Thanksgiving for Unity in Diversity

Hello everyone –

With the approach of Thanksgiving, I would like to share with you some reflections about Abraham Lincoln and the American Civil War. Why? Because the Civil War has been in the news quite a bit lately – especially with regard to misperceptions and misapprehensions about it that seem to be held by some high-ranking government officials. Who better to tell us about the Civil War than the people who lived through it, and above all, the President who preserved the Union and liberated the slaves? As we gather around the Thanksgiving table with our families and friends, let us be thankful for the unity and diversity in our country, and let us resolve to form a more perfect Union, establish justice, and endure domestic tranquility in our own day.

“In Great Deeds” by Joshua Chamberlain (1828-1914, Union General from Maine)

       In great deeds, something abides. On great fields, something stays. Forms change and pass; bodies disappear; but spirits linger, to consecrate ground for the vision-place of souls. … Generations that know us not and that we know not of, heart-drawn to see where and by whom great things were suffered and done for them, shall come to this deathless field, to ponder and dream; and lo! The shadow of a mighty presence shall wrap them in its bosom, and the power of the vision pass into their souls.

“The Gettysburg Address” by Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865, 16th President of the United States)

       Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

       Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

       But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us — that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion — that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain — that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

“Battle Cry of Freedom” (1862)

Composed by George Frederick Root (1820–1895)

1. Yes we’ll rally round the flag, boys, we’ll rally once again,

Shouting the battle cry of freedom,

We will rally from the hillside, we’ll gather from the plain,

Shouting the battle cry of freedom!

Chorus:

The Union forever! Hurrah, boys, hurrah!

Down with the traitors, up with the stars;

While we rally round the flag, boys, we rally once again,

Shouting the battle cry of freedom!

2. We are springing to the call of our brothers gone before,

Shouting the battle cry of freedom!

And we’ll fill our vacant ranks with a million freemen more,

Shouting the battle cry of freedom!

(Chorus)

3. We will welcome to our numbers the loyal, true and brave,

Shouting the battle cry of freedom!

And although they may be poor, not a man shall be a slave,

Shouting the battle cry of freedom!

(Chorus)

4. So we’re springing to the call from the East and from the West,

Shouting the battle cry of Freedom;

And we’ll hurl the rebel crew from the land we love best,

Shouting the battle cry of Freedom.

(Chorus)

President Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address (March 4, 1865)

Fellow-Countrymen:

        At this second appearing to take the oath of the Presidential office there is less occasion for an extended address than there was at the first. Then a statement somewhat in detail of a course to be pursued seemed fitting and proper. Now, at the expiration of four years, during which public declarations have been constantly called forth on every point and phase of the great contest which still absorbs the attention and engrosses the energies of the nation, little that is new could be presented. The progress of our arms, upon which all else chiefly depends, is as well known to the public as to myself, and it is, I trust, reasonably satisfactory and encouraging to all. With high hope for the future, no prediction in regard to it is ventured.

        On the occasion corresponding to this four years ago all thoughts were anxiously directed to an impending civil war. All dreaded it, all sought to avert it. While the inaugural address was being delivered from this place, devoted altogether to saving the Union without war, insurgent agents were in the city seeking to destroy it without war -- seeking to dissolve the Union and divide effects by negotiation. Both parties deprecated war, but one of them would make war rather than let the nation survive, and the other would accept war rather than let it perish, and the war came.

        One-eighth of the whole population were colored slaves, not distributed generally over the Union, but localized in the southern part of it. These slaves constituted a peculiar and powerful interest. All knew that this interest was somehow the cause of the war. To strengthen, perpetuate, and extend this interest was the object for which the insurgents would rend the Union even by war, while the Government claimed no right to do more than to restrict the territorial enlargement of it. Neither party expected for the war the magnitude or the duration which it has already attained. Neither anticipated that the cause of the conflict might cease with or even before the conflict itself should cease. Each looked for an easier triumph, and a result less fundamental and astounding. Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and each invokes His aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God’s assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men’s faces, but let us judge not, that we be not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered. That of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has His own purposes. “Woe unto the world because of offenses; for it must needs be that offenses come, but woe to that man by whom the offense cometh.” If we shall suppose that American slavery is one of those offenses which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but which, having continued through His appointed time, He now wills to remove, and that He gives to both North and South this terrible war as the woe due to those by whom the offense came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a living God always ascribe to Him? Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman’s two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said “the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.”

        With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation’s wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.

“Lincoln” by Vachel Lindsay (1879-1931)

Would I might rouse the Lincoln in you all,

That which is gendered in the wilderness

From lonely prairies and God’s tenderness.

Imperial soul, star of a weedy stream,

Born where the ghosts of buffaloes still dream,

Whose spirit hoof-beats storm above his grave,

Above that breast of earth and prairie-fire —

Fire that freed the slave.

Happy Thanksgiving to one and all! :)

Rob

Happy 22nd Birthday to Quotemail! :)

Hello everyone –

Today is the 22^nd birthday of the RHC Fortnightly Quotemail emailing list! :) The list now known as the RHC Quotemail began during my graduate school days in the German Department at the U of I. Its original name was REEL – Rob’s Eclectic Edutainment List. It was primarily aimed at friends and colleagues in the German Department, but it began to expand slowly but surely as my worksites changed over the years. When I moved to the Graduate College Information Office in 1997, this list became the “Quote of the Week,” and when I moved to the ACES James Scholar Honors Program in 2000, it was simply called “Quotemail.” Today, this list can boast over 180 members who receive snippets of poetry and prose, mixed in with some inspiration and humor, every other Friday.

In honor of this auspicious occasion, here are two of my favorite poems about the marvels of childhood and the wonders of growing up, by two of my all-time favorite poets!

“Wonder” by Thomas Traherne (1637-1674)

How like an angel came I down!

How bright are all things here!

When first among his works I did appear

O how their glory me did crown!

The world resembled his eternity,

In which my soul did walk;

And everything that I did see

Did with me talk.

The skies in their magnificence,

The lively, lovely air;

Oh how divine, how soft, how sweet, how fair!

The stars did entertain my sense,

And all the works of God, so bright and pure,

So rich and great did seem,

As if they ever must endure

In my esteem.

A native health and innocence

Within my bones did grow,

And while my God did all his glories show,

I felt a vigor in my sense

That was all spirit. I within did flow

With seas of life, like wine;

I nothing in the world did know

But 'twas divine.

Harsh ragged objects were concealed,

Oppressions tears and cries,

Sins, griefs, complaints, dissensions, weeping eyes

Were hid, and only things revealed

Which heavenly spirits, and the angels prize.

The state of innocence

And bliss, not trades and poverties,

Did fill my sense.

The streets were paved with golden stones,

The boys and girls were mine,

Oh how did all their lovely faces shine!

The sons of men were holy ones,

In joy and beauty they appeared to me,

And everything which here I found,

While like an angel I did see,

Adorned the ground.

Rich diamond and pearl and gold

In every place was seen;

Rare splendors, yellow, blue, red, white and green,

Mine eyes did everywhere behold.

Great wonders clothed with glory did appear,

Amazement was my bliss,

That and my wealth was everywhere:

No joy to this!

Cursed and devised proprieties,

With envy, avarice

And fraud, those fiends that spoil even Paradise,

Flew from the splendor of mine eyes,

And so did hedges, ditches, limits, bounds,

I dreamed not aught of those,

But wandered over all men's grounds,

And found repose.

Proprieties themselves were mine,

And hedges ornaments;

Walls, boxes, coffers, and their rich contents

Did not divide my joys, but all combine.

Clothes, ribbons, jewels, laces, I esteemed

My joys by others worn:

For me they all to wear them seemed

When I was born.

“You & Me and the Cottage of Lost Play” (1916)

By J. R. R. Tolkien (1892-1973)

You and me--we know that land

And often have been there

In the long old days, old nursery days,

A dark child and a fair.

Was it down the paths of firelight dreams

In winter cold and white,

Or in the blue-spun twilit hours

Of little early tucked-up beds

In drowsy summer night,

That You and I got lost in Sleep

And met each other there--

Your dark hair on your white nightgown,

And mine was tangled fair?

We wandered shyly hand in hand,

Or rollicked in the fairy sand

And gathered pearls and shells in pails,

While all about the nightingales

Were singing in the trees.

We dug for silver with our spades

By little inland sparkling seas,

Then ran ashore through sleepy seas,

And down a warm and winding lane

And never never found again

Between high whispering trees.

The air was neither night or day,

But faintly dark with softest light,

When first there glimmered into sight

The Cottage of Lost Play.

'Twas builded very very old

White, and thatched with straws of gold,

And pierced with peeping lattices

That looked toward the sea;

And our own children's garden-plots

Were there--our own forget-me-nots,

Red daisies, cress and mustard,

And blue nemophile.

O! All the borders trimmed with box

Were full of favorite flowers--of phlox,

Of larkspur, pinks, and hollyhocks

Beneath a red may-tree:

And all the paths were full of shapes,

Of tumbling happy white-clad shapes,

And with them You and Me.

And some had silver watering-cans

And watered all their gowns,

Or sprayed each other; some laid plans

To build them houses, fairy towns,

Or dwellings in the trees;

And some were clambering on the roof;

Some crooning lonely and aloof;

And some were dancing fairy-rings

And weaving pearly daisy-strings,

Or chasing golden bees;

But here and there a little pair

With rosy cheeks and tangled hair

Debated quaint old childish things--

And we were one of these.

But why it was there came a time

When we could take the road no more,

Though long we looked, and high would climb,

Or gaze from many a seaward shore

To find the path between sea and sky

To those old gardens of delight;

And how it goes now in that land,

If there the house and gardens stand,

Still filled with children clad in white--

We know not, You and I.

And why it was Tomorrow came

And with his grey hand led us back;

And why we never found the same

Old cottage, or the magic track

That leads between a silver sea

And those old shores and gardens fair

Where all things are, that ever were--

We know not, You and Me.

Happy 22^nd Birthday to Quotemail and to my younger cousin, A.N.A., today! :)

Rob

Poems About the Pleiades

Hello everyone –

Longtime listmembers are aware of my lifelong interest in astronomy. As we transition from Daylight Saving Time back to Standard Time this weekend, we’ll be able to see the stars come out one hour earlier each evening! :) Here’s a selection of my favorite poems about the Pleiades star cluster (a/k/a M45, the Seven Sisters, etc.), which is visible all night long during the month of November.

The Pleiades (Photo Credit: NASA – Public Domain)

“On the Beach at Night”

By Walt Whitman (1819-1892)

On the beach at night,

Stands a child with her father,

Watching the east, the autumn sky.

 

Up through the darkness,

While ravening clouds, the burial clouds, in black masses spreading,

Lower sullen and fast athwart and down the sky,

Amid a transparent clear belt of ether yet left in the east,

Ascends large and calm the lord-star Jupiter,

And nigh at hand, only a very little above,

Swim the delicate sisters the Pleiades.

 

From the beach the child holding the hand of her father,

Those burial-clouds that lower victorious soon to devour all,

Watching, silently weeps.

 

Weep not, child,
Weep not, my darling,

With these kisses let me remove your tears,

The ravening clouds shall not long be victorious,

They shall not long possess the sky, they devour the stars only in apparition,

Jupiter shall emerge, be patient, watch again another night, the Pleiades shall emerge,

They are immortal, all those stars both silvery and golden shall shine out again,

The great stars and the little ones shall shine out again, they endure,

The vast immortal suns and the long-enduring pensive moons shall again shine.

 

Then dearest child mournest thou only for Jupiter?

Considerest thou alone the burial of the stars?

 

Something there is,

(With my lips soothing thee, adding I whisper,

I give thee the first suggestion, the problem and indirection,)

Something there is more immortal even than the stars,

(Many the burials, many the days and nights, passing away,)

Something that shall endure longer even than lustrous Jupiter

Longer than sun or any revolving satellite,

Or the radiant sisters the Pleiades.

From “Locksley Hall”

By Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809-1892)

Many a night from yonder ivied casement, ere I went to rest,

Did I look on great Orion sloping slowly to the West.

Many a night I saw the Pleiads, rising through' the mellow shade,

Glitter like a swarm of fire-flies tangled in a silver braid.

Here about the beach I wandered, nourishing a youth sublime

With the fairy tales of science, and the long result of Time;

When the centuries behind me like a fruitful land reposed;

When I clung to all the present for the promise that it closed:

When I dipped into the future far as human eye could see;

Saw the Vision of the world and all the wonder that would be.—

From The Works and Days (Lines 383 ff.)

By Hesiod (fl. 8^th century BCE)

“When the Pleiades, Atlas’ daughters, start to rise, begin your harvest; plough when they go down. For forty days and nights, they hide themselves, and as the year rolls round, appear again when you begin to sharpen sickle-blades; this law holds on the plains and by the sea, and in the mountain valleys, fertile lands far from the swelling sea.”

Poem #48 by Sappho (ca. 630-570 BCE)

The sinking Moon has left the sky,
The Pleiades have also gone.
Midnight comes – and goes, the hours fly
And solitary still, I lie.

Please watch for a special edition of Quotemail coming up on Wednesday, November 8^th, in honor of its 22^nd birthday! :)

Rob