The Toys by Coventry Patmore

My little Son, who look’d from thoughtful eyes
And moved and spoke in quiet grown-up wise,
Having my law the seventh time disobey’d,
I struck him, and dismiss’d
With hard words and unkiss’d,
—His Mother, who was patient, being dead.
Then, fearing lest his grief should hinder sleep,
I visited his bed,
But found him slumbering deep,
With darken’d eyelids, and their lashes yet
From his late sobbing wet.
And I, with moan,
Kissing away his tears, left others of my own;
For, on a table drawn beside his head,
He had put, within his reach,
A box of counters and a red-vein’d stone,
A piece of glass abraded by the beach,
And six or seven shells,
A bottle with bluebells,
And two French copper coins, ranged there with careful art,
To comfort his sad heart.
So when that night I pray’d
To God, I wept, and said:
Ah, when at last we lie with trancèd breath,
Not vexing Thee in death,
And Thou rememberest of what toys
We made our joys,
How weakly understood
Thy great commanded good,
Then, fatherly not less
Than I whom Thou hast moulded from the clay,
Thou’lt leave Thy wrath, and say,
‘I will be sorry for their childishness.’

The Bloody Angle by Dennis Allen Lange

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At Spotsylvania in ’64,
I fought and somehow lived to fight some more.
I fought near very center of the front –
The Bloody Angle of the salient,
A fingernail that tore, and torrent bled –
From wounded Blue and Gray and from the dead.

The Angle was the likely weakest spot,
Which both sides knew, so armies formed a clot,
With wave and wave of Blue prepared to send,
And Gray entrenched at all costs to defend.
I fought there and its horrors know too well;
Yet you will think it bloody lies I tell.

So massive was the steady charge of Blue,
For twenty hours we could not subdue,
Or stop the penetration of our line
Till Blue and Gray did equally combine
With shots close range and fighting hand to hand –
A horror only Satan could command.

The terror that we had to stay alive
Fueled strength to make the weary strive
Against exhaustion of our flesh and soul
To try and keep our lives, keep body whole,
Not like the thickened oak* that, riddled, fell
By all the bullets flying in our hell.

Rain reigned and trenches softened into mud
Soaked by the falling water, flowing blood.
The mortal blows were given face to face
And wounded fell among them in that place.
Five deep the bodies were, dead or alive,
While we fought on above them to survive.

I sob to tell you of this ghastly day:
The Blue, still charging, and we standing Gray,
Had fought from dawn and still fought toward the night
And trampled dead and wounded out of sight!
Both armies killed men with their hands and feet,
The nightmare that my nightmares still repeat.

I fought there and its horrors know too well;
Yet you will think it bloody lies I tell.

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The battle at the salient was a 200 yard wide stretch.

*Federal fire was so heavy and some over the confederate troops in trenches that an oak tree two feet in diameter was felled by chipping bullets.

https://ironbrigader.com/2014/04/22/union-soldiers-recall-fighting-mule-shoe-salient-spotsylvania-courthouse/

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© Dennis Allen Lange, 2020.

A Smile – anonymous

Let others cheer the winning man,
There’s one I hold worth while;
‘Tis he who does the best he can
Then loses with a smile.
Beaten he is, but not to stay
Down with the rank and file;
That man will win some other day,
Who loses with a smile.

Endlessly – haiku by Dennis Allen Lange

—

Waves, lines, waves.
And wave after wave,
And more lines.

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The photo is mine, of the Pacific Ocean in northern California.

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* The haiku I write are lines of 3-5-3 syllables instead of 5-7-5.

See Haiku article here for explanation, if needed: https://thebardonthehill.wordpress.com/2011/08/08/haiku/
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© Dennis Allen Lange, 2020.

A Woman’s Last Word by Robert Browning

Let’s contend no more, Love,
Strive nor weep:
All be as before, Love,
—Only sleep!

What so wild as words are?
I and thou
In debate, as birds are,
Hawk on bough!

See the creature stalking
While we speak!
Hush and hide the talking,
Cheek on cheek!

What so false as truth is,
False to thee?
Where the serpent’s tooth is
Shun the tree—

Where the apple reddens
Never pry—
Lest we lose our Edens,
Eve and I.

Be a god and hold me
With a charm!
Be a man and fold me
With thine arm!

Teach me, only teach, Love
As I ought
I will speak thy speech, Love,
Think thy thought—

Meet, if thou require it,
Both demands,
Laying flesh and spirit
In thy hands.

That shall be to-morrow
Not to-night:
I must bury sorrow
Out of sight:

—Must a little weep, Love,
(Foolish me!)
And so fall asleep, Love,
Loved by thee.

Sonnet 63 – Back To Nature by Dennis Allen Lange

—

In centers of cities, there’s often a park;
And there grow the flowers, and there flies the lark.
Oasis it is in the midst of the bare,
The succor of people o’erladen with care.

And often they flee from the concrete and steel
To mountains or valleys, with skis or a reel,
Pursuing relief from the meaningless grind,
In search of a something that gives peace of mind.

The cells they call home, made by man and machine,
They garland with flowers and garnish with green.
Internally driven, unknowing, they quest
For road to return to their root and its rest.

To nature, away from the things made by man,
Is going to God anyway that we can.

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Photo by Hanspeter Klasser at
https://www.rgbstock.com/photo/ol0Xfew/Park+scene

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© Dennis Allen Lange, 2020.

What Christ Said by George MacDonald

I said, “Let me walk in the fields.”
He said, “No; walk in the town.”
I said, “There are no flowers there.”
He said, “No flowers, but a crown.”

I said, “But the skies are black,
There is nothing but noise and din;”
And he wept as he sent me back;
“There is more,” he said, “there is sin.”

I said, “But the air is thick,
And fogs are veiling the sun.”
He answered, “Yet souls are sick,
And souls in the dark undone.”

I said, “I shall miss the light,
And friends will miss me, they say.”
He answered, “Choose tonight
If I am to miss you, or they.”

I pleaded for time to be given.
He said, “Is it hard to decide?
It will not seem hard in Heaven
To have followed the steps of your Guide.”

I cast one look at the fields,
Then set my face to the town;
He said, “My child, do you yield?
Will you leave the flowers for the crown?”

Then into his hand went mine;
And into my heart came he;
And I walk in a light divine,
The path I had feared to see.

Prayerfully – haiku by Dennis Allen Lange

—

The stone face
Rises from the sea,
pacific.

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The photo is mine of the Pacific Ocean along the northern California coast.

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* The haiku I write are lines of 3-5-3 syllables instead of 5-7-5.

See Haiku article here for explanation, if needed: https://thebardonthehill.wordpress.com/2011/08/08/haiku/
——————–

© Dennis Allen Lange, 2020.

The Landing of the Pilgrim Fathers by Felicia Dorothea Hemans

“Look now abroad–another race has fill’d
Those populous borders–wide the wood recedes,
And town shoots up, and fertile realms are till’d;
The land is full of harvests and green meads.”
The breaking waves dash’d high
On a stern and rock-bound coast,
And the woods against a stormy sky
Their giant branches toss’d;

And the heavy night hung dark,
The hills and waters o’er,
When a band of exiles moor’d their bark
On the wild New England shore.

Not as the conqueror comes,
They, the true-hearted, came;
Not with the roll of the stirring drums,
And the trumpet that sings of fame;

Not as the flying come,
In silence and in fear;–
They shook the depths of the desert gloom
With their hymns of lofty cheer.

Amidst the storm they sang,
And the stars heard and the sea:
And the sounding aisles of the dim woods rang
To the anthem of the free!

The ocean eagle soar’d
From his nest by the white wave’s foam
And the rocking pines of the forest roar’d–
This was their welcome home!

There were men with hoary hair
Amidst that pilgrim band:–
Why had they come to wither there,
Away from their childhood’s land?

There was woman’s fearless eye,
Lit by her deep love’s truth;
There was manhood’s brow serenely high,
And the fiery heart of youth.

What sought they thus afar?
Bright jewels of the mine?
The wealth of seas, the spoils of war?–
They sought a faith’s pure shrine!

Ay, call it holy ground,
The soil where first they trod.
They have left unstained, what there they found–
Freedom to worship God.

Each Man Is An Island by Dennis Allen Lange

—

In midst of isolation, quarantine,
My grass still goes to work and it does thrive.
This morning while I mowed it ere the rain,
To turn around the mail”man” used my drive.
And smiling, I waved, and she waved at me;
Both glad to see another one alive.

In this new world of caution lest we die,
Smoke signals or a distant wave must do
(Replacing handshakes or heartwarming hugs)
For each brave kayak with a lonely crew.
When one’s a Crusoe on his private isle,
His inner strength and God must see him through.

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photo by Kevin Tuck at https://www.rgbstock.com/photo/ply57HE/Lofoten+Islands

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© Dennis Allen Lange, 2020.