20 May 2016

The Children's Song from Puck of Pook's Hill (Rudyard Kipling)

Land of our birth, we pledge to thee
Our love and toil in the years to be;
When we are grown and take our place
As men and women with our race.

Father in Heaven Who lovest all,
Oh, help thy children when they call;
That they may build from age to age
An undefiled heritage.

Teach us to bear the yoke in youth,
With steadfastness and careful truth;
That, in our time, Thy Grace may give
The Truth whereby the Nations live.

Teach us to rule ourselves alway,
Controlled and cleanly night and day;
That we may bring, if need arise,
No maimed or worthless sacrifice.

Teach us to look in all our ends,
On Thee for Judge, and not our friends;
That we, with Thee, may walk uncowed
By fear or favour of the crowd.

Teach us the Strength that cannot seek,
By deed or thought, to hurt the weak,
That, under Thee, we may possess
Man's strength to comfort man's distress.

Teach us Delight in simple things,
And Mirth that has no bitter springs;
Forgiveness free of evil done,
And Love to all men 'neath the sun!

Land of our Birth, our faith, our pride,
For whose dear sake our fathers died;
O Motherland, we pledge to thee
Head, heart and hand through the years to be!

16 May 2016

Grace (Robert Herrick)

What God gives, and what we take,
'Tis a gift for Christ His sake:
Be the meale of Beanes and Pease,
God be thank'd for those, and these:
Have we flesh, or have we fish,
All are Fragments from His dish.
He His Church save, and the King,
And our Peace here, like a Spring,
Make it ever flourishing.

15 May 2016

O filii et filiae (Jean Tisserand et al., trans. J.M. Neale and compilers of Hymns Ancient and Modern)

Alleluia, Alleluia, Alleluia.

O filii et filiae,
Rex caelestis, Rex gloriae
morte surrexit hodie.

Alleluia.

Ex mane prima Sabbati
ad ostium monumenti
accesserunt discipuli.

Alleluia.

Et Maria Magdalene,
et Iacobi, et Salome
venerunt corpus ungere.

Alleluia.

In albis sedens angelus
praedixit mulieribus:
In Galilaea est Dominus.

Alleluia.

Et Ioannes apostolus
cucurrit Petro citius,
monumento venit prius.

Alleluia.

Discipulis astantibus,
in medio stetit Christus,
dicens: Pax vobis omnibus.

Alleluia.

Ut intellexit Didymus
quia surrexerat Iesus,
remansit fere dubius.

Alleluia.

Vide Thoma, vide latus,
vide pedes, vide manus,
noli esse incredulus.

Alleluia.

Quando Thomas vidit Christum,
pedes, manus, latus suum,
dixit: Tu es Deus meus.

Alleluia.

Beati qui non viderunt
et firmiter crediderunt;
vitam aeternam habebunt.

Alleluia.

In hoc festo sanctissimo
sit laus et iubilatio:
benedicamus Domino.

Alleluia.

Ex quibus nos humillimas
devotas atque debitas
Deo dicamus gratias.

Alleluia.

Alleluia!  Alleluia!  Alleluia!

O sons and daughters, let us sing!
The King of Heaven, the glorious King,
O'er death to-day rose triumphing.
Alleluia!

That Easter morn, at break of day,
The faithful women went their way
To seek the tomb where Jesus lay.
Alleluia!

An angel clad in white they see,
Who sat, and spake unto the three,
'Your Lord doth go to Galilee.'
Alleluia!

That night the apostles met in fear;
Amidst them came their Lord most dear,
And said, 'My peace be on all here.'
Alleluia!

When Thomas first the tidings heard,
How they had seen the risen Lord,
He doubted the disciples' word.
Alleluia!

'My piercèd side, O Thomas, see;
My hands, my feet I show to thee;
Not faithless, but believing be.'
Alleluia!

No longer Thomas then denied;
He saw the feet, the hands, the side;
'Thou art my Lord and God,' he cried.
Alleluia!

How blest are they who have not seen,
And yet whose faith hath constant been!
For they eternal life shall win.
Alleluia!

On this most holy day of days,
To God your hearts and voices raise
In laud and jubilee and praise.
Alleluia!

11 May 2016

As the Team's Head-Brass (Edward Thomas)

As the team's head-brass flashed out on the turn
The lovers disappeared into the wood.
I sat among the boughs of the fallen elm
That strewed the angle of the fallow, and
Watched the plough narrowing a yellow square
Of charlock. Every time the horses turned
Instead of treading me down, the ploughman leaned
Upon the handles to say or ask a word,
About the weather, next about the war.
Scraping the share he faced towards the wood,
And screwed along the furrow till the brass flashed
Once more.
                The blizzard felled the elm whose crest
I sat in, by a woodpecker's round hole,
The ploughman said. 'When will they take it away? '
'When the war's over.' So the talk began –
One minute and an interval of ten,
A minute more and the same interval.
'Have you been out? ' 'No.' 'And don't want to, perhaps? '
'If I could only come back again, I should.
I could spare an arm, I shouldn't want to lose
A leg. If I should lose my head, why, so,
I should want nothing more ... Have many gone
From here? ' 'Yes.' 'Many lost? ' 'Yes, a good few.
Only two teams work on the farm this year.
One of my mates is dead. The second day
In France they killed him. It was back in March,
The very night of the blizzard, too. Now if
He had stayed here we should have moved the tree.'
'And I should not have sat here. Everything
Would have been different. For it would have been
Another world.' 'Ay, and a better, though
If we could see all all might seem good.' Then
The lovers came out of the wood again:
The horses started and for the last time
I watched the clods crumble and topple over
After the ploughshare and the stumbling team.

05 May 2016

from The Analytical Language of John Wilkins (Jorge Luis Borges)

These ambiguities, redundancies and deficiencies recall those which Dr Franz Kuhn attributes to a certain Chinese encyclopaedia entitled The Celestial Emporium of Benevolent Knowledge. In its remote pages it is written that the animals can be divided into:

(a) belonging to the emperor,

(b) embalmed,

(c) tame,

(d) sucking pigs,

(e) sirens,

(f) fabulous,

(g) stray dogs,

(h) included in the present classification,

(i) that tremble as if they were mad,

(j) innumerable,

(k) drawn with a very fine camel hair brush,

(l) et cetera,

(m) having just broken the water pitcher,

(n) that from a long way off look like flies.

Thoughts in a Garden (Andrew Marvell)

How vainly men themselves amaze
To win the palm, the oak, or bays,
And their incessant labours see
Crown’d from some single herb or tree,
Whose short and narrow-vergéd shade
Does prudently their toils upbraid;
While all the flowers and trees do close
To weave the garlands of Repose.


Fair Quiet, have I found thee here,
And Innocence thy sister dear?
Mistaken long, I sought you then

In busy companies of men:
Your sacred plants, if here below,
Only among the plants will grow:
Society is all but rude
To this delicious solitude.


No white nor red was ever seen

So amorous as this lovely green.
Fond lovers, cruel as their flame,
Cut in these trees their mistress’ name:
Little, alas, they know or heed
How far these beauties her exceed!
Fair trees! where’er your barks I wound,
No name shall but your own be found.


When we have run our passion’s heat
Love hither makes his best retreat:
The gods, who mortal beauty chase,
Still in a tree did end their race:
Apollo hunted Daphne so
Only that she might laurel grow:
And Pan did after Syrinx speed,
Not as a nymph, but for a reed.


What wondrous life is this I lead!
Ripe apples drop about my head;
The luscious clusters of the vine
Upon my mouth do crush their wine;
The nectarine and curious peach
Into my hands themselves do reach;
Stumbling on melons as I pass,
Ensnared with flowers, I fall on grass.


Meanwhile the mind from pleasure less
Withdraws into its happiness;
The mind, that ocean where each kind
Does straight its own resemblance find;
Yet it creates, transcending these,
Far other worlds, and other seas;
Annihilating all that’s made
To a green thought in a green shade.


Here at the fountain’s sliding foot,
Or at some fruit-tree’s mossy root,
Casting the body’s vest aside
My soul into the boughs does glide;
There, like a bird, it sits and sings,
Then whets and claps its silver wings,
And, till prepared for longer flight,
Waves in its plumes the various light.


Such was that happy Garden-state,
While man there walk’d without a mate:
After a place so pure and sweet,
What other help could yet be meet!
But ’twas beyond a mortal’s share
To wander solitary there:
Two paradises are in one,
To live in Paradise alone.


How well the skilful gardener drew
Of flowers and herbs this dial new!
Where, from above, the milder sun
Does through a fragrant zodiac run:
And, as it works, th’ industrious bee
Computes its time as well as we.
How could such sweet and wholesome hours

Be reckon’d, but with herbs and flowers!