High Flight

This famous poem contains a delightful use of imagery and language. Enjoy.

Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of earth,
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I’ve climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds, –and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of –Wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov’ring there
I’ve chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air…
Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue
I’ve topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace
Where never lark or even eagle flew –
And, while with silent lifting mind I’ve trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.

-John Gillespie Magee, Jr

Autumn

Autumn is my favorite time of year. It is a time of beauty; a time of refreshing change; a time of anticipation. Even though fall is just beginning, I thought this poem would be appropriate.

Fire drops and drifts
Unpredictably down
From skeleton trees−
Remains that reach their
Gnarled fingers patient
And silent to the sky

Hear the restless sighing of
Loneliness
In the wind−

But they are not dead,
Nor are they hopeless:
They live through sadness−
O yes, they live
And in time they will
Burst with color and joy
That will fill the eyes
With silent singing

A Piece of Chalk

This brief essay by G.K. Chesterton demonstrates the extreme nationalism common to Victorian England. At the time this was written, England was at the height of her imperial power and glory. This fact lended to the idea that England was the ultimate expression of human culture and the pinacle of Christian civilization. Rudyard Kipling was another writer who shared this sentiment, and it can often be found in his writings as well.

I find that this nationalistic sentiment is similar to the flag waving patriotism that we see in America today. Though we are not a Christian nation, do we not think that we are the epitome of civilization and the culmination of western ideals? Do we not believe our selves superior to other nations? I think that we do, but we must be wary of resting on our laurels lest we become the hare; soon passed by the tortise of “lesser” cultures. Regardless, this is still a well constructed and creative essay which I hope will bring you some enjoyment and provoke some thought.

I remember one splendid morning, all blue and silver, in the summer holidays when I reluctantly tore myself away from the task of doing nothing in particular, and put on a hat of some sort and picked up a walking-stick, and put six very bright-coloured chalks in my pocket. I then went into the kitchen (which, along with the rest of the house, belonged to a very square and sensible old woman in a Sussex village), and asked the owner and occupant of the kitchen if she had any brown paper. She had a great deal; in fact, she had too much; and she mistook the purpose and the rationale of the existence of brown paper. She seemed to have an idea that if a person wanted brown paper he must be wanting to tie up parcels; which was the last thing I wanted to do; indeed, it is a thing which I have found to be beyond my mental capacity. Hence she dwelt very much on the varying qualities of toughness and endurance in the material. I explained to her that I only wanted to draw pictures on it, and that I did not want them to endure in the least; and that from my point of view, therefore, it was a question, not of tough consistency, but of responsive surface, a thing comparatively irrelevant in a parcel. When she understood that I wanted to draw she offered to overwhelm me with note-paper.

I then tried to explain the rather delicate logical shade, that I not only liked brown paper, but liked the quality of brownness in paper, just as I like the quality of brownness in October woods, or in beer. Brown paper represents the primal twilight of the first toil of creation, and with a bright-coloured chalk or two you can pick out points of fire in it, sparks of gold, and blood-red, and sea-green, like the first fierce stars that sprang out of divine darkness. All this I said (in an off-hand way) to the old woman; and I put the brown paper in my pocket along with the chalks, and possibly other things. I suppose every one must have reflected how primeval and how poetical are the things that one carries in one’s pocket; the pocket-knife, for instance, the type of all human tools, the infant of the sword. Once I planned to write a book of poems entirely about things in my pockets. But I found it would be too long; and the age of the great epics is past.

With my stick and my knife, my chalks and my brown paper, I went out on to the great downs. . .

I crossed one swell of living turf after another, looking for a place to sit down and draw. Do not, for heaven’s sake, imagine I was going to sketch from Nature. I was going to draw devils and seraphim, and blind old gods that men worshipped before the dawn of right, and saints in robes of angry crimson, and seas of strange green, and all the sacred or monstrous symbols that look so well in bright colours on brown paper. They are much better worth drawing than Nature; also they are much easier to draw. When a cow came slouching by in the field next to me, a mere artist might have drawn it; but I always get wrong in the hind legs of quadrupeds. So I drew the soul of a cow; which I saw there plainly walking before me in the sunlight; and the soul was all purple and silver, and had seven horns and the mystery that belongs to all beasts. But though I could not with a crayon get the best out of the landscape, it does not follow that the landscape was not getting the best out of me. And this, I think, is the mistake that people make about the old poets who lived before Wordsworth, and were supposed not to care very much about Nature because they did not describe it much.

They preferred writing about great men to writing about great hills; but they sat on the great hills to write it. The gave out much less about Nature, but they drank in, perhaps, much more. They painted the white robes of their holy virgins with the blinding snow, at which they had stared all day. . . The greenness of a thousand green leaves clustered into the live green figure of Robin Hood. The blueness of a score of forgotten skies became the blue robes of the Virgin. The inspiration went in like sunbeams and came out like Apollo.

But as I sat scrawling these silly figures on the brown paper, it began to dawn on me, to my great disgust, that I had left one chalk, and that a most exquisite and essential chalk, behind. I searched all my pockets, but I could not find any white chalk. Now, those who are acquainted with all the philosophy (nay, religion) which is typified in the art of drawing on brown paper, know that white is positive and essential. I cannot avoid remarking here upon a moral significance. One of the wise and awful truths which this brown-paper art reveals, is this, that white is a colour. It is not a mere absence of colour; it is a shining and affirmative thing, as fierce as red, as definite as black. When, so to speak, your pencil grows red-hot, it draws roses; when it grows white-hot, it draws stars. And one of the two or three defiant verities of the best religious morality, of real Christianity, for example, is exactly this same thing; the chief assertion of religious morality is that white is a colour. Virtue is not the absence of vices or the avoidance of moral dangers; virtue is a vivid and separate thing, like pain or a particular smell. Mercy does not mean not being cruel, or sparing people revenge or punishment; it means a plain and positive thing like the sun, which one has either seen or not seen.

Chastity does not mean abstention from sexual wrong; it means something flaming, like Joan of Arc. In a word, God paints in many colours; but he never paints so gorgeously, I had almost said so gaudily, as when He paints in white. In a sense our age has realised this fact, and expressed it in our sullen costume. For if it were really true that white was a blank and colourless thing, negative and non-committal, then white would be used instead of black and grey for the funereal dress of this pessimistic period. Which is not the case.

Meanwhile I could not find my chalk.

I sat on the hill in a sort of despair. There was no town near at which it was even remotely probable there would be such a thing as an artist’s colourman. And yet, without any white, my absurd little pictures would be as pointless as the world would be if there were no good people in it. I stared stupidly round, racking my brain for expedients. Then I suddenly stood up and roared with laughter, again and again, so that the cows stared at me and called a committee. Imagine a man in the Sahara regretting that he had no sand for his hour-glass. Imagine a gentleman in mid-ocean wishing that he had brought some salt water with him for his chemical experiments. I was sitting on an immense warehouse of white chalk. The landscape was made entirely of white chalk. White chalk was piled more miles until it met the sky. I stooped and broke a piece of the rock I sat on: it did not mark so well as the shop chalks do, but it gave the effect. And I stood there in a trance of pleasure, realising that this Southern England is not only a grand peninsula, and a tradition and a civilisation; it is something even more admirable. It is a piece of chalk.

Anyone Lived in a Pretty How Town

I love e.e. cumming’s unique way of expressing himself. He was “modern” and innovative in style, and yet the sentiments that he expresses are not unique. I believe the use of “anyone” as the name for the main character in this poem is important; it conjures up images of a non-descript person who is so regular that he is hardly noticeable. We meet people like that all the time. Then, “noone” notices “anyone”, and comes to care very much for “anyone” “more by more”. This is a poem of love, life, and growing older. 

anyone lived in a pretty how town
(with up so floating many bells down)
spring summer autumn winter
he sang his didn’t he danced his did.

Women and men (both little and small)
cared for anyone not at all
they sowed their isn’t they reaped their same
sun moon stars rain

children guessed (but only a few
and down they forgot as up they grew
autumn winter spring summer)
that noone loved him more by more

when by now and tree by leaf
she laughed his joy she cried his grief
bird by snow and stir by still
anyone’s any was all to her

someones married their everyones
laughed their cryings and did their dance
(sleep wake hope and then)they
said their nevers they slept their dream

stars rain sun moon
(and only the snow can begin to explain
how children are apt to forget to remember
with up so floating many bells down)

one day anyone died i guess
(and noone stooped to kiss his face)
busy folk buried them side by side
little by little and was by was

all by all and deep by deep
and more by more they dream their sleep
noone and anyone earth by april
with by spirit and if by yes.

women and men (both dong and ding)
summer autumn winter spring
reaped their sowing and went their came
sun moon stars rain

The Faithfulness of God

I am a reader, but I also enjoy writing. Because I am Christian, my writing, both prose and poetry, often centers around the truths that I discover in God’s Word. This is a brief column I wrote for a Christian news and issues outlet on the faithfulness of God and what it means in the life of a Christian.

“Thy faithfulness is unto all generations” said the Psalmist. Indeed, throughout the Scriptures, the faithfulness of God is proclaimed as a Divine attribute. But what is God’s faithfulness? What does it mean for us? In an hour of growing apostasy, the truth of the faithfulness of God is of utmost importance for our life as believers seeking to serve him, and we must seek to come to a fuller understanding of this truth.

First, we must understand that God cannot but be faithful: like all of the divine attributes, God’s faithfulness is an essential part of His being. If God were not faithful, he would not be God, for his faithfulness goes hand in hand with his immutability. God cannot change His mind, He cannot go back on his word: “the word of the Lord endureth for ever.” What God has purposed will come to pass. What, then, is the difference between God’s faithfulness and His immutability? God’s faithfulness is but a directed, personal manifestation of his immutable nature toward us.

God’s mercy, God’s grace, God’s love, once shown to us, cannot be withdrawn. Neither is His faithfulness dependant on our actions, for we are far too frequently unfaithful. No, God is faithful even when we are not. Once God has chosen in his sovereignty to be merciful to a sinner, that mercy will not last for a time and then pass; His mercy “endureth forever.” Let us, then, not despair over our failings, but take strength from the fact that God will never leave us nor forsake us. God has promised that he will “perfect that which concerneth” us, and our God’s name is Faithful and True.

God’s faithfulness does not apply only to individuals though; it also applies to the Church. In this time of growing spiritual darkness and confusion, it is imperitive that we hope in God’s faithfulness. The future is uncertain, but God’s faithfulness is not. Christ prayed in Gesthemane for his Church, “Father, I will that they also, whom thou hast given me, be with me where I am; that they may behold my glory, which thou hast given me: for thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world.” These should be words of comfort, for God will not leave his people desolate.

What then, should our response to this truth be? It should be unshakeable faith; faith in God’s faithfulness. As many churches continue in their downward spiral and move further from the truth, as we fail in our own attempts to please God, and as the world around us grows in its hatred for Christ, do not despair. But let us hope in the Lord, for his “faithfulness is unto all generations.”

Our God, our Help in ages past,
Our Hope for years to come,
Our Shelter from the stormy blast,
And our eternal Home!

Under the shadow of Thy throne
Thy saints have dwelt secure;
Sufficient is Thine arm alone,
And our defense is sure.

Before the hills in order stood
Or earth received her frame,
From everlasting Thou art God,
To endless years the same.

A thousand ages in Thy sight
Are like an evening gone,
Short as the watch that ends the night
Before the rising sun.

Our God, our Help in ages past,
Our Hope for years to come,
Be Thou our Guard while troubles last
And our eternal Home!

The Cask of Amontillado

I have been posting almost exclusively poetry for the last two months. In an attempt to diversify my subject matter, I am posting a typically morbid story of Edgar Allen Poe.

The thousand injuries of Fortunato I had borne as I best could; but when he ventured upon insult, I vowed revenge. You, who so well know the nature of my soul, will not suppose, however, that I gave utterance to a threat. At length I would be avenged; this was a point definitely settled–but the very definitiveness with which it was resolved precluded the idea of risk. I must not only punish, but punish with impunity. A wrong is unredressed when retribution overtakes its redresser. It is equally unredressed when the avenger fails to make himself felt as such to him who has done the wrong.

It must be understood that neither by word nor deed had I given Fortunato cause to doubt my good-will. I continued, as was my wont, to smile in his face, and he did not perceive that my smile now was at the thought of his immolation.

He had a weak point–this Fortunato–although in other regards he was a man to be respected and even feared. He prided himself on his connoisseurship in wine. Few Italians have the true virtuoso spirit. For the most part their enthusiasm is adopted to suit the time and opportunity–to practise imposture upon the British and Austrian millionaires. In painting and gemmary, Fortunato, like his countrymen, was a quack–but in the matter of old wines he was sincere. In this respect I did not differ from him materially: I was skillful in the Italian vintages myself, and bought largely whenever I could.

It was about dusk, one evening during the supreme madness of the carnival season, that I encountered my friend. He accosted me with excessive warmth, for he had been drinking much. The man wore motley. He had on a tight-fitting party-striped dress, and his head was surmounted by the conical cap and bells. I was so pleased to see him that I thought I should never have done wringing his hand.

I said to him: “My dear Fortunato, you are luckily met. How remarkably well you are looking to-day! But I have received a pipe of what passes for Amontillado, and I have my doubts.”

“How?” said he. “Amontillado? A pipe? Impossible! And in the middle of the carnival!”

When I Consider How My Light Is Spent

As John Milton faced the devastating trial of lost eyesight, he was plagued by many questions and fears. His greatest frustration was in the great difficulty of using his most valued talent: his ability to write. This stemmed from the fact that he viewed his ability as not only a great asset, but a Divinely given “talent” (see Matthew 25) that he must use for God’s glory. We know that he did continue his writing, and that he, by dictating to others, produced some of his greatest works in his blindness. This poem is a fascinating glimpse into the mind of one of the 17th century’s greatest writers in a time of great helplessness.

When I consider how my light is spent,
Ere half my days in this dark world and wide,
And that one talent which is death to hide
Lodged with me useless, though my soul more bent
To serve therewith my Maker, and present
My true account, lest He returning chide,
‘Doth God exact day-labour, light denied?’
I fondly ask. But patience, to prevent
That murmur, soon replies, ‘God doth not need
Either man’s work or his own gifts. Who best
Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best. His state
Is kingly: thousands at his bidding speed,
And post o’er land and ocean without rest;
They also serve who only stand and wait.’

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Thee, God, I come from, to Thee Go

Gerard Manley Hopkins is one of my favorite modern poets. He is unorthodox in style, and yet his message is never lost. His poems also are “charged” with a respect for God and his power, and a recognition of man and his dependence.  Enjoy this powerfully creative poem from 1918. 

Thee, God, I come from, to thee go,
All day long I like fountain flow
From thy hand out, swayed about
Mote-like in thy mighty glow.

What I know of thee I bless,
As acknowledging thy stress
On my being and as seeing
Something of thy holiness.

Once I turned from thee and hid,
Bound on what thou hadst forbid;
Sow the wind I would; I sinned:
I repent of what I did.

Bad I am, but yet thy child.
Father, be thou reconciled.
Spare thou me, since I see
With thy might that thou art mild.

I have life before me still
And thy purpose to fulfil;
Yea a debt to pay thee yet:
Help me, sir, and so I will.

But thou bidst, and just thou art,
Me shew mercy from my heart
Towards my brother, every other
Man my mate and counterpart.

Ye banks and Braes O’ bonnie Doon

It is at times enjoyable to read dialectical verse. Robert Burns was of course one of the first authors to popularize this style in English literature. His poems of love and life at first spoke to the Scottish people through the language they knew, but eventually they spoke to the world. Language is different, people aren’t. 

Ye banks and braes o’ bonnie Doon,
How can ye bloom sae fair?
How can ye chant, ye little birds,
And I sae fu’ o’ care?

Thou’ll break my heart, thou bonnie bird
That sings upon the bough;
Thou minds me o’ the happy days
When my fause Luve was true.

Thou’ll break my heart, thou bonnie bird
That sings beside thy mate;
For sae I sat, and sae I sang,
And wist na o’ my fate.

Aft hae I roved by bonnie Doon
To see the woodbine twine:
And ilka bird sang o’ its Luve,
And sae did I o’ mine.

Wi’ lightsome heart I pu’d a rose,
Frae aff its thorny tree;
And my fause Luver staw the rose
But left the thorn wi’ me.