We plow the fields, and scatter
The good seed on the land,
But it is fed and watered
By God’s almighty hand;
He sends the snow in winter,
The warmth to swell the grain,
The breezes and the sunshine,
And soft refreshing rain.
He only is the Maker
Of all things near and far;
He paints the wayside flower,
He lights the evening star;
The winds and waves obey him,
By him the birds are fed;
Much more to us, his children,
He gives our daily bread.
We thank thee, then, O Father,
For all things bright and good,
The seedtime and the harvest,
Our life, our health, our food:
No gifts have we to offer
For all thy love imparts,
But that which thou desirest,
Our humble, thankful hearts.
By Matthias Claudius in German, translated by Jane Montgomery-Campbell.
And that’s simple enough, plain enough, to do without any commentary on my part. Happy Thanksgiving!
This day was known as Armistice Day because the armistice ending World War I was signed on November 11, 1918 at 11 AM. On May 13, 1938, it became a legal holiday in the U.S. to be observed every November 11th. In 1954, many held that the heroic struggle of the veterans of World War II and Korea needed to be acknowledged. Therefore, the term “armistice” was removed and replaced with veteran. In other countries this day is known as Remembrance Day.
HERE DEAD WE LIE
Here dead we lie
Because we did not choose
To live and shame the land
From which we sprung.
Life, to be sure,
Is nothing much to lose,
But young men think it is,
And we were young.
by A E Housman
IF I should die, think only this of me:
That there’s some corner of a foreign field
That is for ever England. There shall be
In that rich earth a richer dust concealed;
A dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware,
Gave, once, her flowers to love, her ways to roam,
A body of England’s, breathing English air,
Washed by the rivers, blest by suns of home.
And think, this heart, all evil shed away,
A pulse in the eternal mind, no less
Gives somewhere back the thoughts by England given;
Her sights and sounds; dreams happy as her day;
And laughter, learnt of friends; and gentleness,
In hearts at peace, under an English heaven.
by Rupert Brooke
Veteran’s Day is really for remembering and appreciating those who have served and protected us, those who are living and those who died. So this last poem is for those who didn’t die in war, but who served and loved and tried to bring us through war to peace.
Peace
by Henry Vaughan
My soul, there is a country
Far beyond the stars
Where stands a winged sentry
All skilful in the wars:
There, above noise and danger,
Sweet peace sits crowned with smiles,
And One born in a manger
Commands the beauteous files.
He is thy gracious friend,
And (O my soul, awake!)
Did in pure love descend
To die here for thy sake.
If thou canst get but thither,
There grows the flower of peace,
The rose that cannot wither,
Thy fortress, and thy ease.
Leave then thy foolish ranges;
For none can thee secure
But One, who never changes,
Thy God, thy life, thy cure.
Betsy-Bee (age 10) is memorizing this poem by Longfellow. It reminds me of the way she and her sister, Z-Baby, treat their father. Engineer Husband is a very popular guy at our house.
BETWEEN the dark and the daylight,
When the night is beginning to lower,
Comes a pause in the day’s occupations,
That is known as the Children’s Hour.
I hear in the chamber above me
The patter of little feet,
The sound of a door that is opened,
And voices soft and sweet.
From my study I see in the lamplight,
Descending the broad hall stair,
Grave Alice, and laughing Allegra,
And Edith with golden hair.
A whisper, and then a silence:
Yet I know by their merry eyes
They are plotting and planning together
To take me by surprise.
A sudden rush from the stairway,
A sudden raid from the hall!
By three doors left unguarded
They enter my castle wall!
They climb up into my turret
O’er the arms and back of my chair;
If I try to escape, they surround me;
They seem to be everywhere.
They almost devour me with kisses,
Their arms about me entwine,
Till I think of the Bishop of Bingen
In his Mouse-Tower on the Rhine!
Do you think, O blue-eyed banditti,
Because you have scaled the wall,
Such an old mustache as I am
Is not a match for you all!
I have you fast in my fortress,
And will not let you depart,
But put you down into the dungeon
In the round-tower of my heart.
And there will I keep you forever,
Yes, forever and a day,
Till the walls shall crumble to ruin,
And moulder in dust away!
Alice, Allegra, and Edith were Longfellow’s three daughters. About a year after this poem was written, in 1861, Longfellow’s second wife and the children’s mother, Fanny, was putting locks of her children’s hair into an envelope and sealing it with hot wax when her dress caught on fire. Longfellow, who was in the room next door taking a nap, was aroused and tried to put out the flames. He was badly burned in the process, and Fanny died the next day from her severe burns.
Karate Kid (age 12) is a baseball fan, and this week he’s been reading one of the Cybils nominees in the Middle Grade Fiction category: The Brooklyn Nine: A Novel in Nine Innings by Alan Gratz. When he’s finished, we’ll attempt a joint review. In the meantime, he’s also memorizing the classic baseball poem, Casey at the Bat by Ernest Thayer. Again, when Karate Kid gets it memorized, maybe I’ll try to post a sound file of his rendition here. The ones below are from youtube, one a straight version and the second the Disney cartoon, with many additions and amendments.
Theme: And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we[b] also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. Romans 5:2b-4.
Now if we are children, then we are heirs—heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory. I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. Romans 8:17-18.
I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead. Philippians 3:10-11.
Dear friends, do not be surprised at the painful trial you are suffering, as though something strange were happening to you. But rejoice that you participate in the sufferings of Christ, so that you may be overjoyed when his glory is revealed. I Peter 4:12-13.
When peace like a river, attendeth my way,
When sorrows like sea billows roll;
Whatever my lot, Thou hast taught me to say,
It is well, it is well, with my soul.
Refrain:
It is well, with my soul,
It is well, with my soul,
It is well, it is well, with my soul.
Though Satan should buffet, though trials should come,
Let this blest assurance control,
That Christ has regarded my helpless estate,
And hath shed His own blood for my soul.
My sin, oh, the bliss of this glorious thought!
My sin, not in part but the whole,
Is nailed to the cross, and I bear it no more,
Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, O my soul!
For me, be it Christ, be it Christ hence to live:
If Jordan above me shall roll,
No pang shall be mine, for in death as in life,
Thou wilt whisper Thy peace to my soul.
But Lord, ’tis for Thee, for Thy coming we wait,
The sky, not the grave, is our goal;
Oh, trump of the angel! Oh, voice of the Lord!
Blessed hope, blessed rest of my soul.
And Lord, haste the day when my faith shall be sight,
The clouds be rolled back as a scroll;
The trump shall resound, and the Lord shall descend,
Even so, it is well with my soul.
Almost everyone knows the general outline of the story behind this well-loved hymn: In 1871, Horatio Spafford’s only son died. Also in October of that year The Great Chicago Fire ruined Spafford financially. In 1873, he sent his family, wife Anna and four daughters, on a ship to Europe; Spafford was to follow as soon as he had wound up some business affairs. The ship carrying Spafford’s family collided with another ship and sank. All four of the Spafford daughters drowned; only Anna survived. She sent a telegram to her husband with only two words: “Saved alone.” As Mr. Spafford passed over the Atlantic near the place where his daughters died, he was inspired to write the words of this hymn.
In 1881, the Spaffords, including two new baby girls, moved to Palestine and helped start a communal mission called The American Colony with the mission of serving the poor. The colony later became the subject of the Nobel prize winning Jerusalem, by Swedish novelist Selma Lagerlöf. Leif Enger also named his novel Peace Like a River from the lyrics to this hymn.
Tropical Secrets: Holocaust Refugees in Cuba by Margarita Engle.
A poem begins as a lump in the throat, a sense of wrong, a homesickness, a lovesickness.
~Robert Frost
Both of these books fit Mr. Frost’s statement about poetry; they’re both about a sense of wrong, a homesickness, and a lovesickness. However, with the first, All the Broken Pieces, I got a lump in the throat. With the second, I only thought, “How interesting! Holocaust refugees in Cuba.”
I’m thinking that makes All the Broken Pieces better poetry. It’s also a more emotionally engaging story. Matt Pin, the narrator of the story, is the son of a Vietnamese woman and an American soldier. His mother sends him on one of the last refugee flights out of VIetnam after the war so that he can live a life in country where he won’t suffer for being part American. However, Matt is never sure whether his “other mother” just wanted him to leave because of what happened to his little brother. Matt loves his “now father” and his “now mother,” but he’s not entirely sure they really will be there for him even if he disappoints them. So, Matt is sort of lost between cultures, not knowing where or how to belong. He also deals with prejudice, finds peace in playing music, and finds a way to excel as a pitcher on the school baseball team. Here’s a brief sample of the one of the story poems in this novel:
Music is soothing.
Music is not like words.
Words are messy.
Words spill out
like splattered blood,
oozing in every direction
leaving stains
that won’t come out
no matter how hard you scrub.
But not music.
Even when it’s so loud
you can’t hear anything else,
music lulls you to sleep.
Tropical Secrets was also about a boy, Daniel, sent away by his parents for his safety. In this book the parents are Jews living in Hitler’s Germany. They scrape together all the funds they have to send their son to safety in another country, and Daniel ends up in Cuba. Daniel, like Matt, is unsure of himself and of how he fits into this new and strange-to-him culture. Like Matt, Daniel finds solace in music. Maybe I just didn’t identify with Daniel so strongly because the poems in the book are not all from David’s point of view. Some of the poems tell the story from the point of view of a Cuban girl, Paloma, and others from the elderly vantage point of David, a Jewish Russian refugee who has been in Cuba for many years.
My Books by Francis Bennoch
I love my books as drinkers love their wine;
The more I drink, the more they seem divine;
With joy elate my soul in love runs o’er,
And each fresh draught is sweeter than before.
Books bring me friends where’er on earth I be, –
Solace of solitude, – bonds of society!
I love my books! they are companions dear,
Sterling in worth, in friendship most sincere;
Here talk I with the wise in ages gone,
And with the nobly gifted of our own.
If love, joy, laughter, sorrow please my mind,
Love, joy, grief, laughter in my books I find.
Old English Song:
OH for a booke and a shadie nook
Either in-doors or out ;
With the grene leaves whisp’ring overhead,
Or the streete cryes all about,
Where I may reade all at my ease,
Both of the new and olde ;
For a jollie goode booke whereon to looke,
Is better to me than golde.
Oh, greenly and fair in the lands of the sun,
The vines of the gourd and the rich melon run,
And the rock and the tree and the cottage enfold,
With broad leaves all greenness and blossoms all gold,
Like that which o’er Nineveh’s prophet once grew,
While he waited to know that his warning was true,
And longed for the storm-cloud, and listened in vain
For the rush of the whirlwind and red fire-rain.
On the banks of the Xenil the dark Spanish maiden
Comes up with the fruit of the tangled vine laden;
And the Creole of Cuba laughs out to behold
Through orange-leaves shining the broad spheres of gold;
Yet with dearer delight from his home in the North,
On the fields of his harvest the Yankee looks forth,
Where crook-necks are coiling and yellow fruit shines,
And the sun of September melts down on his vines.
Ah! on Thanksgiving day, when from East and from West,
From North and from South comes the pilgrim and guest;
When the gray-haired New Englander sees round his board
The old broken links of affection restored;
When the care-wearied man seeks his mother once more,
And the worn matron smiles where the girl smiled before;
What moistens the lip and what brightens the eye,
What calls back the past, like the rich Pumpkin pie?
Oh, fruit loved of boyhood! the old days recalling,
When wood-grapes were purpling and brown nuts were falling!
When wild, ugly faces we carved in its skin,
Glaring out through the dark with a candle within!
When we laughed round the corn-heap, with hearts all in tune,
Our chair a broad pumpkin, — our lantern the moon,
Telling tales of the fairy who travelled like steam
In a pumpkin-shell coach, with two rats for her team!
Then thanks for thy present! none sweeter or better
E’er smoked from an oven or circled a platter!
Fairer hands never wrought at a pastry more fine,
Brighter eyes never watched o’er its baking, than thine!
And the prayer, which my mouth is too full to express,
Swells my heart that thy shadow may never be less,
That the days of thy lot may be lengthened below,
And the fame of thy worth like a pumpkin-vine grow,
And thy life be as sweet, and its last sunset sky
Golden-tinted and fair as thy own Pumpkin pie!
Music: CLEANSING FOUNTAIN attributed to Lowell Mason.
I prefer Mason’s tune, maybe because of its familiarity, but here’s an alternate tune from Red Mountain Church:
Theme: In that day there shall be a fountain opened to the house of David and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem for sin and for uncleanness. Zechariah 13:1.
Cowper wrote There Is a Fountain after his first major depressive episode in which he tried three times to commit suicide. As you can see from the portrait (attributed to George Romney andborrowed from Wikipedia), Cowper was a handsome man.
Jawan McGInnis: “I am a evil wretched person who deserves hell and eternal damnation….yet, the Lord has washed away all those guilty stains through the death of his son. Redeeming love is amazing. I like this version (Red Mountain) in particular because it’s a bit slower and the melody is so beautiful.”
This hymn is at the top of Eldest Daughter’s list.
There is a fountain filled with blood drawn from Emmanuel’s veins;
And sinners plunged beneath that flood lose all their guilty stains.
Lose all their guilty stains, lose all their guilty stains;
And sinners plunged beneath that flood lose all their guilty stains.
The dying thief rejoiced to see that fountain in his day;
And there have I, though vile as he, washed all my sins away.
Washed all my sins away, washed all my sins away;
And there have I, though vile as he, washed all my sins away.
Dear dying Lamb, Thy precious blood shall never lose its power
Till all the ransomed church of God be saved, to sin no more.
Be saved, to sin no more, be saved, to sin no more;
Till all the ransomed church of God be saved, to sin no more.
E’er since, by faith, I saw the stream Thy flowing wounds supply,
Redeeming love has been my theme, and shall be till I die.
And shall be till I die, and shall be till I die;
Redeeming love has been my theme, and shall be till I die.
Then in a nobler, sweeter song, I’ll sing Thy power to save,
When this poor lisping, stammering tongue lies silent in the grave.
Lies silent in the grave, lies silent in the grave;
When this poor lisping, stammering tongue lies silent in the grave.
Lord, I believe Thou hast prepared, unworthy though I be,
For me a blood bought free reward, a golden harp for me!
’Tis strung and tuned for endless years, and formed by power divine,
To sound in God the Father’s ears no other name but Thine.
More about William Cowper and his other hymn on this list: