#WingedWordsWindsday: 05/11/2022 -- A Graduation Tribute

 

WINGED WORDS WINDSDAY

Compiled by Rob Chappell (@RHCLambengolmo)

Vol. 1, No. 28: May 11, 2022

 

 

A Salute to the 60^th (Diamond Jubilee) Graduating Class of James Scholars at the University of Illinois

 

“The Heritage”

By Abbie Farwell Brown (1871-1927)

 

No matter what my birth may be,

No matter where my lot is cast,

I am the heir in equity

Of all the precious Past.

 

The art, the science, and the lore

Of all the ages long since dust,

The wisdom of the world in store,

Are mine, all mine in trust.

 

The beauty of the living Earth,

The power of the golden Sun,

The Present, whatsoe’er my birth,

I share with everyone.

 

As much as any man am I

The owner of the working day;

Mine are the minutes as they fly

To save or throw away.

 

And mine the Future to bequeath

Unto the generations new;

I help to shape it with my breath,

Mine as I think or do.

 

Present and Past my heritage,

The Future laid in my control; —

No matter what my name or age,

I am a Master-soul!

 

“If”

By Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936)

 

If you can keep your head when all about you

Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,

If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,

But make allowance for their doubting too;

If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,

Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,

Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,

And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:

 

If you can dream — and not make dreams your master;

If you can think — and not make thoughts your aim;

If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster

And treat those two impostors just the same;

If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken

Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,

Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,

And stoop and build them up with worn-out tools:

 

If you can make one heap of all your winnings

And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,

And lose, and start again at your beginnings

And never breathe a word about your loss;

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew

To serve your turn long after they are gone,

And so hold on when there is nothing in you

Except the Will which says to them: “Hold on!”

 

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,

Or walk with Kings — nor lose the common touch,

If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,

If all men count with you, but none too much;

If you can fill the unforgiving minute

With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,

Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,

And — which is more — you’ll be a Man, my son.

 

“Ithaka”

By Constantine Cavafy (1863-1933)

[Editor’s Note: The island of Ithaka is the homeland of the legendary Greek hero Odysseus, a wily warrior-chieftain who fought for the Greek armies in the Trojan War (ca. 1200 BCE). After the war was over, it took ten years for Odysseus to return home to Ithaka, and his adventures along the way are narrated in Homer’s epic poem, the Odyssey.]

 

When you set sail for Ithaka,

Wish for the road to be long,

Full of adventures, full of knowledge.

The cannibals and the Cyclops,

An angry Poseidon — do not fear.

You will never find such on your path,

If your thoughts remain lofty, and your spirit

And body are touched by a fine emotion.

The cannibals and the Cyclops,

A savage Poseidon you will not encounter,

If you do not carry them within your spirit,

If your spirit does not place them before you.

 

Wish for the road to be long.

Many the summer mornings to be when,

With what pleasure, what joy,

You will enter ports seen for the first time.

Stop at Phoenician markets,

And purchase the fine goods,

Mother-of-pearl and coral, amber and ebony,

And exquisite perfumes of all sorts,

The most delicate fragrances you can find.

To many Egyptian cities you must go,

To learn and learn from the cultivated.

 

Always keep Ithaka in your mind.

To arrive there is your final destination.

But do not hurry the voyage at all.

It is better for it to last many years,

And when old to rest in the island,

Rich with all you have gained on the way,

Not expecting Ithaka to offer you wealth.

 

Ithaka has given you the beautiful journey.

Without her, you would not have set out on the road.

Nothing more does she have to give you.

 

And if you find her poor, Ithaka has not deceived you.

Wise as you have become, with so much experience,

You must already have understood what Ithakas mean.

 

“Ode”

By Arthur O'Shaughnessy (1844-1881)

 

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

 

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.

 

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.

 

“Up-Hill”

By Christina Rossetti (1830-1894)

 

Does the road wind up-hill all the way?

Yes, to the very end.

Will the day’s journey take the whole long day?

From morn to night, my friend.

 

But is there for the night a resting-place?

A roof for when the slow dark hours begin.

May not the darkness hide it from my face?

You cannot miss that inn.

 

Shall I meet other wayfarers at night?

Those who have gone before.

Then must I knock, or call when just in sight?

They will not keep you standing at that door.

 

Shall I find comfort, travel-sore and weak?

Of labor you shall find the sum.

Will there be beds for me and all who seek?

Yea, beds for all who come.

 

“Many Ways We Wend”

By George MacDonald (1824-1905)

 

Thou goest thine, and I go mine –

Many ways we wend;

Many days, and many ways,

Ending in one end. 

 

Many a wrong, and its curing song;

Many a road, and many an inn;

Room to roam, but only one home

For all the world to win.

 

“Sonnet XVI: An Allusion to the Phoenix”

By Michael Drayton (1563-1631)

 

‘Mongst all the creatures in this spacious round

Of the birds’ kind, the Phoenix is alone,

Which best by you of living things is known;

None like to that, none like to you is found.

Your beauty is the hot and splendorous Sun,

The precious spices be your chaste desire,

Which being kindled by that heavenly fire,

Your life so like the Phoenix's begun;

Yourself thus burned in that sacred flame,

With so rare sweetness all the heavens perfuming,

Again increasing as you are consuming,

Only by dying born the very same;

And, winged by fame, you to the stars ascend,

So you of time shall live beyond the end.

 

The phoenix bird is reborn on its own funeral pyre (its nest), having been rejuvenated by the rays of the Sun upon reaching the age of 500 years. Image Credit: Illumination from the Aberdeen Bestiary (12^th century CE).