “And here is mine—the dark and hard, For me to follow, trust, and hold: And worship, so that I may leave No broken story to be told. “Therefore I welcome what may come, 253 Glad for the days, the nights, the years.”— An upward flash of ember-flame Revealed the gladness in his tears. “You see them, but you know,” said he, “Too much to be incredulous: You know the day that makes us wise, The moment that makes fools of us. “So I shall follow from now on The road that she has found for me: The dark and starry way that leads Right upward, and eternally. “Stumble at first? I may do that; And I may grope, and hate the night; But there’s a guidance for the man Who stumbles upward for the light, “And I shall have it all from her, The foam-born child of innocence. I feel you smiling while I speak, But that’s of little consequence; “For when we learn that we may find The truth where others miss the mark, What is it worth for us to know That friends are smiling in the dark? “Could we but share the lonely pride Of knowing, all would then be well; But knowledge often writes itself In flaming words we cannot spell. “And I, who have my work to do, Look forward; and I dare to see, Far stretching and all mountainous, God’s pathway through the gloom for me.” I found so little to say then That I said nothing.—“Say good-night,” Said Vanderberg; “and when we meet 254 To-morrow, tell me I was right. “Forget the dozen other things That you have not the faith to say; For now I know as well as you That you are glad to go away.” I could have blessed the man for that, And he could read me with a smile: “You doubt,” said he, “but if we live You’ll know me in a little while.” He lived; and all as he foretold, I knew him—better than he thought: My fancy did not wholly dig The pit where I believed him caught. But yet he lived and laughed, and preached, And worked—as only players can: He scoured the shrine that once was home And kept himself a clergyman. The clockwork of his cold routine Put friends far off that once were near; The five staccatos in his laugh Were too defensive and too clear; The glacial sermons that he preached Were longer than they should have been; And, like the man who fashioned them, The best were too divinely thin. But still he lived, and moved, and had The sort of being that was his, Till on a day the shrine of home For him was in the Mysteries:— “My friend, there’s one thing yet,” said he, “And one that I have never shared With any man that I have met; But you—you know me.” And he stared 255 For a slow moment at me then With conscious eyes that had the gleam, The shine, before the stroke:—“You know The ways of us, the way we dream: “You know the glory we have won, You know the glamour we have lost; You see me now, you look at me,— And yes, you pity me, almost; “But never mind the pity—no, Confess the faith you can’t conceal; And if you frown, be not like one Of those who frown before they feel. “For there is truth, and half truth,—yes, And there’s a quarter truth, no doubt; But mine was more than half.… You smile? You understand? You bear me out? “You always knew that I was right— You are my friend—and I have tried Your faith—your love.”—The gleam grew small, The stroke was easy, and he died. I saw the dim look change itself To one that never will be dim; I saw the dead flesh to the grave, But that was not the last of him. For what was his to live lives yet: Truth, quarter truth, death cannot reach; Nor is it always what we know That we are fittest here to teach. The fight goes on when fields are still, The triumph clings when arms are down; The jewels of all coronets Are pebbles of the unseen crown; The specious weight of loud reproof Sinks where a still conviction floats; 256 And on God’s ocean after storm Time’s wreckage is half pilot-boats; And what wet faces wash to sight Thereafter feed the common moan:— But Vanderberg no pilot had, Nor could have: he was all alone. Unchallenged by the larger light The starry quest was his to make; And of all ways that are for men, The starry way was his to take. We grant him idle names enough To-day, but even while we frown The fight goes on, the triumph clings, And there is yet the unseen crown But was it his? Did Vanderberg Find half truth to be passion’s thrall, Or as we met him day by day, Was love triumphant, after all? I do not know so much as that; I only know that he died right: Saint Anthony nor Sainte-Nitouche Had ever smiled as he did—quite. ~ Edwin Arlington Robinson,

825: Le Masque (The Mask) Statue allégorique dans le goût de la Renaissance Contemplons ce trésor de grâces florentines; Dans l'ondulation de ce corps musculeux L'Elégance et la Force abondent, soeurs divines. Cette femme, morceau vraiment miraculeux, Divinement robuste, adorablement mince, Est faite pour trôner sur des lits somptueux Et charmer les loisirs d'un pontife ou d'un prince. — Aussi, vois ce souris fin et voluptueux Où la Fatuité promène son extase; Ce long regard sournois, langoureux et moqueur; Ce visage mignard, tout encadré de gaze, Dont chaque trait nous dit avec un air vainqueur: «La Volupté m'appelle et l'Amour me couronne!» À cet être doué de tant de majesté Vois quel charme excitant la gentillesse donne! Approchons, et tournons autour de sa beauté. Ô blasphème de l'art! ô surprise fatale! La femme au corps divin, promettant le bonheur,Par le haut se termine en monstre bicéphale! — Mais non! ce n'est qu'un masque, un décor suborneur, Ce visage éclairé d'une exquise grimace, Et, regarde, voici, crispée atrocement, La véritable tête, et la sincère face Renversée à l'abri de la face qui ment Pauvre grande beauté! le magnifique fleuve De tes pleurs aboutit dans mon coeur soucieux Ton mensonge m'enivre, et mon âme s'abreuve Aux flots que la Douleur fait jaillir de tes yeux! — Mais pourquoi pleure-t-elle? Elle, beauté parfaite, Qui mettrait à ses pieds le genre humain vaincu, Quel mal mystérieux ronge son flanc d'athlète? — Elle pleure insensé, parce qu'elle a vécu! 303 Et parce qu'elle vit! Mais ce qu'elle déplore Surtout, ce qui la fait frémir jusqu'aux genoux, C'est que demain, hélas! il faudra vivre encore! Demain, après-demain et toujours! — comme nous! The Mask Allegorical Statue in the Style of the Renaissance Let us gaze at this gem of Florentine beauty; In the undulation of this brawny body Those divine sisters, Gracefulness and Strength, abound. This woman, a truly miraculous marble, Adorably slender, divinely robust, Is made to be enthroned upon sumptuous beds And to charm the leisure of a Pope or a Prince. — And see that smile, voluptuous and delicate, Where self-conceit displays its ecstasy; That sly, lingering look, mocking and languorous; That dainty face, framed in a veil of gauze, Whose every feature says, with a triumphant air: 'Pleasure calls me and Love gives me a crown!' To that being endowed with so much majesty See what exciting charm is lent by prettiness! Let us draw near, and walk around its loveliness. O blasphemy of art! Fatal surprise! That exquisite body, that promise of delight, At the top turns into a two-headed monster! Why no! it's but a mask, a lying ornament, That visage enlivened by a dainty grimace, And look, here is, atrociously shriveled, The real, true head, the sincere countenance Reversed and hidden by the lying face. Poor glamorous beauty! the magnificent stream Of your tears flows into my anguished heart; Your falsehood makes me drunk and my soul slakes its thirst At the flood from your eyes, which Suffering causes! 304 — But why is she weeping? She, the perfect beauty, Who could put at her feet the conquered human race, What secret malady gnaws at those sturdy flanks? — She is weeping, fool, because she has lived! And because she lives! But what she deplores Most, what makes her shudder down to her knees, Is that tomorrow, alas! she will still have to live! Tomorrow, after tomorrow, always! — like us! — Translated by William Aggeler The Mask (An allegoric statue in Renaissance style) vStudy with me this Florentinian treasure, Whose undulous and muscular design Welds Grace with Strength in sisterhood divine; A marvel only wonderment can measure, Divinely strong, superbly slim and fine, She's formed to reign upon a bed of pleasure And charm some prince or pontiff in his leisure. See, too, her smile voluptuously shine, Where sheer frivolity displays its sign: That lingering look of languor, guile, and cheek, The dainty face, which veils of gauze enshrine, That seems in conquering accents thus to speak: 'Pleasure commands me. Love my brow has crowned!' Enamouring our thoughts in humble duty, True majesty with merriment is found. Approach, let's take a turn about her beauty. O blasphemy! Dread shock! Our hopes to pique, This lovely body, promising delight, Ends at the top in a two-headed freak. 305 But no! it's just a mask that tricked our sight, Fooling us with that exquisite grimace: On the reverse you see her proper face, Fiercely convulsed, in its true self revealed, Which from our sight that lying mask concealed. — O sad great beauty! The grand river, fed By your rich tears, debouches in my heart. Though I am rapt with your deceptive art, My soul is slaked upon the tears you shed. And yet why does she weep? Such peerless grace Could trample down the conquered human race. What evil gnaws her flank so strong and sleek? She weeps because she's lived, and that she lives. Madly she weeps for that. But more she grieves (And at the knees she trembles and goes weak) Because tomorrow she must live, and then The next day, and forever — like us men. — Translated by Roy Campbell The Mask An Allegorical Statue in Renaissance Style Behold this prize of beauties wholly Florentine, See in this muscled body, lithe and sinuous, Divine concinnity married to strength divine. This woman sculpted by hands that wrought, miraculous. So strangely strong, and so strangely slim in scope, She was born to throne on beds made rich and sumptuous To charm the happy leisure of a Prince or Pope. Behold these smiling lips, suave and voluptuous, Whose ecstasies of arrant self-love give us pause; The mocking pawkishness of that long languid stare, Those dainty features framed in luminous light gauze, Whose every facet says with an all-conquering air: 306 'Lo, Pleasure calls and Love crowns my triumphant head!' On this proud creature vested with such stateliness, See what exciting charms her daintiness has shed. Let us draw close and walk around her. O excess, O blasphemy of Art! O treachery unique! That body filled with promise, rapturous and rare, Turns at the top into a double-headed freak! No, this is but a mask, a decorative snare, Poor visage lighted by a delicate grimace! And look! contracted here, in raw and hideous troubles, The genuine head and the authentic, candid face Are overturned and darkened by their lying doubles. Poor noble beauty, the magnificent broad river Of your sad tears flows through my heart; your lie of lies Intoxicates me, and my thirsty soul aquiver Is slaked by the salt flood Pain dredges from your eyes. But why is it she weeps, whose loveliness outranks All others, and who binds all humans by her laws? What hushed mysterious ill gnaws at her athlete flanks? She weeps because, O madman, she has lived, because She must live on. But her most pitiful misgiving — What chills her very knees and turns her tremulous — Is that alas! tomorrow she must go on living — Tomorrow and tomorrow — evermore — like us! — Translated by Jacques LeClercq ~ Charles Baudelaire,

826: Juvenilia, An Ode To Natural Beauty There is a power whose inspiration fills Nature's fair fabric, sun- and star-inwrought, Like airy dew ere any drop distils, Like perfume in the laden flower, like aught Unseen which interfused throughout the whole Becomes its quickening pulse and principle and soul. Now when, the drift of old desire renewing, Warm tides flow northward over valley and field, When half-forgotten sound and scent are wooing From their deep-chambered recesses long sealed Such memories as breathe once more Of childhood and the happy hues it wore, Now, with a fervor that has never been In years gone by, it stirs me to respond, -Not as a force whose fountains are within The faculties of the percipient mind, Subject with them to darkness and decay, But something absolute, something beyond, Oft met like tender orbs that seem to peer From pale horizons, luminous behind Some fringe of tinted cloud at close of day; And in this flood of the reviving year, When to the loiterer by sylvan streams, Deep in those cares that make Youth loveliest, Nature in every common aspect seems To comment on the burden in his breast -The joys he covets and the dreams he dreams -One then with all beneath the radiant skies That laughs with him or sighs, It courses through the lilac-scented air, A blessing on the fields, a wonder everywhere. Spirit of Beauty, whose sweet impulses, Flung like the rose of dawn across the sea, Alone can flush the exalted consciousness With shafts of sensible divinity -Light of the World, essential loveliness: Him whom the Muse hath made thy votary 34 Not from her paths and gentle precepture Shall vulgar ends engage, nor break the spell That taught him first to feel thy secret charms And o'er the earth, obedient to their lure, Their sweet surprise and endless miracle, To follow ever with insatiate arms. On summer afternoons, When from the blue horizon to the shore, Casting faint silver pathways like the moon's Across the Ocean's glassy, mottled floor, Far clouds uprear their gleaming battlements Drawn to the crest of some bleak eminence, When autumn twilight fades on the sere hill And autumn winds are still; To watch the East for some emerging sign, Wintry Capella or the Pleiades Or that great huntsman with the golden gear; Ravished in hours like these Before thy universal shrine To feel the invoked presence hovering near, He stands enthusiastic. Star-lit hours Spent on the roads of wandering solitude Have set their sober impress on his brow, And he, with harmonies of wind and wood And torrent and the tread of mountain showers, Has mingled many a dedicative vow That holds him, till thy last delight be known, Bound in thy service and in thine alone. I, too, among the visionary throng Who choose to follow where thy pathway leads, Have sold my patrimony for a song, And donned the simple, lowly pilgrim's weeds. From that first image of beloved walls, Deep-bowered in umbrage of ancestral trees, Where earliest thy sweet enchantment falls, Tingeing a child's fantastic reveries With radiance so fair it seems to be Of heavens just lost the lingering evidence From that first dawn of roseate infancy, So long beneath thy tender influence 35 My breast has thrilled. As oft for one brief second The veil through which those infinite offers beckoned Has seemed to tremble, letting through Some swift intolerable view Of vistas past the sense of mortal seeing, So oft, as one whose stricken eyes might see In ferny dells the rustic deity, I stood, like him, possessed, and all my being, Flooded an instant with unwonted light, Quivered with cosmic passion; whether then On woody pass or glistening mountain-height I walked in fellowship with winds and clouds, Whether in cities and the throngs of men, A curious saunterer through friendly crowds, Enamored of the glance in passing eyes, Unuttered salutations, mute replies, -In every character where light of thine Has shed on earthly things the hue of things divine I sought eternal Loveliness, and seeking, If ever transport crossed my brow bespeaking Such fire as a prophetic heart might feel Where simple worship blends in fervent zeal, It was the faith that only love of thee Needed in human hearts for Earth to see Surpassed the vision poets have held dear Of joy diffused in most communion here; That whomsoe'er thy visitations warmed, Lover of thee in all thy rays informed, Needed no difficulter discipline To seek his right to happiness within Than, sensible of Nature's loveliness, To yield him to the generous impulses By such a sentiment evoked. The thought, Bright Spirit, whose illuminings I sought, That thou unto thy worshipper might be An all-sufficient law, abode with me, Importing something more than unsubstantial dreams To vigils by lone shores and walks by murmuring streams. Youth's flowers like childhood's fade and are forgot. Fame twines a tardy crown of yellowing leaves. 36 How swift were disillusion, were it not That thou art steadfast where all else deceives! Solace and Inspiration, Power divine That by some mystic sympathy of thine, When least it waits and most hath need of thee, Can startle the dull spirit suddenly With grandeur welled from unsuspected springs, -Long as the light of fulgent evenings, When from warm showers the pearly shades disband And sunset opens o'er the humid land, Shows thy veiled immanence in orient skies, -Long as pale mist and opalescent dyes Hung on far isle or vanishing mountain-crest, Fields of remote enchantment can suggest So sweet to wander in it matters nought, They hold no place but in impassioned thought, Long as one draught from a clear sky may be A scented luxury; Be thou my worship, thou my sole desire, Thy paths my pilgrimage, my sense a lyre Aeolian for thine every breath to stir; Oft when her full-blown periods recur, To see the birth of day's transparent moon Far from cramped walls may fading afternoon Find me expectant on some rising lawn; Often depressed in dewy grass at dawn, Me, from sweet slumber underneath green boughs, Ere the stars flee may forest matins rouse, Afoot when the great sun in amber floods Pours horizontal through the steaming woods And windless fumes from early chimneys start And many a cock-crow cheers the traveller's heart Eager for aught the coming day afford In hills untopped and valleys unexplored. Give me the white road into the world's ends, Lover of roadside hazard, roadside friends, Loiterer oft by upland farms to gaze On ample prospects, lost in glimmering haze At noon, or where down odorous dales twilit, Filled with low thundering of the mountain stream, Over the plain where blue seas border it The torrid coast-towns gleam. 37 I have fared too far to turn back now; my breast Burns with the lust for splendors unrevealed, Stars of midsummer, clouds out of the west, Pallid horizons, winds that valley and field Laden with joy, be ye my refuge still! What though distress and poverty assail! Though other voices chide, yours never will. The grace of a blue sky can never fail. Powers that my childhood with a spell so sweet, My youth with visions of such glory nursed, Ye have beheld, nor ever seen my feet On any venture set, but 'twas the thirst For Beauty willed them, yea, whatever be The faults I wanted wings to rise above; I am cheered yet to think how steadfastly I have been loyal to the love of Love! ~ Alan Seeger,

827: Songs COME here fond youth, whoe'er thou be, That boasts to love as well as me; And if thy breast have felt so wide a wound, Come hither and thy flame approve; I'll teach thee what it is to love, And by what marks true passion may be found. It is to be all bath'd in tears; To live upon a smile for years; To lie whole ages at a beauty's feet: To kneel, to languish and implore; And still tho' she disdain, adore: It is to do all this, and think thy sufferings sweet. It is to gaze upon her eyes With eager joy and fond surprise; Yet temper'd with such chaste and awful fear As wretches feel who wait their doom; Nor must one ruder thought presume Tho' but in whispers breath'd, to meet her ear. It is to hope, tho' hope were loft; Tho' heaven and earth thy passion crost; Tho' she were bright as sainted queens above, And thou the least and meanest swain That folds his flock upon the plain, Yet if thou dar'st not hope, thou dost not love. It is to quench thy joy in tears: To nurse strange doubts and groundless fears: If pangs of jealousy thou hast not prov'd, Tho' she were fonder and more true Than any nymph old poets drew, Oh never dream again that thou hast lov'd. If when the darling maid is gone, Thou dost not seek to be alone, Wrapt in a pleasing trance of tender woe; 116 And muse, and fold thy languid arms, Feeding thy fancy on her charms, Thou dost not love, for love is nourish'd so. If any hopes thy bosom share But those which love has planted there, Or any cares but his thy breast enthrall, Thou never yet his power hast known; Love sits on a despotic throne, And reigns a tyrant, if he reigns at all. Now if thou art so lost a thing, Here all thy tender sorrows bring, And prove whose patience longest can endure: We'll strive whose fancy shall be lost In dreams of fondest passion most; For if thou thus hast lov'd, oh! never hope a cure. S O N G II IF ever thou dist joy to bind Two hearts in equal passion join'd, O son of VENUS! hear me now, And bid FLORELLA bless my vow. If any bliss reserv'd for me Thou in the leaves of fate should'st see; If any white propitious hour, Pregnant with hoarded joys in store; Now, now the mighty treasure give, In her for whom alone I live: In sterling love pay all the sum, And I'll absolve the fates to come. In all the pride of full-blown charms Yield her, relenting, to my arms: Her bosom touch with soft desires, And let her feel what she inspires. 117 But, CUPID, if thine aid be vain The dear reluctant maid to gain; If still with cold averted eyes She dash my hopes, and scorn my sighs; O! grant ('tis all I ask of thee) That I no more may change than she; But still with duteous zeal love on, When every gleam of hope is gone. Leave me then alone to languish, Think not time can heal my anguish; Pity the woes which I endure; But never, never grant a cure. S O N G III SYLVIA Leave me, simple shepherd, leave me; Drag no more a hopeless chain: I cannot like, nor would deceive thee; Love the maid that loves again. CORIN Tho' more gentle nymphs surround me, Kindly pitying what I feel, Only you have power to wound me; SYLVIA, only you can heal. SYLVIA Corin, cease this idle teazing; Love that's forc'd is harsh and sour: If the lover be displeasing, To persist disgusts the more. CORIN 'Tis in vain, in vain to fly me, Sylvia, I will still pursue; 118 Twenty thousand times deny me, I will kneel and weep anew. SYLVIA Cupid ne'er shall make me languish, I was born averse to love; Lovers' sighs, and tears, and anguish, Mirth and pastime to me prove. CORIN Still I vow with patient duty Thus to meet your proudest scorn; You for unrelenting beauty, I for constant love was born. But the fates had not consented, Since they both did fickle prove; Of her scorn the maid repented, And the shepherd of his love. S O N G IV WHEN gentle CELIA first I knew, A breast so good, so kind, so true, Reason and taste approv'd; Pleas'd to indulge so pure a flame, I call'd it by too soft a name, And fondly thought I lov'd. Till CHLORIS came, with sad surprise I felt the light'ning of her eyes Thro' all my senses run; All glowing with resistless charms, She fill'd my breast with new alarms, I saw, and was undone. O CELIA! dear unhappy maid, Forbear the weakness to upbraid Which ought your scorn to move; I know this beauty false and vain, 119 I know she triumphs in my pain, Yet still I feel I love. Thy gentle smiles no more can please, Nor can thy softest friendship ease The torments I endure; Think what that wounded breast must feel Which truth and kindness cannot heal, Nor even thy pity cure. Oft shall I curse my iron chain, And wish again thy milder reign With long and vain regret ; All that I can, to thee I give, And could I still to reason live I were thy captain yet. But passion's wild impetuous sea Hurries me far from peace and thee ; 'Twere vain to struggle more: Thus the poor sailor slumbering lies, While swelling tides around him rise, And push his bark from shore. In vain he spreads his helpless arms, His pitying friends with fond alarms In vain deplore his state; Still far and farther from the coast, On the high surge his bark is tost, And foundering yields to fate. SONGV AS near a weeping spring reclin'd The beauteous ARAMINTA pin'd, And mourn'd a false ungrateful youth; While dying echoes caught the sound, And spread the soft complaints around Of broken vows and alter'd truth; An aged shepherd heard her moan, 120 And thus in pity's kindest tone Address'd the lost despairing maid: Cease, cease unhappy fair to grieve, For sounds, tho' sweet, can ne'er relieve A breaking heart by love betray'd. Why shouldst thou waste such precious showers, That fall like dew on wither'd flowers, But dying passion ne'er restor'd? In beauty's empire is no mean, And woman, either slave or queen, Is quickly scorn'd when not ador'd. Those liquid pearls from either eye, Which might an eastern empire buy, Unvalued here and fruitless fall; No art the season can renew When love was young, and DAMON true; No tears a wandering heart recall. Cease, cease to grieve, thy tears are vain, Should those fair orbs in drops of rain Vie with a weeping southern sky: For hearts o'ercome with love and grief All nature yields but one relief; Die, hapless ARAMINTA, die. S O N G VI WHEN first upon your tender cheek I saw the morn of beauty break With mild and chearing beam, I bow'd before your infant shrine, The earliest sighs you had were mine, And you my darling heme. I saw you in that opening morn For beauty's boundless empire born, And first confess'd your sway; And e'er your thoughts, devoid of art, 121 Could learn the value of a heart, I gave my heart away. I watch'd the dawn of every grace, And gaz'd upon that angel face, While yet 'twas safe to gaze; And fondly blest each rising charm, Nor thought such innocence could harm The peace of future days. But now despotic o'er the plains The awful noon of beauty reigns, And kneeling crowds adore; These charms arise too fiercely bright, Danger and death attend the fight, And I must hope no more. Thus to the rising God of day Their early vows the Persians pay, And bless the spreading fire; Whose glowing chariot mounting soon Pours on their heads the burning noon; They sicken, and expire. ~ Anna Laetitia Barbauld,

828: Ode To Silence Aye, but she? Your other sister and my other soul Grave Silence, lovelier Than the three loveliest maidens, what of her? Clio, not you, Not you, Calliope, Nor all your wanton line, Not Beauty's perfect self shall comfort me For Silence once departed, For her the cool-tongued, her the tranquil-hearted, Whom evermore I follow wistfully, Wandering Heaven and Earth and Hell and the four seasons through; Thalia, not you, Not you, Melpomene, Not your incomparable feet, O thin Terpsichore, I seek in this great hall, But one more pale, more pensive, most beloved of you all. I seek her from afar, I come from temples where her altars are, From groves that bear her name, Noisy with stricken victims now and sacrificial flame, And cymbals struck on high and strident faces Obstreperous in her praise They neither love nor know, A goddess of gone days, Departed long ago, Abandoning the invaded shrines and fanes Of her old sanctuary, A deity obscure and legendary, Of whom there now remains, For sages to decipher and priests to garble, Only and for a little while her letters wedged in marble, Which even now, behold, the friendly mumbling rain erases, And the inarticulate snow, Leaving at last of her least signs and traces None whatsoever, nor whither she is vanished from these places. "She will love well," I said, "If love be of that heart inhabiter, The flowers of the dead; The red anemone that with no sound 93 Moves in the wind, and from another wound That sprang, the heavily-sweet blue hyacinth, That blossoms underground, And sallow poppies, will be dear to her. And will not Silence know In the black shade of what obsidian steep Stiffens the white narcissus numb with sleep? (Seed which Demeter's daughter bore from home, Uptorn by desperate fingers long ago, Reluctant even as she, Undone Persephone, And even as she set out again to grow In twilight, in perdition's lean and inauspicious loam). She will love well," I said, "The flowers of the dead; Where dark Persephone the winter round, Uncomforted for home, uncomforted, Lacking a sunny southern slope in northern Sicily, With sullen pupils focussed on a dream, Stares on the stagnant stream That moats the unequivocable battlements of Hell, There, there will she be found, She that is Beauty veiled from men and Music in a swound." "I long for Silence as they long for breath Whose helpless nostrils drink the bitter sea; What thing can be So stout, what so redoubtable, in Death What fury, what considerable rage, if only she, Upon whose icy breast, Unquestioned, uncaressed, One time I lay, And whom always I lack, Even to this day, Being by no means from that frigid bosom weaned away, If only she therewith be given me back?" I sought her down that dolorous labyrinth, Wherein no shaft of sunlight ever fell, And in among the bloodless everywhere I sought her, but the air, Breathed many times and spent, Was fretful with a whispering discontent, 94 And questioning me, importuning me to tell Some slightest tidings of the light of day they know no more, Plucking my sleeve, the eager shades were with me where I went. I paused at every grievous door, And harked a moment, holding up my hand,—and for a space A hush was on them, while they watched my face; And then they fell a-whispering as before; So that I smiled at them and left them, seeing she was not there. I sought her, too, Among the upper gods, although I knew She was not like to be where feasting is, Nor near to Heaven's lord, Being a thing abhorred And shunned of him, although a child of his, (Not yours, not yours; to you she owes not breath, Mother of Song, being sown of Zeus upon a dream of Death). Fearing to pass unvisited some place And later learn, too late, how all the while, With her still face, She had been standing there and seen me pass, without a smile, I sought her even to the sagging board whereat The stout immortals sat; But such a laughter shook the mighty hall No one could hear me say: Had she been seen upon the Hill that day? And no one knew at all How long I stood, or when at last I sighed and went away. There is a garden lying in a lull Between the mountains and the mountainous sea, I know not where, but which a dream diurnal Paints on my lids a moment till the hull Be lifted from the kernel And Slumber fed to me. Your foot-print is not there, Mnemosene, Though it would seem a ruined place and after Your lichenous heart, being full Of broken columns, caryatides Thrown to the earth and fallen forward on their jointless knees, And urns funereal altered into dust Minuter than the ashes of the dead, And Psyche's lamp out of the earth up-thrust, 95 Dripping itself in marble wax on what was once the bed Of Love, and his young body asleep, but now is dust instead. There twists the bitter-sweet, the white wisteria Fastens its fingers in the strangling wall, And the wide crannies quicken with bright weeds; There dumbly like a worm all day the still white orchid feeds; But never an echo of your daughters' laughter Is there, nor any sign of you at all Swells fungous from the rotten bough, grey mother of Pieria! Only her shadow once upon a stone I saw,—and, lo, the shadow and the garden, too, were gone. I tell you you have done her body an ill, You chatterers, you noisy crew! She is not anywhere! I sought her in deep Hell; And through the world as well; I thought of Heaven and I sought her there; Above nor under ground Is Silence to be found, That was the very warp and woof of you, Lovely before your songs began and after they were through! Oh, say if on this hill Somewhere your sister's body lies in death, So I may follow there, and make a wreath Of my locked hands, that on her quiet breast Shall lie till age has withered them! (Ah, sweetly from the rest I see Turn and consider me Compassionate Euterpe!) "There is a gate beyond the gate of Death, Beyond the gate of everlasting Life, Beyond the gates of Heaven and Hell," she saith, "Whereon but to believe is horror! Whereon to meditate engendereth Even in deathless spirits such as I A tumult in the breath, 96 A chilling of the inexhaustible blood Even in my veins that never will be dry, And in the austere, divine monotony That is my being, the madness of an unaccustomed mood. This is her province whom you lack and seek; And seek her not elsewhere. Hell is a thoroughfare For pilgrims,—Herakles, And he that loved Euridice too well, Have walked therein; and many more than these; And witnessed the desire and the despair Of souls that passed reluctantly and sicken for the air; You, too, have entered Hell, And issued thence; but thence whereof I speak None has returned;—for thither fury brings Only the driven ghosts of them that flee before all things. Oblivion is the name of this abode: and she is there." Oh, radiant Song! Oh, gracious Memory! Be long upon this height I shall not climb again! I know the way you mean,—the little night, And the long empty day,—never to see Again the angry light, Or hear the hungry noises cry my brain! Ah, but she, Your other sister and my other soul, She shall again be mine; And I shall drink her from a silver bowl, A chilly thin green wine, Not bitter to the taste, Not sweet, Not of your press, oh, restless, clamorous nine,— To foam beneath the frantic hoofs of mirth— But savoring faintly of the acid earth, And trod by pensive feet From perfect clusters ripened without haste Out of the urgent heat In some clear glimmering vaulted twilight under the odorous vine . Lift up your lyres! Sing on! 97 But as for me, I seek your sister whither she is gone. ~ Edna St. Vincent Millay,

829: The Rape Of The Lock: Canto 4 But anxious cares the pensive nymph oppress'd, And secret passions labour'd in her breast. Not youthful kings in battle seiz'd alive, Not scornful virgins who their charms survive, Not ardent lovers robb'd of all their bliss, Not ancient ladies when refus'd a kiss, Not tyrants fierce that unrepenting die, Not Cynthia when her manteau's pinn'd awry, E'er felt such rage, resentment, and despair, As thou, sad virgin! for thy ravish'd hair. For, that sad moment, when the Sylphs withdrew, And Ariel weeping from Belinda flew, Umbriel, a dusky, melancholy sprite, As ever sullied the fair face of light, Down to the central earth, his proper scene, Repair'd to search the gloomy cave of Spleen. Swift on his sooty pinions flits the Gnome, And in a vapour reach'd the dismal dome. No cheerful breeze this sullen region knows, The dreaded East is all the wind that blows. Here, in a grotto, shelter'd close from air, And screen'd in shades from day's detested glare, She sighs for ever on her pensive bed, Pain at her side, and Megrim at her head. Two handmaids wait the throne: alike in place, But diff'ring far in figure and in face. Here stood Ill Nature like an ancient maid, Her wrinkled form in black and white array'd; With store of pray'rs, for mornings, nights, and noons, Her hand is fill'd; her bosom with lampoons. There Affectation, with a sickly mien, Shows in her cheek the roses of eighteen, Practis'd to lisp, and hang the head aside, Faints into airs, and languishes with pride, On the rich quilt sinks with becoming woe, 234 Wrapp'd in a gown, for sickness, and for show. The fair ones feel such maladies as these, When each new night-dress gives a new disease. A constant vapour o'er the palace flies; Strange phantoms, rising as the mists arise; Dreadful, as hermit's dreams in haunted shades, Or bright, as visions of expiring maids. Now glaring fiends, and snakes on rolling spires, Pale spectres, gaping tombs, and purple fires: Now lakes of liquid gold, Elysian scenes, And crystal domes, and angels in machines. Unnumber'd throngs on ev'ry side are seen, Of bodies chang'd to various forms by Spleen. Here living teapots stand, one arm held out, One bent; the handle this, and that the spout: A pipkin there, like Homer's tripod walks; Here sighs a jar, and there a goose pie talks; Men prove with child, as pow'rful fancy works, And maids turn'd bottles, call aloud for corks. Safe pass'd the Gnome through this fantastic band, A branch of healing spleenwort in his hand. Then thus address'd the pow'r: "Hail, wayward Queen! Who rule the sex to fifty from fifteen: Parent of vapours and of female wit, Who give th' hysteric, or poetic fit, On various tempers act by various ways, Make some take physic, others scribble plays; Who cause the proud their visits to delay, And send the godly in a pet to pray. A nymph there is, that all thy pow'r disdains, And thousands more in equal mirth maintains. But oh! if e'er thy gnome could spoil a grace, Or raise a pimple on a beauteous face, Like citron waters matrons' cheeks inflame, Or change complexions at a losing game; If e'er with airy horns I planted heads, Or rumpled petticoats, or tumbled beds, Or caus'd suspicion when no soul was rude, Or discompos'd the head-dress of a prude, 235 Or e'er to costive lap-dog gave disease, Which not the tears of brightest eyes could ease: Hear me, and touch Belinda with chagrin; That single act gives half the world the spleen." The goddess with a discontented air Seems to reject him, though she grants his pray'r. A wondrous bag with both her hands she binds, Like that where once Ulysses held the winds; There she collects the force of female lungs, Sighs, sobs, and passions, and the war of tongues. A vial next she fills with fainting fears, Soft sorrows, melting griefs, and flowing tears. The Gnome rejoicing bears her gifts away, Spreads his black wings, and slowly mounts to day. Sunk in Thalestris' arms the nymph he found, Her eyes dejected and her hair unbound. Full o'er their heads the swelling bag he rent, And all the Furies issu'd at the vent. Belinda burns with more than mortal ire, And fierce Thalestris fans the rising fire. "Oh wretched maid!" she spread her hands, and cried, (While Hampton's echoes, "Wretched maid!" replied, "Was it for this you took such constant care The bodkin, comb, and essence to prepare? For this your locks in paper durance bound, For this with tort'ring irons wreath'd around? For this with fillets strain'd your tender head, And bravely bore the double loads of lead? Gods! shall the ravisher display your hair, While the fops envy, and the ladies stare! Honour forbid! at whose unrivall'd shrine Ease, pleasure, virtue, all, our sex resign. Methinks already I your tears survey, Already hear the horrid things they say, Already see you a degraded toast, And all your honour in a whisper lost! How shall I, then, your helpless fame defend? 'Twill then be infamy to seem your friend! And shall this prize, th' inestimable prize, Expos'd through crystal to the gazing eyes, 236 And heighten'd by the diamond's circling rays, On that rapacious hand for ever blaze? Sooner shall grass in Hyde Park Circus grow, And wits take lodgings in the sound of Bow; Sooner let earth, air, sea, to chaos fall, Men, monkeys, lap-dogs, parrots, perish all!" She said; then raging to Sir Plume repairs, And bids her beau demand the precious hairs: (Sir Plume, of amber snuff-box justly vain, And the nice conduct of a clouded cane) With earnest eyes, and round unthinking face, He first the snuffbox open'd, then the case, And thus broke out--"My Lord, why, what the devil? Z{-}{-}{-}ds! damn the lock! 'fore Gad, you must be civil! Plague on't! 'tis past a jest--nay prithee, pox! Give her the hair"--he spoke, and rapp'd his box. "It grieves me much," replied the peer again, "Who speaks so well should ever speak in vain. But by this lock, this sacred lock I swear, (Which never more shall join its parted hair; Which never more its honours shall renew, Clipp'd from the lovely head where late it grew) That while my nostrils draw the vital air, This hand, which won it, shall for ever wear." He spoke, and speaking, in proud triumph spread The long-contended honours of her head. But Umbriel, hateful gnome! forbears not so; He breaks the vial whence the sorrows flow. Then see! the nymph in beauteous grief appears, Her eyes half-languishing, half-drown'd in tears; On her heav'd bosom hung her drooping head, Which, with a sigh, she rais'd; and thus she said: "For ever curs'd be this detested day, Which snatch'd my best, my fav'rite curl away! Happy! ah ten times happy, had I been, If Hampton Court these eyes had never seen! Yet am not I the first mistaken maid, By love of courts to num'rous ills betray'd. 237 Oh had I rather unadmir'd remain'd In some lone isle, or distant northern land; Where the gilt chariot never marks the way, Where none learn ombre, none e'er taste bohea! There kept my charms conceal'd from mortal eye, Like roses, that in deserts bloom and die. What mov'd my mind with youthful lords to roam? Oh had I stay'd, and said my pray'rs at home! 'Twas this, the morning omens seem'd to tell, Thrice from my trembling hand the patch-box fell; The tott'ring china shook without a wind, Nay, Poll sat mute, and Shock was most unkind! A Sylph too warn'd me of the threats of fate, In mystic visions, now believ'd too late! See the poor remnants of these slighted hairs! My hands shall rend what ev'n thy rapine spares: These, in two sable ringlets taught to break, Once gave new beauties to the snowy neck. The sister-lock now sits uncouth, alone, And in its fellow's fate foresees its own; Uncurl'd it hangs, the fatal shears demands And tempts once more thy sacrilegious hands. Oh hadst thou, cruel! been content to seize Hairs less in sight, or any hairs but these!" ~ Alexander Pope,

830: Dedication To Churchill's Sermons. The manuscript of this unfinished poem was found among the few papers Churchill left behind him. Health to great Glo'ster!--from a man unknown, Who holds thy health as dearly as his own, Accept this greeting--nor let modest fear Call up one maiden blush--I mean not here To wound with flattery; 'tis a villain's art, And suits not with the frankness of my heart. Truth best becomes an orthodox divine, And, spite of Hell, that character is mine: To speak e'en bitter truths I cannot fear; But truth, my lord, is panegyric here. Health to great Glo'ster!--nor, through love of ease, Which all priests love, let this address displease. I ask no favour, not one _note_ I crave, And when this busy brain rests in the grave, (For till that time it never can have rest) I will not trouble you with one bequest. Some humbler friend, my mortal journey done, More near in blood, a nephew or a son, In that dread hour executor I'll leave, For I, alas! have many to receive; To give, but little.--To great Glo'ster health! Nor let thy true and proper love of wealth Here take a false alarm--in purse though poor, In spirit I'm right proud, nor can endure The mention of a bribe--thy pocket's free: I, though a dedicator, scorn a fee. Let thy own offspring all thy fortunes share; I would not Allen rob, nor Allen's heir. Think not,--a thought unworthy thy great soul, Which pomps of this world never could control, Which never offer'd up at Power's vain shrine,-Think not that pomp and power can work on mine. 'Tis not thy name, though that indeed is great, 'Tis not the tinsel trumpery of state, 20 'Tis not thy title, Doctor though thou art, 'Tis not thy mitre, which hath won my heart. State is a farce; names are but empty things, Degrees are bought, and, by mistaken kings, Titles are oft misplaced; mitres, which shine So bright in other eyes, are dull in mine, Unless set off by virtue; who deceives Under the sacred sanction of lawn sleeves Enhances guilt, commits a double sin; So fair without, and yet so foul within. 'Tis not thy outward form, thy easy mien, Thy sweet complacency, thy brow serene, Thy open front, thy love-commanding eye, Where fifty Cupids, as in ambush, lie, Which can from sixty to sixteen impart The force of Love, and point his blunted dart; 'Tis not thy face, though that by Nature's made An index to thy soul; though there display'd We see thy mind at large, and through thy skin Peeps out that courtesy which dwells within; 'Tis not thy birth, for that is low as mine, Around our heads no lineal glories shine-But what is birth,--when, to delight mankind, Heralds can make those arms they cannot find, When thou art to thyself, thy sire unknown, A whole Welsh genealogy alone? No; 'tis thy inward man, thy proper worth, Thy right just estimation here on earth, Thy life and doctrine uniformly join'd, And flowing from that wholesome source, thy mind; Thy known contempt of Persecution's rod, Thy charity for man, thy love of God, Thy faith in Christ, so well approved 'mongst men, Which now give life and utterance to my pen. Thy virtue, not thy rank, demands my lays; 'Tis not the Bishop, but the Saint, I praise: Raised by that theme, I soar on wings more strong, And burst forth into praise withheld too long. Much did I wish, e'en whilst I kept those sheep Which, for my curse, I was ordain'd to keep,-Ordain'd, alas! to keep, through need, not choice, Those sheep which never heard their shepherd's voice, 21 Which did not know, yet would not learn their way, Which stray'd themselves, yet grieved that I should stray; Those sheep which my good father (on his bier Let filial duty drop the pious tear) Kept well, yet starved himself, e'en at that time Whilst I was pure and innocent of rhyme, Whilst, sacred Dulness ever in my view, Sleep at my bidding crept from pew to pew,-Much did I wish, though little could I hope, A friend in him who was the friend of Pope. His hand, said I, my youthful steps shall guide, And lead me safe where thousands fall beside; His temper, his experience, shall control, And hush to peace the tempest of my soul; His judgment teach me, from the critic school, How not to err, and how to err by rule; Instruct me, mingle profit with delight, Where Pope was wrong, where Shakspeare was not right; Where they are justly praised, and where, through whim, How little's due to them, how much to him. Raised 'bove the slavery of common rules, Of common-sense, of modern, ancient schools, Those feelings banish'd which mislead us all, Fools as we are, and which we Nature call, He by his great example might impart A better something, and baptize it Art; He, all the feelings of my youth forgot, Might show me what is taste by what is not; By him supported, with a proper pride, I might hold all mankind as fools beside; He (should a world, perverse and peevish grown, Explode his maxims and assert their own) Might teach me, like himself, to be content, And let their folly be their punishment; Might, like himself, teach his adopted son, 'Gainst all the world, to quote a Warburton. Fool that I was! could I so much deceive My soul with lying hopes? could I believe That he, the servant of his Maker sworn, The servant of his Saviour, would be torn From their embrace, and leave that dear employ, The cure of souls, his duty and his joy, 22 For toys like mine, and waste his precious time, On which so much depended, for a rhyme? Should he forsake the task he undertook, Desert his flock, and break his pastoral crook? Should he (forbid it, Heaven!) so high in place, So rich in knowledge, quit the work of grace, And, idly wandering o'er the Muses' hill, Let the salvation of mankind stand still? Far, far be that from thee--yes, far from thee Be such revolt from grace, and far from me The will to think it--guilt is in the thought-Not so, not so, hath Warburton been taught, Not so learn'd Christ. Recall that day, well known, When (to maintain God's honour, and his own) He call'd blasphemers forth; methinks I now See stern Rebuke enthroned on his brow, And arm'd with tenfold terrors--from his tongue, Where fiery zeal and Christian fury hung, Methinks I hear the deep-toned thunders roll, And chill with horror every sinner's soul, In vain they strive to fly--flight cannot save. And Potter trembles even in his grave-With all the conscious pride of innocence, Methinks I hear him, in his own defence, Bear witness to himself, whilst all men knew, By gospel rules his witness to be true. O glorious man! thy zeal I must commend, Though it deprived me of my dearest friend; The real motives of thy anger known, Wilkes must the justice of that anger own; And, could thy bosom have been bared to view, Pitied himself, in turn had pitied you. Bred to the law, you wisely took the gown, Which I, like Demas, foolishly laid down; Hence double strength our Holy Mother drew, Me she got rid of, and made prize of you. I, like an idle truant fond of play, Doting on toys, and throwing gems away, Grasping at shadows, let the substance slip; But you, my lord, renounced attorneyship With better purpose, and more noble aim, And wisely played a more substantial game: 23 Nor did Law mourn, bless'd in her younger son, For Mansfield does what Glo'ster would have done. Doctor! Dean! Bishop! Glo'ster! and My Lord! If haply these high titles may accord With thy meek spirit; if the barren sound Of pride delights thee, to the topmost round Of Fortune's ladder got, despise not one For want of smooth hypocrisy undone, Who, far below, turns up his wondering eye, And, without envy, sees thee placed so high: Let not thy brain (as brains less potent might) Dizzy, confounded, giddy with the height, Turn round, and lose distinction, lose her skill And wonted powers of knowing good from ill, Of sifting truth from falsehood, friends from foes; Let Glo'ster well remember how he rose, Nor turn his back on men who made him great; Let him not, gorged with power, and drunk with state, Forget what once he was, though now so high, How low, how mean, and full as poor as I. ~ Charles Churchill,

831: A Une Madone (To A Madonna) Ex-voto dans le goût espagnol Je veux bâtir pour toi, Madone, ma maîtresse, Un autel souterrain au fond de ma détresse, Et creuser dans le coin le plus noir de mon coeur, Loin du désir mondain et du regard moqueur, Une niche, d'azur et d'or tout émaillée, Où tu te dresseras, Statue émerveillée. Avec mes Vers polis, treillis d'un pur métal Savamment constellé de rimes de cristal Je ferai pour ta tête une énorme Couronne; Et dans ma Jalousie, ô mortelle Madone Je saurai te tailler un Manteau, de façon Barbare, roide et lourd, et doublé de soupçon, Qui, comme une guérite, enfermera tes charmes, Non de Perles brodé, mais de toutes mes Larmes! Ta Robe, ce sera mon Désir, frémissant, Onduleux, mon Désir qui monte et qui descend, Aux pointes se balance, aux vallons se repose, Et revêt d'un baiser tout ton corps blanc et rose. Je te ferai de mon Respect de beaux Souliers De satin, par tes pieds divins humiliés, Qui, les emprisonnant dans une molle étreinte Comme un moule fidèle en garderont l'empreinte. Si je ne puis, malgré tout mon art diligent Pour Marchepied tailler une Lune d'argent Je mettrai le Serpent qui me mord les entrailles Sous tes talons, afin que tu foules et railles Reine victorieuse et féconde en rachats Ce monstre tout gonflé de haine et de crachats. Tu verras mes Pensers, rangés comme les Cierges Devant l'autel fleuri de la Reine des Vierges Etoilant de reflets le plafond peint en bleu, Te regarder toujours avec des yeux de feu; Et comme tout en moi te chérit et t'admire, Tout se fera Benjoin, Encens, Oliban, Myrrhe, Et sans cesse vers toi, sommet blanc et neigeux, En Vapeurs montera mon Esprit orageux. 14 Enfin, pour compléter ton rôle de Marie, Et pour mêler l'amour avec la barbarie, Volupté noire! des sept Péchés capitaux, Bourreau plein de remords, je ferai sept Couteaux Bien affilés, et comme un jongleur insensible, Prenant le plus profond de ton amour pour cible, Je les planterai tous dans ton Coeur pantelant, Dans ton Coeur sanglotant, dans ton Coeur ruisselant! To a Madonna Votive Offering in the Spanish Style I want to build for you, Madonna, my mistress, An underground altar in the depths of my grief And carve out in the darkest corner of my heart, Far from worldly desires and mocking looks, A niche, all enameled with azure and with gold, Where you shall stand, amazed Statue; With my polished Verses as a trellis of pure metal Studded cunningly with rhymes of crystal, I shall make for your head an immense Crown, And from my Jealousy, O mortal Madonna, I shall know how to cut a cloak in a fashion, Barbaric, heavy, and stiff, lined with suspicion, Which, like a sentry-box, will enclose your charms; Embroidered not with Pearls, but with all of my Tears! Your Gown will be my Desire, quivering, Undulant, my Desire which rises and which falls, Balances on the crests, reposes in the troughs, And clothes with a kiss your white and rose body. Of my Self-respect I shall make you Slippers Of satin which, humbled by your divine feet, Will imprison them in a gentle embrace, And assume their form like a faithful mold; If I can't, in spite of all my painstaking art, Carve a Moon of silver for your Pedestal, I shall put the Serpent which is eating my heart Under your heels, so that you may trample and mock, 15 Triumphant queen, fecund in redemptions, That monster all swollen with hatred and spittle. You will see my Thoughts like Candles in rows Before the flower-decked altar of the Queen of Virgins, Starring with their reflections the azure ceiling, And watching you always with eyes of fire. And since my whole being admires and loves you, All will become Storax, Benzoin, Frankincense, Myrrh, And ceaselessly toward you, white, snowy pinnacle, My turbulent spirit will rise like a vapor. Finally, to complete your role of Mary, And to mix love with inhumanity, Infamous pleasure! of the seven deadly sins, I, torturer full of remorse, shall make seven Well sharpened Daggers and, like a callous juggler, Taking your deepest love for a target, I shall plant them all in your panting Heart, In your sobbing Heart, in your bleeding Heart! — Translated by William Aggeler To a Madonna (Ex Voto in Spanish Style) I'd build, Madonna, love, for my belief, An altar in the dim crypt of my grief, And in the darkest comer of my heart, From mortal lust and mockery far apart, Scoop you a niche, with gold and azure glaze, Where you would stand in wonderment and gaze, With my pure verses trellised, and all round In constellated rhymes of crystal bound: And with a huge tiara richly crowned. Out of the Jealousy which rules my passion, Mortal Madonna, I a cloak would fashion, Barbarous, stiff, and heavy with my doubt, Whereon as in a fourm you would fill out And mould your lair. Of tears, not pearls, would be 16 The sparkle of its rich embroidery: Your robe would be my lust, with waving flow, Poising on tips, in valleys lying low, And clothing, in one kiss, coral and snow. In my Respect (for satin) you'll be shod Which your white feet would humble to the clod, While prisoning their flesh with tender hold It kept their shape imprinted like a mould. If for a footstool to support your shoon, For all my art, I could not get the moon, I'd throw the serpent, that devours my vitals Under your trampling heels for his requitals, Victorious queen, to spurn, bruise, and belittle That monstrous worm blown-up with hate and spittle. Round you my thoughts like candles should be seen Around the flowered shrine of the virgins' Queen, Reflected on a roof that's painted blue, And aiming all their golden eyes at you. Since nought is in me that you do not stir, All will be incense, benjamin, and myrrh, And up to you, white peak, in clouds will soar My stormy soul, in rapture, to adore. In fine, your role of Mary to perfect And mingle barbarism with respect — Of seven deadly sins, O black delight! Remorseful torturer, to show my sleight, I'll forge and sharpen seven deadly swords And like a callous juggler on the boards, Taking it for my target, I would dart Them deep into your streaming, sobbing heart. — Translated by Roy Campbell À une Madone I'll build for thee, Madonna, mistress mine, deep in my crypt of woe a secret shrine; — carve in the blackest corner of my heart, from worldly lust and mocking eyes apart, a niche, with gold and blue enamel blent, 17 to hold thy statue filled with wonderment. my polished verse, of virgin metal hard with crystal rhymes artistically starred, shall raise for thee a towering diadem; and from my jealousy I'll cut and hem a mangle, mortal Lady mine, designed as 'twere a sentry-box, stiff, heavy, lined with barbs of keen suspicion and with fears, embroidered, not with pearls, but all my tears! to make thy robe I'll give thee my desire that rises, falls and quivers like a fire, clings to each summit, rests in each abyss, and clothes thy rosy body with a kiss. of my respect I'll make thee buskins fine of satin, humbled by thy feet divine, to prison them in soft embraces warm and like a faithful mould to preserve their form. then if my art is powerless to cut thy pedestal, a silver moon, I'll put beneath thy heel the serpent in my heart for thee to bruise and mock, because thou art the queen of my redemption, conquering all, even that monster spewing hate and gall. thine altar, like the Virgin's, shall be twined with flowers, and like tapers all aligned, my thoughts shall light the niche: from those blue skies, watching thee always with their fiery eyes; and since thou holdest all the love within my heart, as incense, myrrh and benjamin, in clouds forevermore to thee, its goal, o snowy peak, shall rise my stormy soul. and last, to make thee Mary utterly, commingling love with savage cruelty, — black joy! — with all the seven capital sins I'll forge, remorsefully, seven javelins knife-sharp, and like a juggler nonchalant, taking thy love as target, I shall plant deep in thy heart convulsed each deadly dart 18 — thy panting heart, thy sobbing, streaming heart! — Translated by Lewis Piaget Shanks ~ Charles Baudelaire,

832: After Sixty Years RING, bells! flags, fly! and let the great crowd roar Its ecstasy. Let the hid heart in prayer Lift up your name. God bless you evermore, Lady, who have the noblest crown to wear That ever woman wore. A jewel, in the front of time, shall blaze This day, of all your days commemorate; With Time's white bays your brows are laureate, And England's love shall garland all your days. When England's crown, to Love's acclaim, was laid On the soft brightness of a maiden's hair, Amid delight, Love trembled, half afraid, To give that little head such weight to bear,-Bind on so slight a maid A kingdom's purple--bid her hands hold high The sceptre and the heavy orb of power, To give to youth and beauty for a dower Care and a crown, sorrow and sovereignty. But from our hearts sprang an intenser flame When loyal Love met tender Love half way, And, in love's script, wrote on the scroll of fame, Entwined with all the splendour of that day, The letters of her name. Then as fair roses grow 'mid leaves of green, Love amid loyalty grew strong and close, To hedge a pleasaunce round our Royal rose, Our sovereign maiden flower, our child, our Queen. The trumpets spake--in sonorous triumph shout, Their speech found echo in the hundred guns; From countless towers the answering bells rang out, And England's heart spoke clamorous, through her sons, The exulting land throughout. Down streets ablaze with light the flags unfurled, 51 Along dark, lonely hills the joy-fires crept, And eager swords within their scabbards leapt To guard our Lady and Queen against the world. Those swords are rusted now. Good men and true Dust in the dust are laid who held her dear; But from their grave the bright flower springs anew, Which for her festival we bring her here, The long years' meed and due; The bud of homage grafted on chivalry. God took the souls that shrined the jewel of love, But made their sons inheritors thereof, In endless gold entail of loyalty. Time, compensating life, the fruit bestowed When in spent perfume passed the flower of youth; Her feet were set upon the upward road, Her face was turned towards the star of truth That in her soul abode. With youth the maid's bright brow was garlanded But richer crowns adorn the dear white hair; The gathered love of all the years lies there, In coronal benediction on her head. She is of our blood, for hath not she, too, met The angels of delight and of despair? Does not she, too, remember and forget How bitter or how bright the lost days were? Her eyes have tears made wet; She has seen joy unveilèd even as we, Has laid upon cold clay the heart-warm kiss, She has known Sorrow for the king he is; She has held little children on her knee. Mother, dear Mother, these your children rise And call you blessèd, and shall we not, too, Who are your children in the greater wise, And love you for our land and her for you? 52 The blessing sanctifies Your children as they breathe it at your knees, And, bringing little gifts from very far, Where the great nurseries of your Empire are, Your children's blessings throng from over seas. On Love's spread wings, and over leagues of space, Homage is borne from far-off sun-steeped lands; From many a domed mysterious Eastern place, Where Secresy holds Time between her hands, The children of your race Reach English hands towards your English throne; And from the far South turn blue English eyes, That never saw the blue of English skies, Yet call you Mother, and your land their own. Where 'mid great trees the mighty waters flow In arrogant submission to your sway, In fur of price your northern hunters go, And shafts of ardent greeting fly your way Across the splendid snow; And isles that with their coral, safe and small, Rock in the cradle of the tropic seas, In soft, strange speech join in the litanies That pride and prayer breathe at your festival. All round the world, on every far-off sea, In wind-ploughed oceans and in sun-kissed bays, By every busy wharf and chattering quay, Some cantle of your Empire sails or stays-Flaunts your supremacy Against the winds of all the world, and flies Your flag triumphant between blue and blue, Blazons to sun and star the name of you, And spreads your glory between seas and skies, There is no cottage garden, sunny-sweet, There is no pasture where our shepherds tend 53 Their quiet flocks, no red-roofed village street, But holds for you the love-wish of a friend, Blent with high homage meet; No little farm among the cornfields lone, No little cot upon the uplands bare, But hears to-day in blessing and in prayer One name, Victoria, and that name your own. From the vast cities where the giant's might, Pauseless, resistless, moves by night and day, From hidden mines where day is one with night, From weary lives whose days and nights are grey And empty of delight, From lives that rhyme to sunshine and the spring, From happiness at flood and hope at ebb, Rose the magnificent and mingled web That floats, your banner, at your thanksgiving. Throned on the surety of a splendid past, With present glory clothed as with the sun, Crowned with the future's hopes, you know at last What treasure from the years your life has won; Behold, your hands hold fast The moon of Empire, and its sway controls The tides of war and peace, while in those hands Lies tender homage out of all the lands Against whose feet your furthest ocean rolls. How seems your life, looked back at through the years? Much love, much sorrow, dead desires, lost dreams, A great life lived out greatly; hidden tears, And smiles for daily wear; strong plans and schemes, And mighty hopes and fears; War in the South and murder in the East, And England's heart-throbs echoed by your heart When loss, and labour, and sorrow were her part, Or when Fate bade her to some flower-crowned feast. 54 Red battle-fields whereon your soldiers died, Green pastoral fields saved by the blood of these, Duty that bade mere sorrow stand aside, And love transforming anguish into ease; Long longing satisfied, Great secrets wrenched from Nature's grudging breast, The fruit of knowledge plucked for all to eat,-These have you known, Life's circle is complete, And, knowing these, you know what is Life's best: The dear small secrets of our common life, The English woods and hills, the English home, The common joys and griefs of Mother and wife, Joy coming, going--griefs that go and come, Soul's peace amid world's strife; Hours when the Queen's cares leave the woman free; Dear friendships, where the friend forgets the Queen And stoops to wear a dearer, homelier mien, And be more loved than mere Queens rise to be. And, in your hour of triumph, when you shine The centre of our triumph's blazing star, And, gazing down your long life's lustrous line, Behold how great your life-long glories are, Yet, in your heart's veiled shrine, No splendour of all splendours that have been Will brim your eyes with tremulous thanksgivings, But little memories of little things-The treasures of the woman, not the Queen. Yet, Queen, because the love of you hath wound A golden girdle all about the earth, Because your name is as a trumpet sound To call toward you men of English birth From the world's outmost bound, Because old kinsmen, long estranged from home, Come, with old foes, to greet you, friend and kin, With kindly eyes behold your guests come in, See from afar the long procession come! 55 No Emperor in Rome's Imperial days Knew ever such a triumph day as this, Though captive kings bore chains along his ways, Though tribute from the furthest isles was his, With pageant and with praise. For you--free kings and free republics grace Your triumph, and across the conquered waves Come gifts from friends, not tributes wrung from slaves, And praise kneels, clothed in love, before your face. Ring, bells! flags, fly! and let the great crowd roar Its ecstasy! Let the hid heart in prayer Lift up your name! God bless you evermore, Lady, who have the noblest crown to wear That ever monarch wore. For, 'mid this day's triumphal voluntaries, Your name shines like the splendour of the sun, Because your name with England's name is one, As Hers, thank God! is one with Liberty's. ~ Edith Nesbit,

833: Tamerlane Kind solace in a dying hour! Such, father, is not (now) my themeI will not madly deem that power Of Earth may shrive me of the sin Unearthly pride hath revell'd inI have no time to dote or dream: You call it hope- that fire of fire! It is but agony of desire: If I can hope- Oh God! I canIts fount is holier- more divineI would not call thee fool, old man, But such is not a gift of thine. Know thou the secret of a spirit Bow'd from its wild pride into shame. O yearning heart! I did inherit Thy withering portion with the fame, The searing glory which hath shone Amid the jewels of my throne, Halo of Hell! and with a pain Not Hell shall make me fear againO craving heart, for the lost flowers And sunshine of my summer hours! The undying voice of that dead time, With its interminable chime, Rings, in the spirit of a spell, Upon thy emptiness- a knell. I have not always been as now: The fever'd diadem on my brow I claim'd and won usurpinglyHath not the same fierce heirdom given Rome to the Caesar- this to me? The heritage of a kingly mind, And a proud spirit which hath striven Triumphantly with human kind. On mountain soil I first drew life: The mists of the Taglay have shed 67 Nightly their dews upon my head, And, I believe, the winged strife And tumult of the headlong air Have nestled in my very hair. So late from Heaven- that dew- it fell (Mid dreams of an unholy night) Upon me with the touch of Hell, While the red flashing of the light From clouds that hung, like banners, o'er, Appeared to my half-closing eye The pageantry of monarchy, And the deep trumpet-thunder's roar Came hurriedly upon me, telling Of human battle, where my voice, My own voice, silly child!- was swelling (O! how my spirit would rejoice, And leap within me at the cry) The battle-cry of Victory! The rain came down upon my head Unshelter'd- and the heavy wind Rendered me mad and deaf and blind. It was but man, I thought, who shed Laurels upon me: and the rushThe torrent of the chilly air Gurgled within my ear the crush Of empires- with the captive's prayerThe hum of suitors- and the tone Of flattery 'round a sovereign's throne. My passions, from that hapless hour, Usurp'd a tyranny which men Have deem'd, since I have reach'd to power, My innate nature- be it so: But father, there liv'd one who, then, Then- in my boyhood- when their fire Burn'd with a still intenser glow, (For passion must, with youth, expire) E'en then who knew this iron heart In woman's weakness had a part. 68 I have no words- alas!- to tell The loveliness of loving well! Nor would I now attempt to trace The more than beauty of a face Whose lineaments, upon my mind, Are- shadows on th' unstable wind: Thus I remember having dwelt Some page of early lore upon, With loitering eye, till I have felt The letters- with their meaning- melt To fantasies- with none. O, she was worthy of all love! Love- as in infancy was mine'Twas such as angel minds above Might envy; her young heart the shrine On which my every hope and thought Were incense- then a goodly gift, For they were childish and uprightPure- as her young example taught: Why did I leave it, and, adrift, Trust to the fire within, for light? We grew in age- and love- together, Roaming the forest, and the wild; My breast her shield in wintry weatherAnd when the friendly sunshine smil'd, And she would mark the opening skies, I saw no Heaven- but in her eyes. Young Love's first lesson is- the heart: For 'mid that sunshine, and those smiles, When, from our little cares apart, And laughing at her girlish wiles, I'd throw me on her throbbing breast, And pour my spirit out in tearsThere was no need to speak the restNo need to quiet any fears Of her- who ask'd no reason why, But turn'd on me her quiet eye! Yet more than worthy of the love 69 My spirit struggled with, and strove, When, on the mountain peak, alone, Ambition lent it a new toneI had no being- but in thee: The world, and all it did contain In the earth- the air- the seaIts joy- its little lot of pain That was new pleasure- the ideal, Dim vanities of dreams by nightAnd dimmer nothings which were real(Shadows- and a more shadowy light!) Parted upon their misty wings, And, so, confusedly, became Thine image, and- a name- a name! Two separate- yet most intimate things. I was ambitious- have you known The passion, father? You have not: A cottager, I mark'd a throne Of half the world as all my own, And murmur'd at such lowly lotBut, just like any other dream, Upon the vapour of the dew My own had past, did not the beam Of beauty which did while it thro' The minute- the hour- the day- oppress My mind with double loveliness. We walk'd together on the crown Of a high mountain which look'd down Afar from its proud natural towers Of rock and forest, on the hillsThe dwindled hills! begirt with bowers, And shouting with a thousand rills. I spoke to her of power and pride, But mystically- in such guise That she might deem it nought beside The moment's converse; in her eyes I read, perhaps too carelesslyA mingled feeling with my own- 70 The flush on her bright cheek, to me Seem'd to become a queenly throne Too well that I should let it be Light in the wilderness alone. I wrapp'd myself in grandeur then, And donn'd a visionary crownYet it was not that Fantasy Had thrown her mantle over meBut that, among the rabble- men, Lion ambition is chained downAnd crouches to a keeper's handNot so in deserts where the grandThe wild- the terrible conspire With their own breath to fan his fire. Look 'round thee now on Samarcand! Is not she queen of Earth? her pride Above all cities? in her hand Their destinies? in all beside Of glory which the world hath known Stands she not nobly and alone? Falling- her veriest stepping-stone Shall form the pedestal of a throneAnd who her sovereign? Timour- he Whom the astonished people saw Striding o'er empires haughtily A diadem'd outlaw! O, human love! thou spirit given On Earth, of all we hope in Heaven! Which fall'st into the soul like rain Upon the Siroc-wither'd plain, And, failing in thy power to bless, But leav'st the heart a wilderness! Idea! which bindest life around With music of so strange a sound, And beauty of so wild a birthFarewell! for I have won the Earth. When Hope, the eagle that tower'd, could see No cliff beyond him in the sky, 71 His pinions were bent droopinglyAnd homeward turn'd his soften'd eye. 'Twas sunset: when the sun will part There comes a sullenness of heart To him who still would look upon The glory of the summer sun. That soul will hate the ev'ning mist, So often lovely, and will list To the sound of the coming darkness (known To those whose spirits hearken) as one Who, in a dream of night, would fly But cannot from a danger nigh. What tho' the moon- the white moon Shed all the splendour of her noon, Her smile is chilly, and her beam, In that time of dreariness, will seem (So like you gather in your breath) A portrait taken after death. And boyhood is a summer sun Whose waning is the dreariest oneFor all we live to know is known, And all we seek to keep hath flownLet life, then, as the day-flower, fall With the noon-day beauty- which is all. I reach'd my home- my home no more For all had flown who made it so. I pass'd from out its mossy door, And, tho' my tread was soft and low, A voice came from the threshold stone Of one whom I had earlier knownO, I defy thee, Hell, to show On beds of fire that burn below, A humbler heart- a deeper woe. Father, I firmly do believeI know- for Death, who comes for me From regions of the blest afar, Where there is nothing to deceive, Hath left his iron gate ajar, And rays of truth you cannot see 72 Are flashing thro' EternityI do believe that Eblis hath A snare in every human pathElse how, when in the holy grove I wandered of the idol, Love, Who daily scents his snowy wings With incense of burnt offerings From the most unpolluted things, Whose pleasant bowers are yet so riven Above with trellis'd rays from Heaven, No mote may shun- no tiniest flyThe lightning of his eagle eyeHow was it that Ambition crept, Unseen, amid the revels there, Till growing bold, he laughed and leapt In the tangles of Love's very hair? ~ Edgar Allan Poe,

834: The Singing Of The Magnificat A LEGEND IN midst of wide green pasture-lands, cut through By lines of alders bordering deep-banked streams, Where bulrushes and yellow iris grew, And rest and peace, and all the flowers of dreams, The Abbey stood--so still, it seemed a part Of the marsh-country's almost pulseless heart. Where grey-green willows fringed the stream and pool, The lazy meek-faced cattle strayed to graze, Sheep in the meadows cropped the grasses cool, And silver fish shone through the watery ways, And many a load of fruit and load of corn Into the Abbey storehouses was borne. Yet though so much they had of life's good things, The monks but held them as a sacred trust, Lent from the storehouse of the King of kings Till they, His stewards, should crumble back to dust. 'Not as our own,' they said, 'but as the Lord's, All that the stream yields, or the land affords.' And all the villages and hamlets near Knew the monks' wealth, and how their wealth was spent. In tribulation, sickness, want, or fear, First to the Abbey all the peasants went, Certain to find a welcome, and to be Helped in the hour of their extremity. When plague or sickness smote the people sore, The Brothers prayed beside the dying bed, And nursed the sick back into health once more, And through the horror and the danger said: 'How good is God, Who has such love for us, 379 He lets us tend His suffering children thus!' They in their simple ways and works were glad: Yet all men must have sorrows of their own. And so a bitter grief the Brothers had, Nor mourned for others' heaviness alone. This was the secret of their sorrowing, That not a monk in all the house could sing! Was it the damp air from the lovely marsh, Or strain of scarcely intermitted prayer, That made their voices, when they sang, as harsh As any frog's that croaks in evening air-That made less music in their hymns to lie Than in the hoarsest wild-fowl's hoarsest cry? If love could sweeten voice to sing a song, Theirs had been sweetest song was ever sung: But their hearts' music reached their lips all wrong, The soul's intent foiled by the traitorous tongue That marred the chapel's peace, and seemed to scare The rapt devotion lingering in the air. The birds that in the chapel built their nests, And in the stone-work found their small lives fair, Flew thence with hurled wings and fluttering breasts When rang the bell to call the monks to prayer. 'Why will they sing,' they twittered, 'why at all? In heaven their silence must be festival!' The brothers prayed with penance and with tears That God would let them give some little part Out for the solace of their own sad ears Of all the music crowded in their heart. Their nature and the marsh-air had their way, And still they sang more vilely every day. 380 And all their prayers and fasts availing not To give them voices sweet, their souls' desire, The Abbot said, 'Gifts He did not allot God at our hands will not again require; The love He gives us He will ask again In love to Him and to our fellow-men. 'Praise Him we must, and since we cannot praise As we would choose, we praise Him as we can. In heaven we shall be taught the angels' ways Of singing--we afford to wait a span. In singing, as in toil, do ye your best; God will adjust the balance--do the rest!' But one good Brother, anxious to remove This, the reproach now laid on them so long, Rejected counsel, and for very love Besought a Brother, skilled in art of song, To come to them--his cloister far to leave-And sing Magnificat on Christmas Eve. So when each brown monk duly sought his place, By two and two, slow pacing to the choir, Shrined in his dark oak stall, the strange monk's face Shone with a light as of devotion's fire, Good, young and fair, his seemed a form wherein Pure beauty left no room at all for sin. And when the time for singing it had come, 'Magnificat,' face raised, and voice, he sang: Each in his stall the monks stood glad and dumb, As through the chancel's dusk his voice outrang, Pure, clear, and perfect--as the thrushes sing Their first impulsive welcome of the spring. At the first notes the Abbot's heart spoke low: 381 'Oh God, accept this singing, seeing we, Had we the power, would ever praise Thee so-Would ever, Lord, Thou know'st, sing thus for Thee; Thus in our hearts Thy hymns are ever sung, As he Thou blessest sings them with his tongue.' But as the voice rose higher, and more sweet, The Abbot's heart said, 'Thou hast heard us grieve, And sent an angel from beside Thy feet, To sing Magnificat on Christmas Eve; To ease our ache of soul, and let us see How we some day in heaven shall sing to Thee.' Through the cold Christmas night the hymn rang out, In perfect cadence, clear as sunlit rain-Such heavenly music that the birds without Beat their warm wings against the window pane, Scattering the frosted crystal snow outspread Upon the stone-lace and the window-lead. The white moon through the window seemed to gaze On the pure face and eyes the singer raised; The storm-wind hushed the clamour of its ways, God seemed to stoop to hear Himself thus praised, And breathless all the Brothers stood, and still Reached longing souls out to the music's thrill. Old years came back, and half-remembered hours, Dreams of delight that never was to be, Mothers' remembered kiss, the funeral flowers Laid on the grave of life's felicity; An infinite dear passion of regret Swept through their hearts, and left their eyelids wet. The birds beat ever at the window, till They broke the pane, and so could entrance win; Their slender feet clung to the window-sill, 382 And though with them the bitter air came in, The monks were glad that the birds too should hear, Since to God's creatures all, His praise is dear. The lovely music waxed and waned, and sank, And brought less conscious sadness in its train, Unrecognised despair that thinks to thank God for a joy renounced, a chosen pain-And deems that peace which is but stifled life Dulled by a too-prolonged unfruitful strife. When, service done, the Brothers gathered round To thank the singer--modest-eyed, said he: 'Not mine the grace, if grace indeed abound; God gave the power, if any power there be; If I in hymn or psalm clear voice can raise, As His the gift, so His be all the praise!' That night--the Abbot lying on his bed-A sudden flood of radiance on him fell, Poured from the crucifix above his head, And cast a stream of light across his cell-And in the fullest fervour of the light An Angel stood, glittering, and great, and white. His wings of thousand rainbow clouds seemed made, A thousand lamps of love shone in his eyes, The light of dawn upon his brows was laid, Odours of thousand flowers of Paradise Filled all the cell, and through the heart there stirred A sense of music that could not be heard. The Angel spoke--his voice was low and sweet As the sea's murmur on low-lying shore-Or whisper of the wind in ripened wheat: 'Brother,' he said, 'the God we both adore Has sent me down to ask, is all not right?-- 383 Why was Magnificat not sung to-night?' Tranced in the joy the Angel's presence brought, The Abbot answered: 'All these weary years We have sung our best--but always have we thought Our voices were unworthy heavenly ears; And so to-night we found a clearer tongue, And by it the Magnificat was sung.' The Angel answered, 'All these happy years In heaven has your Magnificat been heard; This night alone, the angels' listening ears Of all its music caught no single word. Say, who is he whose goodness is not strong Enough to bear the burden of his song?' The Abbot named his name. 'Ah, why,' he cried, 'Have angels heard not what we found so dear?' 'Only pure hearts,' the Angel's voice replied, 'Can carry human songs up to God's ear; To-night in heaven was missed the sweetest praise That ever rises from earth's mud-stained maze. 'The monk who sang Magnificat is filled With lust of praise, and with hypocrisy; He sings for earth--in heaven his notes are stilled By muffling weight of deadening vanity; His heart is chained to earth, and cannot bear His singing higher than the listening air! 'From purest hearts most perfect music springs, And while you mourned your voices were not sweet, Marred by the accident of earthly things,-In heaven, God, listening, judged your song complete. The sweetest of earth's music came from you, The music of a noble life and true!' 384 ~ Edith Nesbit,

835: The Invitation HEALTH to my friend, and long unbroken years, By storms unruffled and unstain'd by tears: Wing'd by new joys may each white minute fly; Spring on her cheek, and sunshine in her eye: O'er that dear breast, where love and pity springs, May peace eternal spread her downy wings: Sweet beaming hope her path illumine still, And fair ideas all her fancy fill. From glittering scenes which strike the dazzled sight With mimic grandeur and illusive light, From idle hurry, and tumultuous noise, From hollow friendships, and from sickly joys, Will DELIA, at the muse's call retire To the pure pleasures rural scenes inspire? Will she from crowds and busy cities fly, Where wreaths of curling smoke involve the sky, To taste the grateful shade of spreading trees, And drink the spirit of the mountain breeze? When winter's hand the rough'ning year deforms, And hollow winds foretel approaching storms, Then Pleasure, like a bird of passage, flies To brighter climes, and more indulgent skies; Cities and courts allure her sprightly train, From the bleak mountain and the naked plain; And gold and gems with artificial blaze, Supply the sickly sun's declining rays: But soon returning on the western gale She seeks the bosom of the grassy vale; There, wrapt in careless ease, attunes the lyre To the wild warblings of the woodland quire; The daisied turf her humble throne supplies, And early primroses around her rise. We'll follow where the smiling goddess leads, Thro' tangled forests or enamel'd meads; O'er pathless hills her airy form we'll chase, In silent glades her fairy footsteps trace: 137 Small pains there needs her footsteps to pursue, She cannot fly from friendship, and from you. Now the glad earth her frozen zone unbinds, And o'er her bosom breathe the western winds: Already now the snow-drop dares appear, The first pale blossom of th' unripen'd year; As FLORA's breath, by some transforming power, Had chang'd an icicle into a flower: Its name, and hue, and scentless plant retains, And winter lingers in its icy veins. To these succeed the violet's dusky blue, And each inferior flower of fainter hue; Till riper months the perfect year disclose, And FLORA cries exulting, See my Rose! The Muse invites, my DELIA haste away, And let us sweetly waste the careless day. Here gentle summits lift their airy brow; Down the green slope here winds the labouring plow; Here bath'd by frequent show'rs cool vales are seen, Cloath'd with fresh verdure, and eternal green; Here smooth canals, across th' extended plain, Stretch their long arms, to join the distant main : The sons of toil with many a weary stroke Scoop the hard bosom of the solid rock; Resistless thro' the stiff opposing clay With steady patience work their gradual way; Compel the genius of th' unwilling flood Thro' the brown horrors of the aged wood; Cross the lone waste the silver urn they pour, And chear the barren heath or sullen moor: The traveller with pleasing wonder sees The white sail gleaming thro' the dusky trees ; And views the alter'd landscape with surprise, And doubts the magic scenes which round him rise. Now, like a flock of swans, above his head Their woven wings the flying vessels spread; Now meeting streams in artful mazes glide, While each unmingled pours a separate tide; Now through the hidden veins of earth they flow, 138 And visit sulphurous mines and caves below; The ductile streams obey the guiding hand, And social plenty circles round the land. But nobler praise awaits our green retreats; The Muses here have fixt their sacred seats. Mark where its simple front yon mansion rears, The nursery of men for future years: Here callow chiefs and embryo statesmen lie, And unfledg'd poets short excursions try: While Mersey's gentle current, which too long By fame neglected, and unknown to song, Between his rushy banks, (no poet's theme) Had crept inglorious, like a vulgar stream, Reflects th' ascending seats with conscious pride, And dares to emulate a classic tide. Soft music breathes along each op'ning shade, And sooths the dashing of his rough cascade. With mystic lines his sands are figur'd o'er, And circles trac'd upon the letter'd shore, Beneath his willows rove th' inquiring youth, And court the fair majestic form of truth. Here nature opens all her secret springs, And heav'n-born science plumes her eagle wings: Too long had bigot rage, with malice swell'd, Crush'd her strong pinions, and her flight witheld; Too long to check her ardent progress strove: So writhes the serpent round the bird of Jove; Hangs on her flight, restrains her tow'ring wing, Twists its dark folds, and points its venom'd sting. Yet still (if aught aright the Muse divine) Her rising pride shall mock the vain design; On sounding pinions yet aloft shall soar, And thro' the azure deep untravel'd paths explore. Where science smiles, the Muses join the train; And gentlest arts and purest manners reign. Ye generous youth who love this studious shade, How rich a field is to your hopes display'd! Knowledge to you unlocks the classic page; 139 And virtue blossoms for a better age. Oh golden days! oh bright unvalued hours! What bliss (did ye but know that bliss) were yours? With richest stores your glowing bosoms fraught, Perception quick, and luxury of thought; The high designs that heave the labouring soul, Panting for fame, impatient of controul; And fond enthusiastic thought, that feeds On pictur'd tales of vast heroic deeds; And quick affections, kindling into flame At virtue's, or their country's honour'd name; And spirits light to every joy in tune; And friendship ardent as a summer's noon; And generous scorn of vice's venal tribe; And proud disdain of interest's sordid bribe; And conscious honour's quick instinctive sense; And smiles unforc'd; and easy confidence; And vivid fancy, and clear simple truth ; And all the mental bloom of vernal youth. How bright the scene to fancy's eye appears, Thro' the long perspective of distant years, When this, this little group their country calls From academic shades and learned halls, To fix her laws, her spirit to sustain, And light up glory thro' her wide domain! Their various tastes in different arts display'd, Like temper'd harmony of light and shade, With friendly union in one mass shall blend, And this adorn the state, and that defend. These the sequester'd shade shall cheaply please, With learned labour and inglorious ease: With those, impell'd by some resistless force, O'er seas and rocks shall urge their vent'rous course; Rich fruits matur'd by glowing suns behold, And China's groves of vegetable gold; From every land the various harvest spoil, And bear the tribute to their native soil: But tell each land (while every toil they share, 140 Firm to sustain, and resolute to dare,) MAN is the nobler growth our realms supply, And SOULS are ripen'd in our northern sky. Some pensive creep along the shelly shore; Unfold the silky texture of a flower; With sharpen'd eyes inspect an hornet's sting, And all the wonders of an insect's wing. Some trace with curious search the hidden cause Of nature's changes, and her various laws; Untwist her beauteous web, disrobe her charms, And hunt her to her elemental forms: Or prove what hidden powers in herbs are found To quench disease and staunch the burning wound; With cordial drops the fainting head sustain, Call back the flitting soul, and still the throbs of pain. The patriot passion this shall strongly feel, Ardent, and glowing with undaunted zeal; With lips of fire shall plead his country's cause, And vindicate the majesty of laws. This cloath'd with Britain's thunder, spread alarms Thro' the wide earth, and shake the pole with arms. That to the sounding lyre his deeds rehearse, Enshrine his name in some immortal verse, To long posterity his praise consign, And pay a life of hardships by a line. While others, consecrate to higher aims, Whose hallow'd bosoms glow with purer flames, Love in their heart, persuasion in their tongue, With words of peace shall charm the list'ning throng, Draw the dread veil that wraps th' eternal throne, And launch our souls into the bright unknown. Here cease my song. Such arduous themes require A master's pencil, and a poet's fire: Unequal far such bright designs to paint, Too weak her colours, and her lines too faint, 141 My drooping Muse folds up her fluttering wing, And hides her head in the green lap of spring. ~ Anna Laetitia Barbauld,

836: The Stream's Secret What thing unto mine ear Wouldst thou convey,--what secret thing, O wandering water ever whispering? Surely thy speech shall be of her. Thou water, O thou whispering wanderer, What message dost thou bring? Say, hath not Love leaned low This hour beside thy far well-head, And there through jealous hollowed fingers said The thing that most I long to know-Murmuring with curls all dabbled in thy flow And washed lips rosy red? He told it to thee there Where thy voice hath a louder tone; But where it welters to this little moan His will decrees that I should hear. Now speak: for with the silence is no fear, And I am all alone. Shall Time not still endow One hour with life, and I and she Slake in one kiss the thirst of memory? Say, streams, lest Love should disavow Thy service, and the bird upon the bough Sing first to tell it me. What whisperest thou? Nay, why Name the dead hours? I mind them well. Their ghosts in many darkened doorways dwell With desolate eyes to know them by. That hour must still be born ere it can die Of that I'd have thee tell. But hear, before thou speak! Withhold, I pray, the vain behest That while the maze hath still its bower for quest My burning heart should cease to seek. 473 Be sure that Love ordained for souls more meek His roadside dells of rest. Stream, when this silver thread In flood-time is a torrent brown, May any bulwark bind thy foaming crown? Shall not the waters surge and spread And to the crannied boulders of their bed Still shoot the dead drift down Let no rebuke find place In speech of thine: or it shall prove That thou dost ill expound the words of Love. Even as thine eddy's rippling race Would blur the perfect image of his face I will have none thereof. O learn and understand That 'gainst the wrongs himself did wreak Love sought her aid; until her shadowy cheek And eyes beseeching gave command; And compassed in her close compassionate hand My heart must burn and speak. For then at last we spoke What eyes so oft had told to eyes Through that long-lingering silence whose half-sighs Alone the buried secret broke, Which with snatched hands and lips' reverberate stroke Then from the heart did rise. But she is far away Now; nor the hours of night grown hoar Bring yet to me, long gazing from the door, The wind-stirred robe of roseate gray And rose-crown of the hour that leads the day When we shall meet once more. Dark as thy blinded wave When brimming midnight floods the glen,-Bright as the laughter of thy runnels when The dawn yields all the light they crave; 474 Even so these hours to wound and that to save Are sisters in Love's ken. Oh sweet her bending grace Then when I kneel beside her feet; And sweet her eyes' o'erhanging heaven; and sweet The gathering folds of her embrace; And her fall'n hair at last shed round my face When breaths and tears shall meet. Beneath her sheltering hair, In the warm silence near her breast, Our kisses and our sobs shall sink to rest; As in some still trance made aware That day and night have wrought to fulness there And Love has built our nest. And as in the dim grove, When the rains cease that hushed them long, 'Mid glistening boughs the song-birds wake to song,-So from our hearts deep-shrined in love, While the leaves throb beneath, around, above, The quivering notes shall throng. Till tenderest words found vain Draw back to wonder mute and deep, And closed lips in closed arms a silence keep, Subdued by memory's circling strain,-The wind-rapt sound that the wind brings again While all the willows weep. Then by her summoning art Shall memory conjure back the sere Autumnal Springs, from many a dying year Born dead; and, bitter to the heart, The very ways where now we walk apart Who then shall cling so near. And with each thought new-grown, Some sweet caress or some sweet name Low-breathed shall let me know her thought the same: Making me rich with every tone 475 And touch of the dear heaven so long unknown That filled my dreams with flame. Pity and love shall burn In her pressed cheek and cherishing hands; And from the living spirit of love that stands Between her lips to soothe and yearn, Each separate breath shall clasp me round in turn And loose my spirit's bands. Oh passing sweet and dear, Then when the worshipped form and face Are felt at length in darkling close embrace; Round which so oft the sun shone clear, With mocking light and pitiless atmosphere, In many an hour and place. Ah me! with what proud growth Shall that hour's thirsting race be run; While, for each several sweetness still begun Afresh, endures love's endless drouth; Sweet hands, sweet hair, sweet cheeks, sweet eyes, sweet mouth, Each singly wooed and won. Yet most with the sweet soul Shall love's espousals then be knit; What time the governing cloud sheds peace from it O'er tremulous wings that touch the goal, And on the unmeasured height of Love's control The lustral fires are lit. Therefore, when breast and cheek Now part, from long embraces free,-Each on the other gazing shall but see A self that has no need to speak: All things unsought, yet nothing more to seek,-One love in unity. O water wandering past,-Albeit to thee I speak this thing, O water, thou that wanderest whispering, Thou keep'st thy counsel to the last. 476 What spell upon thy bosom should Love cast, Its secret thence to wring? Nay, must thou hear the tale Of the past days,--the heavy debt Of life that obdurate time withholds,--ere yet To win thine ear these prayers prevail, And by thy voice Love's self with high All-hail Yield up the amulet? How should all this be told?-All the sad sum of wayworn days,-Heart's anguish in the impenetrable maze; And on the waste uncoloured wold The visible burthen of the sun grown cold And the moon's labouring gaze? Alas! shall hope be nurs'd On life's all-succouring breast in vain, And made so perfect only to be slain? Or shall not rather the sweet thirst Even yet rejoice the heart with warmth dispers'd And strength grown fair again? Stands it not by the door!-Love's Hour--Till she and I shall meet With bodiless form and unapparent feet That cast no shadow yet before, Though round its head the dawn begins to pour The breath that makes day sweet? Its eyes invisible Watch till the dial's thin-thrown shade Be born,--yea, till the journeying line be laid Upon the point that wakes the spell, And there in lovelier light than tongue can tell Its presence stands array'd. Its soul remembers yet Those sunless hours that passed it by; And still it hears the night's disconsolate cry, And feels the branches wringing wet 477 Cast on its brow, that may not once forget, Dumb tears from the blind sky. But oh! when now her foot Draws near, for whose sake night and day Were long in weary longing sighed away,-The hour of Love, 'mid airs grown mute, Shall sing beside the door, and Love's own lute Thrill to the passionate lay. Thou know'st, for Love has told Within thine ear, O stream, how soon That song shall lift its sweet appointed tune. O tell me, for my lips are cold, And in my veins the blood is waxing old Even while I beg the boon. So, in that hour of sighs Assuaged, shall we beside this stone Yield thanks for grace; while in thy mirror shown The twofold image softly lies, Until we kiss, and each in other's eyes Is imaged all alone. Still silent? Can no art Of Love's then move thy pity? Nay, To thee let nothing come that owns his sway: Let happy lovers have no part With thee; nor even so sad and poor a heart As thou hast spurned to-day. To-day? Lo! night is here. The glen grows heavy with some veil Risen from the earth or fall'n to make earth pale; And all stands hushed to eye and ear, Until the night-wind shake the shade like fear And every covert quail. Ah! by another wave On other airs the hour must come Which to thy heart, my love, shall call me home. Between the lips of the low cave 478 Against that night the lapping waters lave, And the dark lips are dumb. But there Love's self doth stand, And with Life's weary wings far flown, And with Death's eyes that make the water moan, Gathers the water in his hand: And they that drink know nought of sky or land But only love alone. O soul-sequestered face Far off,--O were that night but now! So even beside that stream even I and thou Through thirsting lips should draw Love's grace, And in the zone of that supreme embrace Bind aching breast and brow. O water whispering Still through the dark into mine ears,-As with mine eyes, is it not now with hers?-Mine eyes that add to thy cold spring, Wan water, wandering water weltering, This hidden tide of tears. ~ Dante Gabriel Rossetti,

837: At The Gate Of The Convent Beside the Convent Gate I stood, Lingering to take farewell of those To whom I owed the simple good Of three days' peace, three nights' repose. My sumpter-mule did blink and blink; Was nothing more to munch or quaff; Antonio, far too wise to think, Leaned vacantly upon his staff. It was the childhood of the year: Bright was the morning, blithe the air; And in the choir I plain could hear The monks still chanting matin prayer. The throstle and the blackbird shrilled, Loudly as in an English copse, Fountain-like note that, still refilled, Rises and falls, but never stops. As lush as in an English chase, The hawthorn, guessed by its perfume, With folds on folds of snowy lace Blindfolded all its leaves with bloom. Scarce seen, and only faintly heard, A torrent, 'mid far snow-peaks born, Sang kindred with the gurgling bird, Flowed kindred with the foaming thorn. The chanting ceased, and soon instead Came shuffling sound of sandalled shoon; Each to his cell and narrow bed Withdrew, to pray and muse till noon. Only the Prior-for such their RuleInto the morning sunshine came. Antonio bared his locks; the mule Kept blinking, blinking, just the same. 175 I thanked him with a faltering tongue; I thanked him with a flowing heart. ``This for the poor.'' His hand I wrung, And gave the signal to depart. But still in his he held my hand, As though averse that I should go. His brow was grave, his look was bland, His beard was white as Alpine snow. And in his eye a light there shone, A soft, subdued, but steadfast ray, Like to those lamps that still burn on In shrines where no one comes to pray. And in his voice I seemed to hear The hymns that novice-sisters sing, When only anguished Christ is near, And earth and life seem vanishing. ``Why do you leave us, dear my son? Why from calm cloisters backward wend, Where moil is much and peace is none, And journeying hath nor bourne nor end? ``Read I your inmost soul aright, Heaven hath to you been strangely kind; Gave gentle cradle, boyhood bright, A fostered soul, a tutored mind. ``Nor wealth did lure, nor penury cramp, Your ripening soul; it lived and throve, Nightly beside the lettered lamp, Daily in field, and glade, and grove. ``And when the dawn of manhood brought The hour to choose to be of those Who serve for gold, or sway by thought, You doubted not, and rightly chose. ``Loving your Land, you face the strife; 176 Loved by the Muse, you shun the throng; And blend within your dual life The patriot's pen, the poet's song. ``Hence now, in gaze mature and wise, Dwells scorn of praise, dwells scorn of blame; Calm consciousness of surer prize Than dying noise of living fame. ``Have you not loved, been loved, as few Love, or are loved, on loveless earth? How often have you felt its dew? Say, have you ever known its dearth? ``I speak of love divorced from pelf, I speak of love unyoked and free, Of love that deadens sense of self, Of love that loveth utterly. ``And this along your life hath flowed In full and never-failing stream, Fresh from its source, unbought, unowed, Beyond your boyhood's fondest dream.'' He paused. The cuckoo called. I thought Of English voices, English trees. The far-off fancy instant brought The tears; and he, misled by these, With hand upon my shoulder, said, ``You own 'tis true. The richest years Bequeath the beggared heart, when fled, Only this legacy of tears. ``Why is it that all raptures cloy? Though men extol, though women bless, Why are we still chagrined with joy, Dissatisfied with happiness? ``Yes, the care-flouting cuckoo calls, And yet your smile betokens grief, Like meditative light that falls 177 Through branches fringed with autumn leaf. ``Whence comes this shadow? You are now In the full summer of the soul. The answer darkens on your brow: `Winter the end, and death the goal.' ``Yes, vain the fires of pride and lust Fierce in meridian pulses burn: Remember, Man, that thou art dust, And unto dust thou shalt return. ``Rude are our walls, our beds are rough, But use is hardship's subtle friend. He hath got all that hath enough; And rough feels softest, in the end. ``While luxury hath this disease, It ever craves and pushes on. Pleasures, repeated, cease to please, And rapture, once 'tis reaped, is gone. ``My flesh hath long since ceased to creep, Although the hairshirt pricketh oft. A plank my couch; withal, I sleep Soundly as he that lieth soft. ``And meagre though may be the meal That decks the simple board you see, At least, my son, we never feel The hunger of satiety. ``You have perhaps discreetly drunk: O, then, discreetly, drink no more! Which is the happier, worldling, monk, When youth is past, and manhood o'er? ``Of life beyond I speak not yet. 'Tis solitude alone can e'er, By hushing controversy, let Man catch earth's undertone of prayer. 178 ``Your soul which Heaven at last must reap, From too much noise hath barren grown; Long fallow silence must it keep, Ere faith revive, and grace be sown. ``Let guide and mule alone return. For you I will prepare a cell, In whose calm silence you will learn, Living or dying, All is well!'' Again the cuckoo called; again The merle and mavis shook their throats; The torrent rambled down the glen, The ringdove cooed in sylvan cotes. The hawthorn moved not, but still kept As fixedly white as far cascade; The russet squirrel frisked and leapt From breadth of sheen to breadth of shade. I did not know the words had ceased, I thought that he was speaking still, Nor had distinguished sacred priest From pagan thorn, from pagan rill. Not that I had not harked and heard; But all he bade me shun or do, Seemed just as sweet as warbling bird, But not more grave and not more true. So deep yet indistinct my bliss, That when his counsels ceased to sound, That one sweet note I did not miss From other sweet notes all around. But he, misreading my delight, Again with urging accents spoke. Then I, like one that's touched at night, From the deep swoon of sweetness woke. And just as one that, waking, can Recall the thing he dreamed, but knows 179 'Twas of the phantom world that man Visits in languors of repose; So, though I straight repictured plain All he had said, it seemed to me, Recalled from slumber, to retain No kinship with reality. ``Father, forgive!'' I said; ``and look! Who taught its carolling to the merle? Who wed the music to the brook? Who decked the thorn with flakes of pearl? ``'Twas He, you answer, that did make Earth, sea, and sky: He maketh all; The gleeful notes that flood the brake, The sad notes wailed in Convent stall. ``And my poor voice He also made; And like the brook, and like the bird, And like your brethren mute and staid, I too can but fulfil His word. ``Were I about my loins to tie A girdle, and to hold in scorn Beauty and Love, what then were I But songless stream, but flowerless thorn? ``Why do our senses love to list When distant cataracts murmur thus? Why stealeth o'er your eyes a mist When belfries toll the Angelus? ``It is that every tender sound Art can evoke, or Nature yield, Betokens something more profound, Hinted, but never quite revealed. ``And though it be the self-same Hand That doth the complex concert strike, The notes, to those that understand, Are individual, and unlike. 180 ``Allow my nature. All things are, If true to instinct, well and wise. The dewdrop hinders not the star; The waves do not rebuke the skies. ``So leave me free, good Father dear, While you on humbler, holier chord Chant your secluded Vespers here, To fling my matin notes abroad. ``While you with sacred sandals wend To trim the lamp, to deck the shrine, Let me my country's altar tend, Nor deem such worship less divine. ``Mine earthly, yours celestial love: Each hath its harvest; both are sweet. You wait to reap your Heaven, above; I reap the Heaven about my feet. ``And what if I-forgive your guest Who feels, so frankly speaks, his qualmThough calm amid the world's unrest, Should restless be amid your calm? ``But though we two be severed quite, Your holy words will sound between Our lives, like stream one hears at night, Louder, because it is not seen. ``Father, farewell! Be not distressed; And take my vow, ere I depart, To found a Convent in my breast, And keep a cloister in my heart.'' The mule from off his ribs a fly Flicked, and then zigzagged down the road. Antonio lit his pipe, and I Behind them somewhat sadly strode. Just ere the Convent dipped from view, 181 Backward I glanced: he was not there. Within the chapel, well I knew, His lips were now composed in prayer. But I have kept my vow. And when The cuckoo chuckleth o'er his theft, When throstles sing, again, again, And runnels gambol down the cleft, With these I roam, I sing with those, And should the world with smiles or jeers Provoke or lure, my lids I close, And draw a cowl about my ears. ~ Alfred Austin,

838: Father Abraham Lincoln My private shrine. The Gettysburg Address Framed in with all authentic photographs Of him from whom the New Religion flows. Homely? That’s it. A perfect homeliness. Homely as Home itself that countenance Benign, immortal sweet, his very soul, The steadfast, common, great American. It is a gladness in my aging heart These eyes three times beheld himself alive, Ungainly, jointed loose, rail-fence-like, queer In garb that hung with scarecrow shapelessness— Absolute figure of The States half-made, Turning from toil and joke to sacred war. MY heart has smiles and tears, remembering how The boy, fourteen, round-cheeked and downy-lipped, With Philadelphia cheese-cake freshly bit, Halted to stare on marbled Chestnut Street; He could not gulp the richness in his maw, Because that black-frock-coated countryman Of bulged umbrella, rusty stovepipe hat, Five yards ahead, and coming rapidly, Could be none other than the President, From caricatures familiar as the day. A sudden twinkle lit his downcast eyes, Marking the cheese-cake and the staring boy; Tickled to note the checked gastronomy, 31 Passing, he asked, “Good, sonny?” in a tone Applausive more than questioning, full of fun, Yet half-embracive, as your mother’s voice, And smiled so comrade-like the wondering lad Glowed with a sense of being chosen chum To Father Abraham Lincoln, President. Such was the miracle his spirit wrought In millions while he lived. And still it lives. He stalked along, unguarded, all alone, That central soul of unremitting war, A common man level with common Man. The heart-warmed, wondering boy stared after him, And wonders yet to-day on how it chanced The mighty, well-loved, martyr President Went rambling on unknown in broadest day On crowded street, as if by nimbus hid From all except the cheese-caked worshipper He sonnied, smiled on, joked at fatherly. That night the streets of Philadelphia thronged; No end of faces; one great human cross, As far each way as lamp-post boys could see, Packed Ninth and Chestnut, waiting Father Abe; The Continental’s balcony on high Glowed Stars and Stripes, with crape for all the dead “We cannot dedicate, nor consecrate.” On chime of eight precise, gaunt, bare of head, They saw his tallness in the balcony-flare, And straightway all the murmurous street grew still, Till silence absolute as death befell. 32 And in that perfect silence one clear voice Inspired began, from out the multitude, [Page 40] The song of all the songs of all the war, Simple, ecstatic, sacrificial, strong— “We’re coming, Father Abraham, three hundred thousand more”— And neighboring voices took the long refrain While some more distant raised the opening words, Till to and fro and far and near at once, Never in chorus, chanting as by groups, Here ending, there beginning, some halfway, All sang at once, and all renewing all In pledge and passion of the mighty song, Their different words and clashing cadences Wondrously merging in a sound supreme, As if the inmost meaning of the hymn Harmonious rolled in one unending vow While all the singers gazed on Lincoln’s face. Hands gripping balcony-rail, he stooped and saw And listened motionless, with such a look The boy upon the lamp-post clearly knew “The heavens were opened unto him,” “The spirit of God descending like a dove”— Until the mystery of the general soul Wrought to unwonted sense of unison Moved all to silence for the homely words Of Father Abraham Lincoln to his kind— Words clear as Light itself, so plain—so plain None deemed him other than their fellow man. Once more. A boy in blue at sixteen years, Mid groups of blue along the crazy road 33 Of corduroy astretch from City Point, Toward yonder spire in fatal Petersburg, Beyond what trenches, rifle-pits, and forts, What woeful far-front grave-mounds sunken down To puddles over pickets shot on post— What cemeteries shingle-marked with names Of companies and regiments and corps Of mouldering bones and rags of blue and gray, And belts and buttons, rain and wind exposed— Mired army wagons—forms of swollen mules— Springfields and Enfields, broken-stocked, stuck up Or strown, all rusting—parked artillery— Brush shelter stables—lines and lines of huts, Tent-covered winter quarters, sticks and mud For chimneys to the many thousand smokes Whose dropping cinders black-rimmed million holes Through veteran canvas ludicrously patched— Squares of parade all mud—and mud, and mud, With mingled grass and chips and refuse cans Strown myriad far about the plain of war, Whose scrub-oak roots for scanty fires were grubbed, And one sole house, and never fence remained Where fifty leagues of corn-land smiled before. Belated March—a lowering, rainless day With glints of shine; the veteran tents of Meade Gave forth their veteran boys in crowds of blue, Infantry, cavalry, gunners, engineers, Easterner, Westerner, Yankee, Irish, “Dutch,” Canuck, all sorts and sizes, frowsed, unkempt, Unwashed, half-smoked, profane exceedingly, Moody or jokeful, formidable, free From fear of colonels as of corporals, Each volunteer the child of his own whim, And every man heart-sworn American Trudging the mud to view the cavalcade 34 Of Father Abraham Lincoln to The Front. He, Chief Commander of all Union hosts, Of more than thrice three hundred thousand more, Rode half a horseneck first, since Grant on right And Meade on left kept reining back their bays; Full uniformed were they and all their train, Sheridan, Humphreys, Warren, Hazen, Kautz, Barlow, McLaughlen, Ord, and thirty more, Blazing for once in feathers and in gold. Old Abe, all black, bestrode the famous steed, Grant’s pacing black—and sure since war began No host of war had such Commander seen! Loose-reined he let the steady pacer walk; Those rail-like legs, that forked the saddle, thrust Prodigious spattered boots anear the mud, Preposterous his parted coat-tails hung, In negligence his lounging body stooped, Tipping the antic-solemn stovepipe hat; It seemed some old-time circuit preacher turned From Grant to Meade and back again to Grant, Attentive, questioning, pondering, deep concerned— The common Civil Power directing War. He, travesty of every point of horsemanship, They, so bedizened, riding soldier stern— The contrast past all telling comical— And Father Abraham wholly unaware! Too much by far for soldier gravity— A breeze of laughter travelling as he passed, Rose sudden to a gale that stormed his ear. The President turned and gazed and understood 35 All in one moment, slightly shook his head, Not warningly, but with a cheerful glee, And sympathy and love, as if he spoke: “You scalawags, you scamps, but have your fun!” Pushed up the stovepipe hat, and all around Bestowed his warming, right paternal smile, As if his soul embraced us all at once. Then strangely fell all laughter. Some men choked, And some grew inarticulate with tears; A thousand veteran children thrilled as one, And not a man of all the throng knew why; Some called his name, some blessed his holy heart And then, inspired with pentecostal tongues, We cheered so wildly for Old Father Abe That all the bearded generals flamed in joy! What was the miracle? His miracle. Was Father Abraham just a son of Man, As Jesus seemed to common Nazarenes? Shall Father Abraham Lincoln yet prevail, And his Republic come to stay at last? Kind Age, unenvious Youth, democracy, None lower than the first in comradeship, However differing in mental force, The higher intellect set free to Serve, All undistracted by the woeful need To grab or pander lest its children want; Old trivial gewgaws of the peacock past Smiled to the nothingness of desuetude, With strutful Rank, with pinchbeck Pageantry, With apish separative-cant of Class, With inhumane conventions, all designed To sanctify the immemorial robbery 36 Of Man by men; with mockful mummeries, Called Law, to save the one perennial Wrong— That fundamental social crime which fate All babes alike to Inequality, And so condemns the many million minds (That might, with happier nurture, finely serve) To share, through life, the harmful hates or scorns The accursed System breeds, which still most hurts The few who fancy it their benefit, Shutting them lifelong from the happiness Of such close sympathy with all their kind As feels the universal God, or Soul, Alive to love in every human heart. Was it for this our Mother’s sons were slain? Shall Father Abraham not prevail again? We who are marching to the small-flagged graves We earned by fight to free our fathers’ slaves, We who by Lincoln’s hero soul were sworn, We go more sadly toward our earthly bourne To join our comrade host of long ago, Since, oh so clearly, do our old hearts know We shall not witness what we longed to see— Our own dear children minded to be free. Why let democracy be flouted down? Why let your money-mongers more renown Their golden idol than the Common Weal, Flaunting the gains of liberty-to-steal, Fouling the promise of the heights we trod With Freedom’s sacrifice to Lincoln’s God? 37 Was it for this he wept his children slain? Or shall our Father’s spirit rise again? ~ Edward William Thomson,

839: The Coming Of The Rauparaha BLUE, the wreaths of smoke, like drooping banners From the flaming battlements of sunset Hung suspended; and within his whare Hipe, last of Ngatiraukawa's chieftains, Lay a-dying! Ringed about his death-bed, Like a palisade of carven figures, Stood the silent people of the village— Warriors and women of his hapu— Waiting. Then a sudden spilth of sunlight Splashed upon the mountain-peak above them, And it blossomed redly like a rata. With his people and the twilight pausing; Withering to death in regal patience, Taciturn and grim, lay Hipe dying. Shuddering and green, a little lizard Made a ripple through the whare's darkness, Writhing close to Hipe! Then a whisper On the women's dry lips hesitated As the ring of figures fluttered backwards; “ 'T is the Spirit-Thing that comes to carry Hipe's tardy soul across the waters To the world of stars!” And Hipe, grimly, Felt its hungry eyes a-glitter on him; Then he knew the spirit-world had called him; Knew the lizard-messenger must hasten, And would carry back a soul for answer. Twenty days in silence he had listened, Dumb with thoughts of death, and sorely troubled For his tribe left leaderless and lonely. Now like sullen thunder from the blackness Of the whare swept a voice untinctured With a stain of sickness; and the women, Breaking backwards, shrieked in sudden terror, “ 'T is the weird Thing's voice, the greenish lizard, All-impatient for the soul of Hipe!” But the warriors in the shadow straightened Drooping shoulders, gripped their greenstone meres, And the rhythmic tumult of the war-dance 77 Swept the great pah with its throbbing thunder: While their glad throats chanted, “E, 't is Hipe! Hipe's voice that led us in the battle; Hipe, young, come back to lead us ever!” “Warriors and women of my hapu,” Whirled the voice of Hipe from the darkness, “I have had communion with the spirits; Listen while I chant the song they taught me! “I have seen the coming end of all things, Seen the Maori shattered 'neath the onrush Of the white-faced strangers. Like the flashing Of the Sun-God through the ranks of darkness, Like the Fire-God rippling through the forest, Like the winter's silent blight of snowflakes— Lo, the strange outbreak of pallid blossoms!— Sweeps this surging wave of stranger-faces, Frothing irresistibly upon us. “Lo, the Pakeha shall come and conquer; We have failed; the Gods are angry with us. See, the withered autumn of our greatness! “Old ancestral myths and sacred legends That we deemed immortal—(priest and wizard Died, and yet their stories, like a river, Through the long years ran on, ever changeless!)— Shall be buried; and the names long given To each hill, and stream, and path and gully, Shall be like a yesterday forgotten, Blown like trembling froth before the sea-breeze. “And the gods that people all our islands— This great sea of presences immortal, Living, real, alert for charm or evil, Hurrying in every breeze, and haunting, Heavy-winged, the vistas of the forest, Deluging the daylight with their presence, Teeming, flooding, brimming in the shadows— Shall be banished to their spirit-regions, And the world be lorn of gods and lonely. “And the Maori shall no long time linger Ere, a tardy exile, he shall journey To the under-world. Yet he shall never Break before this influx, but shall fight on 78 Till, a mangled thing, the tide o'erwhelm him. And my tribe, the mighty Ngatiraukawa, Had they left one worthy chieftain only Who could lead my people on to victory, Who could follow where my feet have trodden, Might yet rear their name into a pillar Carved with fame, until their stubborn story From the mists of legend broke tremendous. Flaming through the chilly years to follow With a sunset-splendour, huge, heroic! “Yes, the time is yours to rear a nation From one conquering tribe, the Ngatiraukawa; But my pah is leaderless and lonely; I am left, the last of Maori chieftains; And the gods have called me now to lead them In their mighty battles! There is no one Worthy now to wield my dying mana!” So he ceased, and tremulous the silence Sighed to voice in one long wail of sorrow. So; it was the truth that Hipe taught them: None was left to lead them on to victory; None could follow where his feet had trodden. Then by name old Hipe called the chieftains— Weakling sons of that gaunt wrinkled giant, Stunted saplings blanching in the shadow Of the old tree's overarching greatness. One by one he called them, and they shivered, For they knew no answer to his question, “Can you lead my people on to victory? Can you follow where my feet have trodden?” One by one a great hope burned within them, And their feeble hearts beat fast and proudly; One by one a chill of terror took them, And the challenge on their lips was frozen. Then the old chief in his anger chaunted Frenziedly a song of scorn of all things, And the frightened people of the village— Warriors and women of his hapu— Quavered into murmurs 'neath the whirlwind Of his lashing words; and then he fretted 79 Into gusts of anger; and the lizard Made a greenish ripple in the darkness, Shuddering closer to him. And the people Bending heard a whisper pass above them, “Is there none to lead you on to victory, None to follow where my feet have trodden?” Lo, a sudden rumour from the edges Of the silent concourse, where the humblest Of the village crouched in utter baseness— There among the outcasts one leapt upright, Clean-limbed, straight and comely as a sunbeam. Eager muscles clad in tawny velvet, Eyes aflash with prescience of his power, Yet a boy, untried in warriors' warfare, Virgin to the battle! And untroubled Rang a daring voice across the darkness, “Yes, my people, one there is to lead you; I dare point you on to fame and victory, I dare tread where Hipe's feet have trodden. Yea,” and prouder sang the voice above them, “I can promise mightier fame unending; I shall lead where Hipe dared not tempt you; I shall make new footprints through the future— I, the youth Te Rauparaha, have spoken!” On the boy who braved them stormed the people, Swept with fear and anger, and they clamoured, “Who so proudly speaks, though not a chieftain? Rank and name and fame he has none; how then Dare he lead when sons of chieftains falter?” But the boy leapt forward to the whare, Clean-limbed, straight and comely as a sunbeam, Eager muscles clad in tawny velvet, Eyes aflash with prescience of his power, Swinging high the mere he had fashioned Out of wood, and carven like a chieftain's— Aye, and with the toy had slain a foeman! Flinging fiery speech out like a hailstorm, “If ye choose me chieftain I shall lead you Down to meet the white one on the sea-coast, Where his hordes shall break like scattered billows From our wall of meres. Him o'erwhelming, 80 I shall wrest his flaming weapons from him, Fortify for pah the rugged island Kapiti; then like a black-hawk swooping I shall whirl upon the Southern Island, Sweep it with my name as with a tempest, Overrun it like the play of sunlight, Sigh across it like a flame, till Terror Runs before me shrieking! And our pathway Shall be sullen red with flames and bloodshed, And shall moan with massacre and battle! “Quenching every foe, beneath my mana Tribe shall stand with tribe, till all my nation Like a harsh impassive wall of forest Imperturbably shall front the strangers; And with frown inscrutable shall wither All this buzz and stir of stinging insects That persist about us; then our islands Garlanded with peace are ours for ever! “Then the name of me, Te Rauparaha, And the tribe I lead, the Ngatitoa, Shall be shrined in sacred myth and legend With the glamour of our oft-told prowess Wreathed about them! Think, we shall be saviours Of a race, a nation! And this island We have sown so thick with names—each hillock, Glen and gully, stream and tribal limit— Shall for ever blossom like a garden With the liquid softness of their music! And the flute shall still across the evening Lilt and waver, brimming with love's yearning! And the exiled gods and banished spirits Shall steal back to people all our islands With their sea of presences immortal, Living, real, alert for charm or evil, Hurrying in every breeze and haunting, Heavy-winged, the vistas of the forest, Deluging the daylight with their presence, Teeming, flooding, brimming in the shadows, Till the world, a tawny world of gladness, Shall no more of gods be lorn and lonely! 81 I, the youth Te Rauparaha, have spoken!” Hipe heard, and, dying, cried in triumph, “Warriors and women of my hapu, He shall lead you, he, Te Rauparaha! He shall do the things that he has promised. He may fail; but think how grand his failure! He alone can lift against the tempest That proud head of his, and hugely daring, God-like, hugely fail, or hugely conquer!” Still he spoke, but suddenly the lizard Made a greenish ripple through the darkness, And was gone! Upon the long lone journey To Te Reinga and the world of spirits It had started with the soul of Hipe! Then the plaintive wailing of the women Quavered through the darkness, and a shudder Took the slaves that in a horror waited For the mercy of the blow to send them— Ah! the sombre, slowly-stepping phalanx— To the twilight world with Hipe's spirit. ~ Arthur Henry Adams,

840: Mementos ARRANGING long-locked drawers and shelves Of cabinets, shut up for years, What a strange task we've set ourselves ! How still the lonely room appears ! How strange this mass of ancient treasures, Mementos of past pains and pleasures; These volumes, clasped with costly stone, With print all faded, gilding gone; These fans of leaves, from Indian trees­ These crimson shells, from Indian seas­ These tiny portraits, set in rings­ Once, doubtless, deemed such precious things; Keepsakes bestowed by Love on Faith, And worn till the receiver's death, Now stored with cameos, china, shells, In this old closet's dusty cells. I scarcely think, for ten long years, A hand has touched these relics old; And, coating each, slow-formed, appears, The growth of green and antique mould. All in this house is mossing over; All is unused, and dim, and damp; Nor light, nor warmth, the rooms discover­ Bereft for years of fire and lamp. The sun, sometimes in summer, enters The casements, with reviving ray; But the long rains of many winters Moulder the very walls away. And outside all is ivy, clinging To chimney, lattice, gable grey; Scarcely one little red rose springing Through the green moss can force its way. Unscared, the daw, and starling nestle, 32 Where the tall turret rises high, And winds alone come near to rustle The thick leaves where their cradles lie. I sometimes think, when late at even I climb the stair reluctantly, Some shape that should be well in heaven, Or ill elsewhere, will pass by me. I fear to see the very faces, Familiar thirty years ago, Even in the old accustomed places Which look so cold and gloomy now. I've come, to close the window, hither, At twilight, when the sun was down, And Fear, my very soul would wither, Lest something should be dimly shown. Too much the buried form resembling, Of her who once was mistress here; Lest doubtful shade, or moonbeam trembling, Might take her aspect, once so dear. Hers was this chamber; in her time It seemed to me a pleasant room, For then no cloud of grief or crime Had cursed it with a settled gloom; I had not seen death's image laid In shroud and sheet, on yonder bed. Before she married, she was blest­ Blest in her youth, blest in her worth; Her mind was calm, its sunny rest Shone in her eyes more clear than mirth. And when attired in rich array, Light, lustrous hair about her brow, She yonder sat­a kind of day Lit up­what seems so gloomy now. These grim oak walls, even then were grim; That old carved chair, was then antique; 33 But what around looked dusk and dim Served as a foil to her fresh cheek; Her neck, and arms, of hue so fair, Eyes of unclouded, smiling, light; Her soft, and curled, and floating hair, Gems and attire, as rainbow bright. Reclined in yonder deep recess, Ofttimes she would, at evening, lie Watching the sun; she seemed to bless With happy glance the glorious sky. She loved such scenes, and as she gazed, Her face evinced her spirit's mood; Beauty or grandeur ever raised In her, a deep-felt gratitude. But of all lovely things, she loved A cloudless moon, on summer night; Full oft have I impatience proved To see how long, her still delight Would find a theme in reverie. Out on the lawn, or where the trees Let in the lustre fitfully, As their boughs parted momently, To the soft, languid, summer breeze. Alas ! that she should e'er have flung Those pure, though lonely joys away­ Deceived by false and guileful tongue, She gave her hand, then suffered wrong; Oppressed, ill-used, she faded young, And died of grief by slow decay. Open that casket­look how bright Those jewels flash upon the sight; The brilliants have not lost a ray Of lustre, since her wedding day. But see­upon that pearly chain­ How dim lies time's discolouring stain ! I've seen that by her daughter worn: For, e'er she died, a child was born; A child that ne'er its mother knew, That lone, and almost friendless grew; 34 For, ever, when its step drew nigh, Averted was the father's eye; And then, a life impure and wild Made him a stranger to his child; Absorbed in vice, he little cared On what she did, or how she fared. The love withheld, she never sought, She grew uncherished­learnt untaught; To her the inward life of thought Full soon was open laid. I know not if her friendlessness Did sometimes on her spirit press, But plaint she never made. The book-shelves were her darling treasure, She rarely seemed the time to measure While she could read alone. And she too loved the twilight wood, And often, in her mother's mood, Away to yonder hill would hie, Like her, to watch the setting sun, Or see the stars born, one by one, Out of the darkening sky. Nor would she leave that hill till night Trembled from pole to pole with light; Even then, upon her homeward way, Long­long her wandering steps delayed To quit the sombre forest shade, Through which her eerie pathway lay. You ask if she had beauty's grace ? I know not­but a nobler face My eyes have seldom seen; A keen and fine intelligence, And, better still, the truest sense Were in her speaking mien. But bloom or lustre was there none, Only at moments, fitful shone An ardour in her eye, That kindled on her cheek a flush, Warm as a red sky's passing blush And quick with energy. 35 Her speech, too, was not common speech, No wish to shine, or aim to teach, Was in her words displayed: She still began with quiet sense, But oft the force of eloquence Came to her lips in aid; Language and voice unconscious changed, And thoughts, in other words arranged, Her fervid soul transfused Into the hearts of those who heard, And transient strength and ardour stirred, In minds to strength unused. Yet in gay crowd or festal glare, Grave and retiring was her air; 'Twas seldom, save with me alone, That fire of feeling freely shone; She loved not awe's nor wonder's gaze, Nor even exaggerated praise, Nor even notice, if too keen The curious gazer searched her mien. Nature's own green expanse revealed The world, the pleasures, she could prize; On free hill-side, in sunny field, In quiet spots by woods concealed, Grew wild and fresh her chosen joys, Yet Nature's feelings deeply lay In that endowed and youthful frame; Shrined in her heart and hid from day, They burned unseen with silent flame; In youth's first search for mental light, She lived but to reflect and learn, But soon her mind's maturer might For stronger task did pant and yearn; And stronger task did fate assign, Task that a giant's strength might strain; To suffer long and ne'er repine, Be calm in frenzy, smile at pain. Pale with the secret war of feeling, Sustained with courage, mute, yet high; The wounds at which she bled, revealing Only by altered cheek and eye; 36 She bore in silence­but when passion Surged in her soul with ceaseless foam, The storm at last brought desolation, And drove her exiled from her home. And silent still, she straight assembled The wrecks of strength her soul retained; For though the wasted body trembled, The unconquered mind, to quail, disdained. She crossed the sea­now lone she wanders By Seine's, or Rhine's, or Arno's flow; Fain would I know if distance renders Relief or comfort to her woe. Fain would I know if, henceforth, ever, These eyes shall read in hers again, That light of love which faded never, Though dimmed so long with secret pain. She will return, but cold and altered, Like all whose hopes too soon depart; Like all on whom have beat, unsheltered, The bitter blasts that blight the heart. No more shall I behold her lying Calm on a pillow, smoothed by me; No more that spirit, worn with sighing, Will know the rest of infancy. If still the paths of lore she follow, 'Twill be with tired and goaded will; She'll only toil, the aching hollow, The joyless blank of life to fill. And oh ! full oft, quite spent and weary, Her hand will pause, her head decline; That labour seems so hard and dreary, On which no ray of hope may shine. Thus the pale blight of time and sorrow 37 Will shade with grey her soft, dark hair Then comes the day that knows no morrow, And death succeeds to long despair. So speaks experience, sage and hoary; I see it plainly, know it well, Like one who, having read a story, Each incident therein can tell. Touch not that ring, 'twas his, the sire Of that forsaken child; And nought his relics can inspire Save memories, sin-defiled. I, who sat by his wife's death-bed, I, who his daughter loved, Could almost curse the guilty dead, For woes, the guiltless proved. And heaven did curse­they found him laid, When crime for wrath was rife, Cold­with the suicidal blade Clutched in his desperate gripe. 'Twas near that long deserted hut, Which in the wood decays, Death's axe, self-wielded, struck his root, And lopped his desperate days. You know the spot, where three black trees, Lift up their branches fell, And moaning, ceaseless as the seas, Still seem, in every passing breeze, The deed of blood to tell. They named him mad, and laid his bones Where holier ashes lie; Yet doubt not that his spirit groans, In hell's eternity. But, lo ! night, closing o'er the earth, Infects our thoughts with gloom; 38 Come, let us strive to rally mirth, Where glows a clear and tranquil hearth In some more cheerful room. ~ Charlotte Brontë,

841: directed many of his own productions, and according to ancient critics, he is said to have brought the Furies onstage in so realistic a manner that women miscarried in the audience. Although ~ Aeschylus is said to have written over ninety plays, only seven have survived. His first extant work, The Suppliants, reveals a young ~ Aeschylus still struggling with the problems of choral drama. The tale revolves around the fifty daughers of Danaus who seek refuge in Argos from the attentions of the fifty sons of Aegyptus. His second extant drama, The Persians, recounts the battle of Salamis--in which ~ Aeschylus and his brother actually fought--and deals primarily with the reception of the news at the imperial court. This play contains the first "ghost scene" of extant drama. In his third surviving play, Prometheus Bound, ~ Aeschylus tackles the myth of Prometheus, the world's first humanitarian. As the play begins, the titan is being fastened against his will to a peak in the Caucasian mountains for giving mankind the gift of fire without the consent of the gods. Prometheus knows Zeus is destined to fall. In fact, he holds the secret of the Olympian's doom--a certain woman that will be his undoing--but Prometheus will not reveal her name. Even amid the fire from heaven that is hurled at him in a frightening climax, Prometheus remains fearless and silent. In Seven Against Thebes, ~ Aeschylus deals with themes of patricide and incest. He was not, however, willing to settle for the conventional explanation of the "family curse". Instead, ~ Aeschylus delved deeper, suggesting that heredity is nothing more than a predisposition--that the true cause of such "acts of wickedness" is ambition, greed, and a lack of moral fortitude. Thus, eliminating the gods as an excuse for wickedness, ~ Aeschylus demanded that men take responsibility for their actions. The Oresteia, a trilogy, was performed in 458 BC, less than two years before ~ Aeschylus ' death. Once again, he dealt with the tragedy of a royal house, a "hereditary curse" which began in a dim, legendary world in which Tantalus was cast into the pit of Tartarus for revealing to mankind the secrets of the gods. This situation paralleled events in ~ Aeschylus ' own life. He was reportedly charged with "impiety" for revealing the Eleusinian mysteries--the secret rites of the city of his birth--to outsiders. It is likely, however, that these charges were politically motivated, and he was not convicted. Legend has it that ~ Aeschylus met his death when an eagle mistook his bald head for a rock and dropped a tortoise on it. Whatever the cause of his death, his life laid the groundwork the dramatic arts would need to flourish, and by the time of his death, there were two notable successors ready to take his place-- ~ Aeschylus claims at lines 1026-7 that he "taught the Athenians to desire always to defeat their enemies." ~ Aeschylus goes on to say at lines 1039ff. that his plays inspired the Athenians to be brave and virtuous. Influence outside of Greek Culture ~ Aeschylus 's works were influential beyond his own time. Hugh Lloyd-Jones (Regius Professor of Greek Emeritus at Oxford University) draws attention to Wagner's reverence of ~ Aeschylus . Michael Ewans argues in his Wagner and ~ Aeschylus . The Ring and the Oresteia (London: Faber. 1982) that the influence was so great as to merit a direct character by character comparison between Wagner's Ring and ~ Aeschylus 's Oresteia. A critic of his book however, while not denying that Wagner read and respected ~ Aeschylus , has described his arguments as unreasonable and forced. Sir J. T. Sheppard argues in the second half of his ~ Aeschylus and Sophocles: Their Work and Influence that ~ Aeschylus , along with Sophocles, have played a major part in the formation of dramatic literature from the Renaissance to the present, specifically in French and Elizabethan drama. He also claims that their influence went beyond just drama and applies to literature in general, citing href=" During his presidential campaign in 1968, Senator Robert F. Kennedy quoted the Edith Hamilton translation of ~ Aeschylus on the night of the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. Kennedy was notified of King's murder before a campaign stop in Indianapolis, Indiana and was warned not to attend the event due to fears of rioting from the mostly African-American crowd. Kennedy insisted on attending and delivered an impromptu speech that delivered news of King's death to the crowd. Acknowledging the audience's emotions, Kennedy referred to his own grief at the murder of his brother, President John F. Kennedy and, quoting a passage from the play Agamemnon, said: "My favorite poet was ~ Aeschylus . He once wrote: 'Even in our sleep, pain which cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart, until in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom through the awful grace of God.' What we need in the United States is not division; what we need in the United States is not hatred; what we need in the United States is not violence or lawlessness; but love and wisdom, and compassion toward one another, and a feeling of justice toward those who still suffer within our country, whether they be white or they be black... Let us dedicate ourselves to what the Greeks wrote so many years ago: to tame the savageness of man and make gentle the life of this world." The speech is considered to be Kennedy's finest. The quotation from ~ Aeschylus was later inscribed on a memorial at the gravesite of Robert Kennedy following his own assassination A Prayer For Artemis STROPHE IV Though Zeus plan all things right, Yet is his heart's desire full hard to trace; Nathless in every place Brightly it gleameth, e'en in darkest night, Fraught with black fate to man's speech-gifted race. ANTISTROPHE IV Steadfast, ne'er thrown in fight, The deed in brow of Zeus to ripeness brought; For wrapt in shadowy night, Tangled, unscanned by mortal sight, Extend the pathways of his secret thought. STROPHE V From towering hopes mortals he hurleth prone To utter doom; but for their fall No force arrayeth he; for all That gods devise is without effort wrought. A mindful Spirit aloft on holy throne By inborn energy achieves his thought. ANTISTROPHE V But let him mortal insolence behold:-How with proud contumacy rife, Wantons the stem in lusty life My marriage craving;--frenzy over-bold, Spur ever-pricking, goads them on to fate, By ruin taught their folly all too late. STROPHE VI Thus I complain, in piteous strain, Grief-laden, tear-evoking, shrill; Ah woe is me! woe! woe! Dirge-like it sounds; mine own death-trill I pour, yet breathing vital air. Hear, hill-crowned Apia, hear my prayer! Full well, O land, My voice barbaric thou canst understand; While oft with rendings I assail My byssine vesture and Sidonian veil. ANTISTROPHE VI My nuptial right in Heaven's pure sight Pollution were, death-laden, rude; Ah woe is me! woe! woe! Alas for sorrow's murky brood! Where will this billow hurl me? Where? Hear, hill-crowned Apia, hear my prayer; Full well, O land, My voice barbaric thou canst understand, While oft with rendings I assail My byssine vesture and Sidonian veil. STROPHE VII The oar indeed and home with sails Flax-tissued, swelled with favoring gales, Staunch to the wave, from spear-storm free, Have to this shore escorted me, Nor so far blame I destiny. But may the all-seeing Father send In fitting time propitious end; So our dread Mother's mighty brood, The lordly couch may 'scape, ah me, Unwedded, unsubdued! ANTISTROPHE VII Meeting my will with will divine, Daughter of Zeus, who here dost hold Steadfast thy sacred shrine,-Me, Artemis unstained, behold, Do thou, who sovereign might dost wield, Virgin thyself, a virgin shield; So our dread Mother's mighty brood The lordly couch may 'scape, ah me, Unwedded, unsubdued! ~ Aeschylus,