Dear
Members, Alumni, & Friends of the JSMT:
This
weekend brings two happy occasions together within three days of each other!
Today is the first day of the Chinese New Year festival, and next Monday,
February 3, marks the eighth birthday of the James Scholar Media Team!
Friday,
January 31 marks the beginning of the Lunar New Year in the traditional Chinese
calendar. The New Year (or Spring Festival) usually occurs on the second New
Moon after the Midwinter Solstice (December 21 or 22). Today, the Year of the
Horse will begin as the year 4712 dawns in East Asia and around the globe. To
celebrate the Lunar New Year, I have selected the poem “Kubla Khan” (by Samuel
Taylor Coleridge) to share with you because it celebrates the splendor of
medieval China under the reign of Emperor Kublai Khan (reigned 1260-1294), the
grandson of Genghis Khan.
“Kubla
Khan” a/k/a “Xanadu” (1816)
By
Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834)
In
Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A
stately pleasure-dome decree:
Where
Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through
caverns measureless to man
Down
to a sunless sea.
So
twice five miles of fertile ground
With
walls and towers were girdled round:
And
there were gardens bright with sinuous rills
Where
blossomed many an incense-bearing tree;
And
here were forests ancient as the hills,
Enfolding
sunny spots of greenery.
But
O, that deep romantic chasm which slanted
Down
the green hill athwart a cedarn cover!
A
savage place! as holy and enchanted
As
ever beneath a waning Moon was haunted
By
woman wailing for her demon-lover!
And
from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething,
As
if this Earth in fast thick pants were breathing,
A
mighty fountain momently was forced;
Amid
whose swift half-intermitted burst
Huge
fragments vaulted like rebounding hail,
Or
chaffy grain beneath the thresher’s flail:
And
‘mid these dancing rocks at once and ever
It
flung up momently the sacred river.
Five
miles meandering with a mazy motion
Through
wood and dale the sacred river ran,
Then
reached the caverns measureless to man,
And
sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean:
And
‘mid this tumult Kubla heard from far
Ancestral
voices prophesying war!
The
shadow of the dome of pleasure
Floated
midway on the waves;
Where
was heard the mingled measure
From
the fountain and the caves.
It
was a miracle of rare device,
A
sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice!
A
damsel with a dulcimer
In
a vision once I saw:
It
was an Abyssinian maid,
And
on her dulcimer she played,
Singing
of Mount Abora.
Could
I revive within me,
Her
symphony and song,
To
such a deep delight ‘twould win me,
That
with music loud and long,
I
would build that dome in air,
That
sunny dome! those caves of ice!
And
all who heard should see them there,
And
all should cry, Beware! Beware!
His
flashing eyes, his floating hair!
Weave
a circle round him thrice,
And
close your eyes with holy dread,
For
he on honey-dew hath fed,
And
drunk the milk of Paradise.
Our
second celebratory poem is the JSMT’s “unofficial anthem,” which I recited (in
part) at our club’s fifth anniversary celebration in February 2011. It encapsulates
my own hopes and dreams for the rising generation, along with the aspirations
that the JSMT has for sharing its inspirational and motivational messages
within and beyond the College of ACES.
“Ode”
(1874)
By
Arthur William Edgar O'Shaughnessy (1844-1881)
1.
We are the music makers,
And
we are the dreamers of dreams,
Wandering
by lone sea-breakers,
And
sitting by desolate streams;
World-losers
and world-forsakers,
On
whom the pale Moon gleams:
Yet
we are the movers and shakers
Of
the world forever, it seems.
2.
With wonderful deathless ditties,
We
build up the world’s great cities,
And
out of a fabulous story,
We
fashion an empire’s glory:
One
man with a dream, at pleasure,
Shall
go forth and conquer a crown;
And
three with a new song’s measure
Can
trample an empire down.
3.
We, in the ages lying
In
the buried past of the Earth,
Built
Nineveh with our sighing,
And
Babel itself with our mirth;
And
overthrew them with prophesying
To
the old of the new world’s worth;
For
each age is a dream that is dying,
Or
one that is coming to birth.
4.
A breath of our inspiration
Is
the life of each generation.
A
wondrous thing of our dreaming,
Unearthly,
impossible seeming –
The
soldier, the king, and the peasant
Are
working together in one,
Till
our dream shall become their present,
And
their work in the world be done.
5.
They had no vision amazing
Of
the goodly house they are raising.
They
had no divine foreshowing
Of
the land to which they are going:
But
on one man’s soul it hath broken,
A
light that doth not depart,
And
his look, or a word he hath spoken,
Wrought
flame in another man’s heart.
6.
And therefore today is thrilling
With
a past day’s late fulfilling.
And
the multitudes are enlisted
In
the faith that their fathers resisted,
And,
scorning the dream of tomorrow,
Are
bringing to pass, as they may,
In
the world, for its joy or its sorrow,
The
dream that was scorned yesterday.
7.
But we, with our dreaming and singing,
Ceaseless
and sorrowless we!
The
glory about us clinging
Of
the glorious futures we see,
Our
souls with high music ringing;
O
men! It must ever be
That
we dwell, in our dreaming and singing,
A
little apart from ye.
8.
For we are afar with the dawning
And
the suns that are not yet high,
And
out of the infinite morning
Intrepid
you hear us cry –
How,
spite of your human scorning,
Once
more God's future draws nigh,
And
already goes forth the warning
That
ye of the past must die.
9.
“Great hail!” we cry to the comers
From
the dazzling unknown shore;
Bring
us hither your Sun and your summers,
And
renew our world as of yore;
You
shall teach us your song’s new numbers,
And
things that we dreamt not before;
Yea,
in spite of a dreamer who slumbers,
And
a singer who sings no more.
“We
are dreamers, shapers, singers, and makers. … These are the tools we employ,
and we know many things.”
--
Technomage Elric, in the BABYLON 5
Episode, “The Geometry of Shadows” (1995)
Until
next time –
Rob
J
