Fish (fly-replete, in depth of June, Dawdling away their wat’ry noon) Ponder deep wisdom, dark or clear, Each secret fishy hope or fear. Fish say, they their Stream and Pond; But is there anything Beyond? This life cannot be All, they swear, For how unpleasant, if it...
Cold in the dust this perished heart may lie, But that which warmed it once will never die! That spark unburied in its mortal frame With living light, eternal, and the same. Thomas Campbell (1777-1844).
Across my foundering deck shone A beacon, an eternal; beam. Flesh fade, and mortal trash Fall to residuary worm; world’s wildfire, leave but ash: In a flash, at a trumpet crash, I am all at once what Christ is, since he was what I am, and This jack, poor...
How do I spin my time away In caring how to get Ungodly wealth, and fret My self to sweat, As if thou, Lord, hadst meant this clay No after life, no reckoning day…. Quicken my dull-drooping spirit That it may praise thy name, Cleanse it from sin and blame, Take from...
Man at the best a creature frail and vain, In knowledge ignorant, in strength but weak, Subject to sorrows, losses, sickness, pain, Each storm his state, his mind, his body break, From some of these he never finds cessation, But day or night, within, without,...
A mind is not to be changed by place or time. The mind is its own place, and in itself Can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven. John Milton (1608-74), Paradise Lost.
Fly envious Time, till thou run out thy race… For when as each thing bad thou hast entombed, And last of all thy greedy self consumed, Then long eternity shall greet our bliss With an individual kiss, And joy shall overtake us as a flood; When everything that is...
The sun itself, which makes times, as they pass Is elder by a year now than then it was, When thou and I first one another saw; All other things to their destruction draw, Only our love hath no decay; This, no tomorrow hath, nor yesterday. Running, it never runs from...
Here in a quiet and dusty room they lie, Faded as crumbled stone or shifting sand, Forlorn as ashes, shrivelled, scentless, dry – Meadows and gardens running through my hand. Dead that shall quicken at the call of Spring, Sleepers to stir beneath June's magic kiss,...
For as God is infinitely the greatest Being, so he is allowed to be infinitely the most beautiful and excellent: and all the beauty to be found throughout the whole creation is but the diffused beams of that Being who hath infinite fulness of brightness and glory....
My God, how perfect are thy ways! But mine polluted are; Sin twines itself around my praise, And slides into my prayer. When I would speak what thou hast done To save me from my sin, I cannot make thy mercies known But self-applause creeps in. Divine desire, that holy...
And whereas I had said; letters and photos And seen myself muscling through the flames, You would go back especially for your houseplants – Those dreamy weeping figs, this stocky yucca – What’s worth remembering remembered, leaving Both hands free for carrying out the...