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Archive for July, 2016

This is the Month, and this the happy morn
Wherein the Son of Heav’ns eternal King,
Of wedded Maid, and Virgin Mother born,
Our great redemption from above did bring;
For so the holy sages once did sing,
That he our deadly forfeit should release,
And with his Father work us a perpetual peace.

That glorious Form, that Light unsufferable,
And that far-beaming blaze of Majesty,
Wherwith he wont at Heav’ns high Councel-Table,
To sit the midst of Trinal Unity,
He laid aside; and here with us to be,
...Forsook the Courts of everlasting Day,
And chose with us a darksom House of mortal Clay.

Say Heav’nly Muse, shall not thy sacred vein
Afford a present to the Infant God?
Hast thou no verse, no hymn, or solemn strein,
To welcom him to this his new abode,
Now while the Heav’n by the Suns team untrod,
Hath took no print of the approching light,
And all the spangled host keep watch in squadrons bright?

See how from far upon the Eastern rode
The Star-led Wisards haste with odours sweet,
O run, prevent them with thy humble ode,
And lay it lowly at his blessed feet:
Have thou the honour first, thy Lord to greet,
And joyn thy voice unto the Angel Quire,
From out his secret Altar toucht with hallow’d fire.

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I’ve left the spelling the same as my source, not changing
anything to what is now accepted as right.

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(after visiting with Lincoln before the fall of Richmond)

Of all the men I ever met
None other comes to mind
Who had both greatness and the grace
In such amount combined.

I once looked down on him in scorn;
I judged him on a word.
And looking back, I understand
Such judgments are absurd.

You ask, “What is the difference?”
I am ashamed to say.
I judged him when I knew him not;
I know him well today.


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© Dennis Lange and thebardonthehill.wordpress.com, 2016.

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Love has gone and left me and the days are all alike;
Eat I must, and sleep I will, – and would that night were here!
But ah! – to lie awake and hear the slow hours strike!
Would that it were day again! – with twilight near!

Love has gone and left me and I don’t know what to do;
This or that or what you will is all the same to me;
But all the things that I begin I leave before I’m through, –
There’s little use in anything as far as I can see.

Love has gone and left me, – and the neighbors knock and borrow,
And life goes on forever like the gnawing of a mouse, –
And tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow
There’s this little street and this little house.

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Cloudless sky,
Temperature high;
Grass is dry.

Mid-summer:
Hot, and pale blue skies,
Brown pastures.

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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 Lange and thebardonthehill.wordpress.com, 2016.

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Glory of warrior, glory of orator, glory of song,
Paid with a voice flying by to be lost on an endless sea!
Glory of virtue: to fight, to struggle, to right the wrong.
Nay, but she aimed not at glory, no lover of glory she:
Give her the glory of going on, and still to be.

The wages of sin is death: if the wages of Virtue be dust,
Would she have heart to endure for the life of the worm and the fly?
She desires no isles of the blest, no quiet seats of the just –
To rest in a golden grove, or to bask in a summer sky:
Give her the wages of going on, and not to die.

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A thousand squares of reading feet
And all the tomes for sale.
From floor to head, and more, each treat
With wrap and blurbs regale.

Each is a siren with its song
Entreating those who come
To look, to buy, take it along
To be an opium.

The sirens that are mysteries
Are many in their place.
With shadows o’er their face, they please;
They tease and make their case.

A youthful temptress calls the teen;
Another calls the youth.
Sweet Romance is, to many, queen.
Some want nonfiction, truth.

E’en history, that ancient dame,
Calls from her sacred isle,
And beckons with both fact and fame
And her all-knowing smile.

Of all that space, one three by three,
And hard for one to find,
Is that reserved for poetry,
The song that soothes a mind.

My narrow shelf that’s here makes sense,
A sliver of a slot.
Demand is small; the consequence –
This blog’s a lonely spot.

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© Dennis Lange and thebardonthehill.wordpress.com, 2016.

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I know ’tis but a dream, yet feel more anguish
Than if ’twere truth.  It has been often so;
Must I die under it?  Is no one near?
Will no one hear these stifled groans and wake me?

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The Mer-turtle

My first glance
Saw brown turtle shell
And white head.

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— 

Fishermen

Fishing net,
Men stretched out into
Fishing line.

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The Sea Of Galilee

Men in boats
Where Jesus once walked.
Still watches.

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Fishermen – photo by Karunakar Rayker at
http://www.rgbstock.com/photo/2dkzxnO/Fishermen+at+work

Mer-Turtle – photo by Adrian van Leen at
http://www.rgbstock.com/photo/puL92ki/in+the+back+garden12

Galilee – photo by Alex Bruda at
http://www.rgbstock.com/photo/nFj4Cx2/sea+of+Galilee

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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 Lange and thebardonthehill.wordpress.com, 2016.

 

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O the sun and the rain, and the rain and the sun!
There’s be sunshine again when the tempest is done;
And the storm will beat back when the shining is past;
But in some happy haven we’ll anchor at last.
Then murmur no more,
In lull or in roar,
But smile and be brave till the voyage is o’er.

O the rain and the sun, and the sun and the rain!
When the tempest is done, then the sunshine again;
And in rapture we’ll ride through the stormiest gales,
For God’s hand’s on the helm and His breath in the sails.
Then murmur no more,
In lull or in roar,
But smile and be brave till the voyage is o’er.

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With Stonewall Jackson hurt, but not yet dead
Though surgeon-fit for that, his final bed,
Lee heard the cutting news and said aright,
“He’s lost his left arm but I’ve lost my right.”
And when the life of Jackson ebbed away
Like timid tides retreating from a bay,
Robbed Lee, at Gettysburg, was then alone –
He’d lost his eyes and ears beneath a stone.

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© Dennis Lange and thebardonthehill.wordpress.com, 2016.

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