WINGED WORDS WINDSDAY
Compiled & Edited by Rob Chappell
(@RHCLambengolmo)
Vol. 3, No. 2: November 8, 2023
Special
28th Anniversary of Quotemail Edition
Editor’s Note
It was 28 years ago this week,
when I was a graduate student in the Department of Germanic Languages and
Literatures at the University of Illinois, that I sent out my first “Quotemail”
message to a group of friends and relatives. Weekly and monthly installments
continued to be released through the years, and eventually the distribution was
shifted to a fortnightly format. It all began as REEL – Rob’s Eclectic
Edutainment List – but it grew into something bigger and more long-lasting than
I could ever have imagined at the time. Quotemail gradually became a community
of listeners who have encouraged me to “keep on keeping on,” even when my
personal sky was overcast and there was, to all appearances, no guiding star by
which to steer my ship.
So today’s edition of Winged
Words Windsday is dedicated to everyone who has ever belonged to the
RHC Fortnightly Quotemail list. I trust that the vast majority of you are still
here in this world’s realm, while I know that a few of you have passed beyond
this mortal life and crossed the Rainbow Bridge into the realms of endless day.
Thank you for your encouragement, your friendship, and your support. It has
been a joy to spend half of my lifetime among such amazing fellow-travelers!
Before we cut to the chase, I’d
like to take a moment to mention one listmember in particular who has been a
shining star in my life, and in the lives of so many others. Ambrosiastra
(which means “Immortal Star” in Latin), thank you for being the incredible
person that you are, and here’s wishing you a very Happy 28th
Birthday TODAY! 😊
The selections for this week are
drawn from Voices of the Night, an 1839 collection of poems by
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882), whom longtime listmembers will
recognize as one of my favorite American poets. In these poems, Longfellow
shares some reflections on the human condition that have become very meaningful
to me since Quotemail first began 28 years ago. The first poem, “A Psalm of
Life,” is a perennial favorite of mine; I recited it on All Souls’ Day –
November 2, 2018 – when I visited the gravesite of Dr. Edmund J. James
(1855-1925), the 4th President of the University of Illinois, in the
company of my intrepid padawan-learner, Megan.
A daguerreotype portrait of
Longfellow from 1850. (Photo Credit: Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons)
“A Psalm of Life”
(What the Heart of the Young Man Said to the Psalmist)
Tell me not,
in mournful numbers,
Life is but
an empty dream!—
For the soul
is dead that slumbers,
And things
are not what they seem.
Life is
real! Life is earnest!
And the
grave is not its goal;
Dust thou
art, to dust returnest,
Was not
spoken of the soul.
Not
enjoyment, and not sorrow,
Is our
destined end or way;
But to act,
that each to-morrow
Find us
farther than to-day.
Art is long,
and Time is fleeting,
And our
hearts, though stout and brave,
Still, like
muffled drums, are beating
Funeral
marches to the grave.
In the
world's broad field of battle,
In the
bivouac of Life,
Be not like
dumb, driven cattle!
Be a hero in
the strife!
Trust no
Future, however pleasant!
Let the dead
Past bury its dead!
Act,—act in
the living Present!
Heart
within, and God overhead!
Lives of
great men all remind us
We can make
our lives sublime,
And,
departing, leave behind us
Footprints
on the sands of time;
Footprints,
that perhaps another,
Sailing o'er
life's solemn main,
A forlorn
and shipwrecked brother,
Seeing,
shall take heart again.
Let us,
then, be up and doing,
With a heart
for any fate;
Still
achieving, still pursuing,
Learn to
labor and to wait.
“The Reaper and the Flowers”
There is a
Reaper, whose name is Death,
And, with
his sickle keen,
He reaps the
bearded grain at a breath,
And the
flowers that grow between.
"Shall
I have naught that is fair?" saith he;
"Have
naught but the bearded grain?
Though the
breath of these flowers is sweet to me,
I will give
them all back again."
He gazed at
the flowers with tearful eyes,
He kissed
their drooping leaves;
It was for
the Lord of Paradise
He bound
them in his sheaves.
"My
Lord has need of these flowerets gay,"
The Reaper
said, and smiled;
"Dear
tokens of the earth are they,
Where He was
once a child.
"They
shall all bloom in fields of light,
Transplanted
by my care,
And saints,
upon their garments white,
These sacred
blossoms wear."
And the
mother gave, in tears and pain,
The flowers
she most did love;
She knew she
should find them all again
In the
fields of light above.
Oh, not in
cruelty, not in wrath,
The Reaper
came that day;
'Twas an
angel visited the green earth,
And took the
flowers away.
A positive depiction of the Angel
of Death (Azrael), by Evelyn De Morgan, painted in 1881. (Image Credit: Public
Domain via Wikimedia Commons)
“Footsteps of Angels”
When the
hours of Day are numbered,
And the
voices of the Night
Wake the
better soul, that slumbered,
To a holy,
calm delight;
Ere the
evening lamps are lighted,
And, like
phantoms grim and tall,
Shadows from
the fitful firelight
Dance upon
the parlor wall;
Then the
forms of the departed
Enter at the
open door;
The beloved,
the true-hearted,
Come to
visit me once more;
He, the
young and strong, who cherished
Noble
longings for the strife,
By the
roadside fell and perished,
Weary with
the march of life!
They, the
holy ones and weakly,
Who the
cross of suffering bore,
Folded their
pale hands so meekly,
Spake with
us on earth no more!
And with
them the Being Beauteous,
Who unto my
youth was given,
More than
all things else to love me,
And is now a
saint in heaven.
With a slow
and noiseless footstep
Comes that
messenger divine,
Takes the
vacant chair beside me,
Lays her
gentle hand in mine.
And she sits
and gazes at me
With those
deep and tender eyes,
Like the
stars, so still and saint-like,
Looking
downward from the skies.
Uttered not,
yet comprehended,
Is the
spirit's voiceless prayer,
Soft
rebukes, in blessings ended,
Breathing
from her lips of air.
Oh, though
oft depressed and lonely,
All my fears
are laid aside,
If I but
remember only
Such as
these have lived and died!
“Flowers”
Spake full
well, in language quaint and olden,
One who
dwelleth by the castled Rhine,
When he
called the flowers, so blue and golden,
Stars, that
in earth's firmament do shine.
Stars they
are, wherein we read our history,
As
astrologers and seers of eld;
Yet not
wrapped about with awful mystery,
Like the
burning stars, which they beheld.
Wondrous
truths, and manifold as wondrous,
God hath
written in those stars above;
But not less
in the bright flowerets under us
Stands the
revelation of his love.
Bright and
glorious is that revelation,
Written all
over this great world of ours;
Making
evident our own creation,
In these
stars of earth, these golden flowers.
And the
Poet, faithful and far-seeing,
Sees, alike
in stars and flowers, a part
Of the
self-same, universal being,
Which is
throbbing in his brain and heart.
Gorgeous
flowerets in the sunlight shining,
Blossoms
flaunting in the eye of day,
Tremulous
leaves, with soft and silver lining,
Buds that
open only to decay;
Brilliant
hopes, all woven in gorgeous tissues,
Flaunting
gayly in the golden light;
Large
desires, with most uncertain issues,
Tender
wishes, blossoming at night!
These in
flowers and men are more than seeming,
Workings are
they of the self-same powers,
Which the
Poet, in no idle dreaming,
Seeth in
himself and in the flowers.
Everywhere
about us are they glowing,
Some like
stars, to tell us Spring is born;
Others,
their blue eyes with tears o'er-flowing,
Stand like
Ruth amid the golden corn;
Not alone in
Spring's armorial bearing,
And in
Summer's green-emblazoned field,
But in arms
of brave old Autumn's wearing,
In the center
of his brazen shield;
Not alone in
meadows and green alleys,
On the
mountain-top, and by the brink
Of
sequestered pools in woodland valleys,
Where the
slaves of nature stoop to drink;
Not alone in
her vast dome of glory,
Not on
graves of bird and beast alone,
But in old
cathedrals, high and hoary,
On the tombs
of heroes, carved in stone;
In the
cottage of the rudest peasant,
In ancestral
homes, whose crumbling towers,
Speaking of
the Past unto the Present,
Tell us of
the ancient Games of Flowers;
In all
places, then, and in all seasons,
Flowers
expand their light and soul-like wings,
Teaching us,
by most persuasive reasons,
How akin
they are to human things.
And with
childlike, credulous affection,
We behold
their tender buds expand;
Emblems of
our own great resurrection,
Emblems of
the bright and better land.
In this illustration from a 15th-century
French manuscript, Alexander the Great and his retainers kneel to pray at the
Trees of the Sun and Moon in India. The Dry Tree (at center) has a Phoenix
perched on top – a cross-cultural symbol of resurrection and immortality.
(Image Credit: Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons)
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