#WingedWordsWindsday: 2022/09/07 -- Welcoming the Harvest Moon!

 

WINGED WORDS WINDSDAY

Compiled by Rob Chappell (@RHCLambengolmo)

Vol. 1, No. 45: September 7, 2022

 

 

Welcoming the Harvest Moon in Poetry & Prose

 

Editor’s Note

This week, we salute the Full Harvest Moon on Saturday, September 10 with an unpublished essay of mine and a selection of poems about the harvest season, which is beginning now across the American Midwest.

 

“Autumn Reflections”

By Rob Chappell, M.A.

(Unpublished Article from September 2009)

                In November 2005, during the University’s Fall Break, I had the opportunity to revisit my elementary school in Bethalto, Illinois. Because of all the fond memories that I have associated with it, autumn was a great time of year for me to revisit my first Alma Mater. I had a delightful and surprising visit: delightful because I got to reconnect with a couple of my veteran teachers again, and surprising because the school is flourishing today even more so than when I was enrolled there in the 1970s.

 

The Great Seal of Bethalto, Illinois, where the Editor attended elementary school from 1973-1980. (Image Credit: Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons)

                When I was growing up in suburban southwest Illinois, the autumn season was a time of great excitement and anticipation. Even though my summer months were filled with all the freedom and adventure that children longed for during the school year, returning to my elementary school in early autumn was always a pleasure because my school days were perennially edutaining. As our class moved up through the ranks from kindergarten through the sixth grade, we learned about the three R’s (along with the sciences and the arts) from teachers who sang, played the piano, and strummed their guitars (with plenty of songs by Peter, Paul, and Mary!).

                We had many activities to look forward to during the fall term. Field trips to the local apple orchard and pumpkin patch; stories and songs about Johnny Appleseed; trick-or-treating for UNICEF; classroom parties to celebrate various autumn holidays; the annual chili supper; and making crafts for the holiday bazaar all combined to create an atmosphere charged with youthful energy and enthusiasm. The brisk autumn breezes, the falling multicolored leaves, and foreshortened daylight hours only added to the numinosity of the season.

                Everyone’s favorite part of the school day was the story time in early afternoon. After we had finished lunch and played outside in the autumn sunshine during the noon recess, our teachers would read aloud to us from classic children’s books by L. Frank Baum, Astrid Lindgren, Laura Ingalls Wilder, and many more. During the fall term, our teachers also gave us proverbs to memorize and poems to recite. One such poem that we learned has remained a favorite of mine through the years:

 

“Leaves” (Anonymous)

 

The leaves had a wonderful frolic.

They danced to the wind’s loud song.

They whirled, and they floated, and scampered.

They circled and flew along.

 

The Moon saw the little leaves dancing.

Each looked like a small brown bird.

The Man in the Moon smiled and listened,

And this is the song he heard.

 

“The North Wind is calling, is calling,

And we must whirl round and round,

And then, when our dancing is ended,

We’ll make a warm quilt for the ground.”

 

                To conclude, here’s a favorite song from my elementary school days, which my classmates and I enjoyed singing in the fall of the year. It was prominently featured in several episodes of Little House in the Prairie, one of the most popular TV series of the 1970s – and a fan favorite at my school!

 

“Bringing in the Sheaves”

By Knowles Shaw (1834-1878)

"He that goeth forth and weepeth, bearing precious seed, shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him." – Psalm 126:6 (KJV)

 

1. Sowing in the morning, sowing seeds of kindness,

Sowing in the noontide and the dewy eve;

Waiting for the harvest, and the time of reaping,

We shall come rejoicing, bringing in the sheaves.

 

Refrain:

Bringing in the sheaves, bringing in the sheaves,

We shall come rejoicing, bringing in the sheaves,

Bringing in the sheaves, bringing in the sheaves,

We shall come rejoicing, bringing in the sheaves.

 

2. Sowing in the sunshine, sowing in the shadows,

Fearing neither clouds nor winter's chilling breeze;

By and by the harvest, and the labor ended,

We shall come rejoicing, bringing in the sheaves.

 

(Refrain)

 

3. Going forth with weeping, sowing for the Master,

Though the loss sustained our spirit often grieves;

When our weeping's over, He will bid us welcome,

We shall come rejoicing, bringing in the sheaves.

 

(Refrain)

 

An Australian wheat field, which reminds the Editor of how a student teacher, trained in his kindergarten class under his teacher, Mrs. Meyer, later traveled to Australia to continue her training in the Sydney school district. (Photo Credit: Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons)

 

Happy Fall, y’all! 😊

 

 

“Harvest Time”

By John Jay Chapman (1862-1933)

 

Behold, the harvest is at hand;

And thick on the encircling hills

The sheaves like an encampment stand,

Making a martial fairy-land

That half the landscape fills.

The plains in colors brightly blent

Are burnished by the standing grain

That runs across a continent.

In sheets of gold or silver stain

Or red as copper from the mine,

The oats, the barley, and the buckwheat shine.

 

Autumn has pitched his royal tent,

And set his banner in the field;

Where blazes every ornament

That beamed in an heraldic shield.

He spreads his carpets from the store

Of stuffs the richest burghers wore,

When velvet-robed, and studded o'er

With gems, they faced their Emperor.

 

A wind is in the laughing grain

That bends to dodge his rough caress,

Knowing the rogue will come again

To frolic with its loveliness.

And in the highways drifts a stream

Of carts, of cattle, and of men;

While scythes in every meadow gleam,

And Adam sweats again.

 

In the young orchard forms are seen

With throats thrown open to the breeze,

To reap the rye that lies between;

And sickles hang on apple-trees,

Half hidden in the glossy leaves,

And pails beside the reapers lie;

While sturdy yokels toss the sheaves,

And hats are cocked and elbows ply,

And blackbirds rise to cloud the sky

In swarms that chatter as they fly.

 

From field to field each shady lane

Is strown and traced with wisps of hay,

Where gates lie open to the wain

That creaks upon its toiling way.

And little children, dumb with pride,

Upon the rocking mountain ride,

While anxious parents warn;

And farm-boys guide the lazy team

Till it shall stand beneath the beam

That spans the gaping barn.

 

The harvest to its cavern sinks,

While shafts of sunlight probe the chinks

And fumes of incense rise.

Then, as the farmers turn the latch,

Good-natured Autumn smiles to watch

The triumph in their eyes.

His gifts, from many a groaning load,

Are heaved and packed, and wheeled and stowed

By gnomes that hoard the prize.

The grist of a celestial mill,

Which man has harnessed to his will,

In one bright torrent falls to fill

The greedy granaries.

 

Beneath that annual rain of gold

Kingdoms arise, expand, decay;

Philosophers their mind unfold

And poets sing, and pass away.

Forever turns the winnowing fan:

It runs with an eternal force,

As run the planets in their course

Behind the life of man.

Little we heed that silent power,

Save as the gusty chaff is whirled,

When Autumn triumphs for an hour,

And spills his riches on the world.

 

“September”

By Ellen P. Allerton (1835-1893)

 

    'Tis autumn in our northern land.

    The summer walks a queen no more;

    Her scepter drops from out her hand;

    Her strength is spent, her passion o'er.

    On lake and stream, on field and town,

    The placid sun smiles calmly down.

 

    The teeming earth its fruit has borne;

    The grain fields lie all shorn and bare;

    And where the serried ranks of corn

    Wave proudly in the summer air,

    And bravely tossed their yellow locks,

    Now thickly stands the bristling shocks.

 

    On sunny slope, on crannied wall

    The grapes hang purpling in the sun;

    Down to the turf the brown nuts fall,

    And golden apples, one by one.

    Our bins run o'er with ample store—

    Thus autumn reaps what summer bore.

 

    The mill turns by the waterfall;

    The loaded wagons go and come;

    All day I hear the teamster's call,

    All day I hear the threshers hum;

    And many a shout and many a laugh

    Comes breaking through the clouds of chaff.

 

    Gay, careless sounds of homely toil!

    With mirth and labor closely bent

    The weary tiller of the soil

    Wins seldom wealth, but oft content.

    'Tis better still if he but knows

    What sweet, wild beauty round him glows.

 

    The brook glides toward the sleeping lake—

    Now babbling over sinning stones;

    Now under clumps of bush and brake,

    Hushing its brawl to murmuring tones;

    And now it takes its winding path

    Through meadows green with aftermath.

 

    The frosty twilight early falls,

    But household fires burn warm and red.

    The cold may creep without the walls,

    And growing things lie stark and dead—

    No matter, so the hearth be bright

    When household faces meet to-night.

 

“The Harvest Moon”

By Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882)

 

It is the Harvest Moon! On gilded vanes

And roofs of villages, on woodland crests

And their aerial neighborhoods of nests

Deserted, on the curtained window-panes

Of rooms where children sleep, on country lanes

And harvest-fields, its mystic splendor rests!

Gone are the birds that were our summer guests,

With the last sheaves return the laboring wains!

All things are symbols: the external shows

Of Nature have their image in the mind,

As flowers and fruits and falling of the leaves;

The song-birds leave us at the summer's close,

Only the empty nests are left behind,

And pipings of the quail among the sheaves.

 

The Moon, as photographed by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO). (Photo Credit: NASA – Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons)

 

 

#WingedWordsWindsday: 2022/08/31 -- Celebrating Ancient & Modern Scientists! :)

 WINGED WORDS WINDSDAY

Compiled by Rob Chappell (@RHCLambengolmo)

Vol. 1, No. 44: August 31, 2022

 

 

Hippocrates, Aristotle, & Maxwell

 

Editor’s Note

This week, in honr of the new academic year, we salute scientific research both ancient and modern, featuring articles about the Classical Greek scientists Hippocrates and Aristotle, along with a poem by the Scottish mathematician, James Clerk Maxwell.

 

“Meet Dr. Hippocrates:

The Father of Western Medicine”

By Rob Chappell, M.A.

Adapted & Condensed from Cursus Honorum VI: 6 (January 2006)

                Hippocrates (ca. 460-380 BCE) is widely regarded as the “Father of Western Medicine” by historians of the medical sciences. He was apprenticed to a physician during his youth and spent most of his life on the Greek island of Kos. There stood the famous temple of Asclepius (the divine patron of medicine and healing in the Olympian pantheon), which attracted countless pilgrims seeking medical help for various illnesses and injuries. Having observed firsthand the medical practices of the temple’s physician-priests, Hippocrates resolved to banish superstition and magic from medicine. In his teaching and practice, he emphasized the role of observation (carefully examining patients) and asking patients detailed questions about their present condition and medical history. His treatments emphasized the need for proper nutrition and exercise and the use of remedies that had a proven record of success. Due to the effectiveness of his scientifically-based treatment methods, Hippocrates’ fame spread rapidly across the Mediterranean world, drawing both patients and would-be apprentices to his school.

                A collection of about sixty treatises on medicine and related subjects, based on Hippocrates’ observations and experiments, was compiled by his students and successors over several generations. These books transmitted Hippocrates’ teachings to future generations and ensured that he would be revered for millennia to come as a brilliant scientist and dedicated physician. The most famous of the Hippocratic treatises is the Hippocratic Oath, which most physicians still take (in one form or another) upon graduation from medical school. The Oath introduced the cardinal precept of the medical profession, “Primum non nocere” (Latin: “First, do no harm”), and it required physicians to guarantee their patients’ confidentiality. Moreover, the Oath sought to stamp out quackery by describing the apprenticeship that medical students must undergo to be qualified to practice medicine professionally and to train their own apprentices in turn.

                Hippocrates is a sterling example of how one scientist can change the world for the better through research, teaching, and writing. His entire lifetime was spent in the service of his fellow human beings, and his wisdom and insight still inspire young people to take up the challenge of improving the human condition through the scientific method that he pioneered.

 

A Hippocratic Webliography

·         http://classics.mit.edu/Browse/browse-Hippocrates.html -- A collection of English translations of the Hippocratic treatises, including the world-famous Oath.

·         https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hippocrates -- Encyclopedia article about Hippocrates, the “Father of Western Medicine.”

·         https://iep.utm.edu/hippocra/ -- An introductory overview of Hippocrates’ life, teachings, and legacy.

 

“Aristotle: The Master of Those Who Know”

By Rob Chappell, M.A.

Adapted & Condensed from Cursus Honorum VI: 9 (April 2006)

                Before the rise of modern science, what is known today as the scientific enterprise was called “natural philosophy” – that is, “the study of Nature’s wisdom.” One of the foremost “natural philosophers” of Classical Greece was Aristotle (384-322 BCE), whose writings encompass such diverse subjects as physics, astronomy, geosciences, ethics, politics, logic, psychology, biology, rhetoric, and metaphysics. Aristotle was hailed as the “Master of Those Who Know” when European scholars rediscovered his writings and translated them into Latin during the 11^th century. As his writings were disseminated across Europe, he came to be regarded as “THE Philosopher” by his Scholastic admirers at Europe’s leading medieval universities.

                Born in 384 BCE at Stagira in northern Greece, Aristotle journeyed to Athens in his late teens and became a student (and later a teacher) at Plato’s Academy. After Plato’s death in 347 BCE, Aristotle traveled and conducted botanical research with Theophrastus, one of his students. In 343 BCE, Aristotle was invited by King Philip II of Macedon to become the tutor of Philip’s son and heir, Alexander the Great. After Alexander had ascended to the throne of Macedon and started his conquest of the Persian Empire, Aristotle returned to Athens, where he set up his own school of philosophy, the Lyceum. Over the next twelve years, he composed a great number of books on a wide variety of topics (including both the sciences and the humanities) until at last he retired to the Greek island of Euboea, where he died in 322 BCE.

                Aristotle was a keen observer of the natural world. Some of his theories have been disproved since the Scientific Revolution, such as his geocentric model of the Solar System and his belief in the spontaneous generation of living organisms. Nonetheless, he made meticulous observations of both living and nonliving things, and based on those observations, he devised a logically consistent system of scientific classifications that endured for two millennia.

 

“Mine is the first step and therefore a small one, though worked out with much thought and hard labor. You, my readers or hearers of my lectures, if you think I have done as much as can fairly be expected of an initial start, will acknowledge what I have achieved and will pardon what I have left for others to accomplish.” à Aristotle

 

                Aristotle was also interested in what we would call the humanities. His writings on ethics and political science display his deep insights into human nature and the social order. He is often regarded as the first Western literary critic because of his writings on the aesthetics of poetry and rhetoric. Aristotle also ventured into the realm of metaphysics: his reasoned speculations about the nature of ultimate reality have exercised a profound influence on Western philosophy ever since.

 

Resources for Further Exploration:

Aristotle and His World of Ideas

·         http://classics.mit.edu/Browse/browse-Aristotle.html à English Translations of Aristotle’s Works from the Internet Classics Archive

·         https://iep.utm.edu/aristotl/ à Article from the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy

·         https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/aristotle/ à Article from the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

 

In this detail from Raphael’s The School of Athens (1509), Aristotle (at right) is pictured with his teacher, Plato (at left). (Image Credit: Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons)

 

“A Student’s Evening Hymn”

By James Clerk Maxwell (1831-1879)

 

Now no more the slanting rays

With the mountain summits dally,

Now no more in crimson blaze

Evening’s fleecy cloudless rally,

Soon shall Night front off the valley

Sweep that bright yet earthly haze,

And the stars most musically

Move in endless rounds of praise.

 

While the world is growing dim,

And the Sun is slow descending

Past the far horizon’s rim,

Earth's low sky to heaven extending,

Let my feeble earth-notes, blending

With the songs of cherubim,

Through the same expanse ascending,

Thus renew my evening hymn.

 

Thou that fills our waiting eyes

With the food of contemplation,

Setting in thy darkened skies

Signs of infinite creation,

Grant to nightly meditation

What the toilsome day denies —

Teach me in this earthly station

Heavenly Truth to realize.

 

Give me wisdom so to use

These brief hours of thoughtful leisure,

That I may no instant lose

In mere meditative pleasure,

But with strictest justice measure

All the ends my life pursues,

Lies to crush and truths to treasure,

Wrong to shun and Right to choose.

 

Then, when unexpected Sleep,

O’er my long-closed eyelids stealing,

Opens up that lower deep

Where Existence has no feeling,

May sweet Calm, my languor healing,

Lend note strength at dawn to reap

All that Shadows, world-concealing,

For the bold enquirer keep.

 

Through the creatures Thou hast made

Show the brightness of Thy glory,

Be eternal Truth displayed

In their substance transitory,

Till green Earth and Ocean hoary,

Massy rock and tender blade

Tell the same unending story —

"We are Truth in Form arrayed."

 

When to study I retire,

And from books of ancient sages

Glean fresh sparks of buried fire

Lurking in their ample pages —

While the task my mind engages

Let old words new truths inspire —

Truths that to all after-ages

Prompt the Thoughts that never tire.

 

Yet if, led by shadows fair

I have uttered words of folly,

Let the kind absorbing air

Stifle every sound unholy.

So when Saints with Angels lowly

Join in heaven’s unceasing prayer,

Mine as certainly, though slowly,

May ascend and mingle there.

 

Teach me so Thy works to read

That my faith — new strength accruing, —

May from world to world proceed,

Wisdom's fruitful search pursuing;

Till, thy truth my mind imbuing,

I proclaim the Eternal Creed,

Oft the glorious theme renewing

God our Lord is God indeed.

 

Give me love aright to trace

Thine to everything created,

Preaching to a ransomed race

By Thy mercy renovated,

Till with all thy fulness sated

I behold thee face to face

And with Ardor unabated

Sing the glories of thy grace.

 

 

Happy New Years: Egyptian (8/29) & Byzantine (9/1)!

Hello everyone – 

This week, we remember the ancient Egyptian New Year’s Day (TODAY, 8/29) and the medieval Byzantine New Year’s Day (Thursday, 9/1). Summer is definitely on the wane, and fall is about to arrive (but not quite yet). Here are some poems that I recall from my elementary school days that encapsulate my thoughts and memories of this amazing time of year!

 

“Back to School” by Helen H. Moore

Summer's almost gone now,

And on the streets we see

School buses filled with children

Where ice cream trucks should be.

 

“Fall Is Here” by Helen H. Moore

Fall is here. Another year is coming to an end.

Summer’s finished, summer’s gone, winter’s round the bend.

Fall is piles of crunchy leaves, orange, gold, and red.

Fall is sweaters with long sleeves and blankets on the bed.

Fall is football, fall is pumpkins, fall’s where summer ends;

And fall is coming back to school, and seeing all my friends.

 

“A Calendar of Sonnets: September”

By Helen Hunt Jackson (1830-1885)

O golden month! How high thy gold is heaped!

The yellow birch-leaves shine like bright coins strung

On wands; the chestnut's yellow pennons tongue

To every wind its harvest challenge. Steeped

In yellow, still lie fields where wheat was reaped;

And yellow still the corn sheaves, stacked among

The yellow gourds, which from the earth have wrung

Her utmost gold. To highest boughs have leaped

The purple grape, -- last thing to ripen, late

By very reason of its precious cost.

O Heart, remember, vintages are lost

If grapes do not for freezing night-dews wait.

Think, while thou sunnest thyself in Joy's estate,

Mayhap thou canst not ripen without frost!

 

“September” by Helen Hunt Jackson

The golden-rod is yellow;

The corn is turning brown;

The trees in apple orchards

With fruit are bending down.

The gentian’s bluest fringes

Are curling in the sun;

In dusty pods the milkweed

Its hidden silk has spun.

The sedges flaunt their harvest,

In every meadow nook;

And asters by the brook-side

Make asters in the brook.

From dewy lanes at morning

The grapes’ sweet odors rise;

At noon the roads all flutter

With yellow butterflies.

By all these lovely tokens

September days are here,

With summer’s best of weather,

And autumn’s best of cheer.

But none of all this beauty

Which floods the earth and air

Is unto me the secret

Which makes September fair.

‘Tis a thing which I remember;

To name it thrills me yet:

One day of one September

I never can forget.

 

WPA Poster from 1940 (Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons)

 

Happy September – and Happy Reading to one and all! 😊

 

Rob