#WingedWordsWindsday: 12/29/2021 -- A Trio of Poems for the New Year

 

WINGED WORDS WINDSDAY

Compiled by Rob Chappell (@RHCLambengolmo)

Vol. 1, No. 9: December 29, 2021

 

 

A Trio of Poems for the New Year – 2022!

 

“Ode” (1873)

By Arthur William Edgar 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.

 

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.

 

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.

 

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.

 

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.

 

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.

 

“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.

 

“Ring Out, Wild Bells” (1850)

By Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809-1892)

 

Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky,

The flying cloud, the frosty light;

The year is dying in the night;

Ring out, wild bells, and let him die.

 

Ring out the old, ring in the new,

Ring, happy bells, across the snow:

The year is going, let him go;

Ring out the false, ring in the true.

 

Ring out the grief that saps the mind,

For those that here we see no more,

Ring out the feud of rich and poor,

Ring in redress to all mankind.

 

Ring out a slowly dying cause,

And ancient forms of party strife;

Ring in the nobler modes of life,

With sweeter manners, purer laws.

 

Ring out the want, the care, the sin,

The faithless coldness of the times;

Ring out, ring out thy mournful rhymes,

But ring the fuller minstrel in.

 

Ring out false pride in place and blood,

The civic slander and the spite;

Ring in the love of truth and right,

Ring in the common love of good.

 

Ring out old shapes of foul disease,

Ring out the narrowing lust of gold;

Ring out the thousand wars of old,

Ring in the thousand years of peace.

 

Ring in the valiant man and free,

The larger heart, the kindlier hand;

Ring out the darkness of the land,

Ring in the Christ that is to be.

 

Orphic Hymn #77: “To Aurora”

Translated by Thomas Taylor (1758-1835)

 

Hear me, O goddess! whose emerging ray

Leads on the broad refulgence of the day;

Blushing Aurora, whose celestial light

Beams on the world with reddening splendors bright:

Angel of Titan, whom with constant round,

Thy orient beams recall from night profound:

Labor of every kind to lead is thine,

Of mortal life the minister divine.

Mankind in thee eternally delight,

And none presumes to shun thy beauteous sight.

Soon as thy splendors break the bands of rest,

And eyes unclose with pleasing sleep oppressed;

Men, reptiles, birds, and beasts, with general voice,

And all the nations of the deep, rejoice;

For all the culture of our life is thine.

Come, blessed power! and to these rites incline:

Thy holy light increase, and unconfined

Diffuse its radiance on thy mystic's mind.

 

The aurora australis (southern lights), as photographed from the International Space Station. (Photo Credit: NASA – Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons)

Hollydaze Reflections: The Return of the Golden Age

 Here are some Yuletide reflections about a long-ago Golden Age in human prehistory -- and how it might yet return in the future. -- The Editor (@RHCLambengolmo)

The Ages of Humankind: A Myth for All Times & Climes

Excerpted from “A Golden Jubilee Interview with the Editor” by Maria Pauls Flannagan (ACES James Scholar Alumna & Bronze Tableteer, Class of 2014)

Reprinted from Cursus Honorum (Course of Honors), Volume XII, Number 1 (August 2012)

• Maria: What is your favorite mythological story of all time and why?
• Rob: The myth of the “Ages of Humankind” is my all-time favorite. This story appears in the Greek, Persian, Hindu, and Abrahamic religions. There are four main ages of human history, the story goes. The first is the Golden Age, where everything is very harmonious and peaceful; then comes the Silver Age, when the human condition is a bit less harmonious and peaceful, but still idyllic. Next is the Bronze Age, wherein people may sometimes be heroic, but conflict and injustice begin to rear their ugly heads. Last of all is the Iron Age, which is the age we live in, full of conflict, disasters, and hardships. In the Greek version of this story, Astraea, the goddess of justice, ruled the world during the Golden Age, but later – because of humankind’s inhumanity to humankind – she departed into the sky to become the constellation Virgo, the celestial Maiden who holds the Scales of Justice (Libra) in her hand. Once this current Iron Age is done, the myth goes on, we will go back to this perfect age, the Golden Age, and Astraea will come back, and everyone will be nice and in harmony. I like this myth best of all because it inspires us to strive for better conditions on Earth, in which human beings can flourish and build a better society based on justice, freedom, and peace for all peoples.

 

The prehistoric Golden Age is celebrated in verse by the Greek poet Aratus of Soli (fl. 3rd century BCE):

Beneath both feet of Boötes mark the Maiden [Virgo], who in her hands bears the gleaming Ear of Corn [Spica]. Whether she be daughter of Astraeus, who, men say, was of old the father of the stars, or child of other sire, untroubled be her course! But another tale is current among men, how of old she dwelt on earth and met men face to face, nor ever disdained in olden time the tribes of men and women, but mingling with them took her seat, immortal though she was. Her men called Justice; but she assembling the elders, it might be in the market-place or in the wide-wayed streets, uttered her voice, ever urging on them judgements kinder to the people. Not yet in that age had men knowledge of hateful strife, or carping contention, or din of battle, but a simple life they lived. Far from them was the cruel sea and not yet from afar did ships bring their livelihood, but the oxen and the plough and Justice herself, queen of the peoples, giver of things just, abundantly supplied their every need. Even so long as the earth still nurtured the Golden Race, she had her dwelling on earth. But with the Silver Race only a little and no longer with utter readiness did she mingle, for that she yearned for the ways of the men of old. Yet in that Silver Age was she still upon the earth; but from the echoing hills at eventide she came alone, nor spake to any man in gentle words. But when she had filled the great heights with gathering crowds, then would she with threats rebuke their evil ways, and declare that never more at their prayer would she reveal her face to man. “Behold what manner of race the fathers of the Golden Age left behind them! Far meaner than themselves! But ye will breed a viler progeny! Verily wars and cruel bloodshed shall be unto men and grievous woe shall be laid upon them.” Even so she spake and sought the hills and left the people all gazing towards her still. But when they, too, were dead, and when, more ruinous than they which went before, the Race of Bronze was born, who were the first to forge the sword of the highwayman, and the first to eat of the flesh of the ploughing-ox, then verily did Justice loathe that race of men and fly heavenward and took up that abode, where even now in the night time the Maiden is seen of men, established near to far-seen Boötes.

-- Aratus: Phaenomena, Lines 96-136

Next up is a Classical Latin poem by the Roman epic poet Virgil (70-19 BCE). In this amazing piece of verse, Virgil predicts a new Golden Age for the human race to follow the birth of a long-awaited Child; the poem’s resonances with visionary themes and motifs in the Abrahamic faith traditions (cf. esp. Isaiah 11:6, “a little child shall lead them”) ensured Virgil’s continued popularity throughout the Middle Ages and onward into the present day.

 

Virgil’s Fourth Eclogue (Composed 37 BCE)

Muses of Sicily, essay we now
A somewhat loftier task! Not all men love
Coppice or lowly tamarisk: sing we woods,
Woods worthy of a Consul let them be.
Now the last age by Cumae's Sibyl sung
Has come and gone, and the majestic roll
Of circling centuries begins anew:
Justice returns, returns old Saturn's reign,
With a new breed of men sent down from heaven.
Only do thou, at the boy's birth in whom
The iron shall cease, the golden race arise,
Befriend him, chaste Lucina; 'tis thine own
Apollo reigns. And in thy consulate,
This glorious age, O Pollio, shall begin,
And the months enter on their mighty march.
Under thy guidance, whatso tracks remain
Of our old wickedness, once done away,
Shall free the earth from never-ceasing fear.
He shall receive the life of gods, and see
Heroes with gods commingling, and himself
Be seen of them, and with his father's worth
Reign o'er a world at peace. For thee, O boy,
First shall the earth, untilled, pour freely forth
Her childish gifts, the gadding ivy-spray
With foxglove and Egyptian bean-flower mixed,
And laughing-eyed acanthus. Of themselves,
Untended, will the she-goats then bring home
Their udders swollen with milk, while flocks afield
Shall of the monstrous lion have no fear.
Thy very cradle shall pour forth for thee
Caressing flowers. The serpent too shall die,
Die shall the treacherous poison-plant, and far
And wide Assyrian spices spring. But soon
As thou hast skill to read of heroes' fame,
And of thy father's deeds, and inly learn
What virtue is, the plain by slow degrees
With waving corn-crops shall to golden grow,
From the wild briar shall hang the blushing grape,
And stubborn oaks sweat honey-dew. Nathless
Yet shall there lurk within of ancient wrong
Some traces, bidding tempt the deep with ships,
Gird towns with walls, with furrows cleave the earth.
Therewith a second Tiphys shall there be,
Her hero-freight a second Argo bear;
New wars too shall arise, and once again
Some great Achilles to some Troy be sent.
Then, when the mellowing years have made thee man,
No more shall mariner sail, nor pine-tree bark
Ply traffic on the sea, but every land
Shall all things bear alike: the glebe no more
Shall feel the harrow's grip, nor vine the hook;
The sturdy ploughman shall loose yoke from steer,
Nor wool with varying colors learn to lie;
But in the meadows shall the ram himself,
Now with soft flush of purple, now with tint
Of yellow saffron, teach his fleece to shine.
While clothed in natural scarlet graze the lambs.
"Such still, such ages weave ye, as ye run,"
Sang to their spindles the consenting Fates
By Destiny's unalterable decree.
Assume thy greatness, for the time draws nigh,
Dear child of gods, great progeny of Jove!
See how it totters- the world's orbed might,
Earth, and wide ocean, and the vault profound,
All, see, enraptured of the coming time!
Ah! might such length of days to me be given,
And breath suffice me to rehearse thy deeds,
Nor Thracian Orpheus should out-sing me then,
Nor Linus, though his mother this, and that
His sire should aid- Orpheus Calliope,
And Linus fair Apollo. Nay, though Pan,
With Arcady for judge, my claim contest,
With Arcady for judge great Pan himself
Should own him foiled, and from the field retire.
Begin to greet thy mother with a smile,
O baby-boy! ten months of weariness
For thee she bore: O baby-boy, begin!
For him, on whom his parents have not smiled,
Gods deem not worthy of their board or bed.

The return of the Golden Age is also a major theme in the writings of the Swedish visionary scientist and theologian Emanuel Swedenborg (1688-1772), especially in his Coronis (https://www.sacred-texts.com/swd/cor/index.htm). A broad spectrum of other Christian visionary theologians have also commented extensively on this optimistic view of the human future -- for example, Jonathan Edwards (Protestant) and St. Louis de Montfort (Roman Catholic).

Excerpts from “Optimism”

By Helen Keller (1880-1968)

• To know the history of philosophy is to know that the highest thinkers of the ages, the seers of the tribes and the nations, have been optimists. The growth of philosophy is the story of man's spiritual life.

• The highest result of education is tolerance. Long ago men fought and died for their faith; but it took ages to teach them the other kind of courage, — the courage to recognize the faiths of their brethren and their rights of conscience. Tolerance is the first principle of community; it is the spirit which conserves the best that all men think.

• I see the clouds part slowly, and I hear a cry of protest against the bigot. The restraining hand of tolerance is laid upon the inquisitor, and the humanist utters a message of peace to the persecuted. Instead of the cry, "Burn the heretic!" men study the human soul with sympathy, and there enters into their hearts a new reverence for that which is unseen.

• The idea of brotherhood redawns upon the world with a broader significance than the narrow association of members in a sect or creed; and thinkers of great soul like Lessing challenge the world to say which is more godlike, the hatred and tooth-and-nail grapple of conflicting religions, or sweet accord and mutual helpfulness. Ancient prejudice of man against his brother-man wavers and retreats before the radiance of a more generous sentiment, which will not sacrifice men to forms, or rob them of the comfort and strength they find in their own beliefs. The heresy of one age becomes the orthodoxy of the next. Mere tolerance has given place to a sentiment of brotherhood between sincere men of all denominations.

• The test of all beliefs is their practical effect in life. If it be true that optimism compels the world forward, and pessimism retards it, then it is dangerous to propagate a pessimistic philosophy.

• We have found that our great philosophers and our great men of action are optimists. So, too, our most potent men of letters have been optimists in their books and in their lives. No pessimist ever won an audience commensurately wide with his genius, and many optimistic writers have been read and admired out of all measure to their talents, simply because they wrote of the sunlit side of life.

• Every optimist moves along with progress and hastens it, while every pessimist would keep the worlds at a standstill. The consequence of pessimism in the life of a nation is the same as in the life of the individual. Pessimism kills the instinct that urges men to struggle against poverty, ignorance and crime, and dries up all the fountains of joy in the world.

• Optimism is the faith that leads to achievement; nothing can be done without hope.

The constellation Virgo, the celestial Maiden, is rising around midnight during the Yuletide season -- heralding the hope of a new Golden Age to come (and the arrival of springtime in about three more months!). Image Credit: Public Domain (Sidney Hall, Urania's Mirror, 1825) 

May the calendar keep bringing Happy Hollydaze to you! :)

Rob

#WingedWordsWindsday: A Garland of Poems for the Winter Solstice

 

WINGED WORDS WINDSDAY

Compiled by Rob Chappell (@RHCLambengolmo)

Vol. 1, No. 8: December 22, 2021

 

 

A Garland of Poems for the Winter Solstice

Tuesday, December 21, 2021 @ 9:59 AM (CST)

 

Orphic Hymn #79: “To the North Wind”

Translated by Thomas Taylor (1758-1835)

Boreas, whose wintry blasts, terrific, tear

The bosom of the deep surrounding air;

Cold icy power, approach, and favoring blow,

And Thrace a while desert exposed to snow:

The misty station of the air dissolve,

With pregnant clouds, whose frames in showers resolve:

Serenely temper all within the sky,

And wipe from moisture, Aether's beauteous eye.

 

“Hymn to the North Star”

By William Cullen Bryant (1794–1878)

 

The sad and solemn night

Has yet her multitude of cheerful fires;

The glorious host of light

Walk the dark hemisphere till she retires:

All through her silent watches, gliding slow,

Her constellations come, and round the heavens, and go.

 

Day, too, hath many a star

To grace his gorgeous reign, as bright as they:

Through the blue fields afar,

Unseen, they follow in his flaming way:

Many a bright lingerer, as the eve grows dim,

Tells what a radiant troop arose and set with him.

 

And thou dost see them rise,

Star of the Pole! and thou dost see them set.

Alone, in thy cold skies,

Thou keep’st thy old unmoving station yet,

Nor join’st the dances of that glittering train,

Nor dipp’st thy virgin orb in the blue western main.

 

There, at morn’s rosy birth,

Thou lookest meekly through the kindling air,

And eve, that round the Earth

Chases the day, beholds thee watching there;

There noontide finds thee, and the hour that calls

The shapes of polar flame to scale heaven’s azure walls.

 

Alike, beneath thine eye,

The deeds of darkness and of light are done;

High towards the star-lit sky

Towns blaze — the smoke of battle blots the Sun —

The night-storm on a thousand hills is loud —

And the strong wind of day doth mingle sea and cloud.

 

On thy unaltering blaze

The half-wrecked mariner, his compass lost,

Fixes his steady gaze,

And steers, undoubting, to the friendly coast;

And they who stray in perilous wastes, by night,

Are glad when thou dost shine to guide their footsteps right.

 

And, therefore, bards of old,

Sages, and hermits of the solemn wood,

Did in thy beams behold

A beauteous type of that unchanging good,

That bright eternal beacon, by whose ray

The voyager of time should shape his heedful way.

 

Polaris, the North Star, is always overhead at the Earth’s North Pole. (Photo Credit: Space Telescope Science Institute – Public Domain)

 

“Woods in Winter”

By Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882)

 

When winter winds are piercing chill,

  And through the hawthorn blows the gale,

With solemn feet I tread the hill,

  That overbrows the lonely vale.

 

O'er the bare upland, and away

  Through the long reach of desert woods,

The embracing sunbeams chastely play,

  And gladden these deep solitudes.

 

Where, twisted round the barren oak,

  The summer vine in beauty clung,

And summer winds the stillness broke,

  The crystal icicle is hung.

 

Where, from their frozen urns, mute springs

  Pour out the river's gradual tide,

Shrilly the skater's iron rings,

  And voices fill the woodland side.

 

Alas! how changed from the fair scene,

  When birds sang out their mellow lay,

And winds were soft, and woods were green,

  And the song ceased not with the day!

 

But still wild music is abroad,

  Pale, desert woods! within your crowd;

And gathering winds, in hoarse accord,

  Amid the vocal reeds pipe loud.

 

Chill airs and wintry winds! my ear

  Has grown familiar with your song;

I hear it in the opening year,

  I listen, and it cheers me long.

 

“Songs of Winter Days: IV”

By George MacDonald (1824-1905)

 

A morning clear, with frosty light

From sunbeams late and low;

They shine upon the snow so white,

And shine back from the snow.

 

Down tusks of ice one drop will go,

Nor fall: at sunny noon

‘Twill hang a diamond-fade, and grow

An opal for the Moon.

 

And when the bright sad Sun is low

Behind the mountain-dome,

A twilight wind will come and blow

Around the children’s home,

 

And puff and waft the powdery snow,

As feet unseen did pass;

While, waiting in its bed below,

Green lies the summer grass.

 

“Picture-Books in Winter”

(Excerpted from A Child’s Garden of Verses)

By Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894)

 

Summer fading, winter comes —

Frosty mornings, tingling thumbs,

Window robins, winter rooks,

And the picture story-books.

 

Water now is turned to stone

Nurse and I can walk upon;

Still we find the flowing brooks

In the picture story-books.

 

All the pretty things put by,

Wait upon the children’s eye,

Sheep and shepherds, trees and crooks,

In the picture story-books.

 

We may see how all things are

Seas and cities, near and far,

And the flying fairies’ looks,

In the picture story-books.

 

How am I to sing your praise,

Happy chimney-corner days,

Sitting safe in nursery nooks,

Reading picture story-books?

 

Sonnet #13: “Hesperia”

(Excerpted from Fungi from Yuggoth)

By H. P. Lovecraft (1890-1937)

 

The winter sunset, flaming beyond spires

And chimneys half-detached from this dull sphere,

Opens great gates to some forgotten year

Of elder splendors and divine desires.

Expectant wonders burn in those rich fires,

Adventure-fraught, and not untinged with fear;

A row of sphinxes where the way leads clear

Toward walls and turrets quivering to far lyres.

It is the land where beauty’s meaning flowers;

Where every unplaced memory has a source;

Where the great river Time begins its course

Down the vast void in starlit streams of hours.

Dreams bring us close — but ancient lore repeats

That human tread has never soiled these streets.