The Test by Dennis Allen Lange

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This earthly life is a test to find
Which ones of us are the heavenly kind.

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The photo is mine – early morning in the Shenandoah Mountains.

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© Dennis Allen Lange, 2019.

 

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The Big League by Dennis Allen Lange

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The minor leaguers play for wealth and fame
Or just for pleasure on their daily plate,
Or anything to carry on their name
In hamlets small, or cities that are great.

Ambition is the wind that fills their sail
And drives them toward the only port they see,
Which may not measure much upon a scale –
But forward without knowing, blissfully!

Though some succeed and gain the greater stage
Most toil on in obscurity to fail,
A rueful fact they recognize in age,
And in depression, raise a bitter wail.

But majors hit a fastball none can see
And rarely swing at curves the foe may throw.
The list of contrasts go on endlessly –
So, too, those on the high road, not the low.

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photo by Robert Linder at
http://www.rgbstock.com/photo/mA6Smt6/Dominican+Baseball

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© Dennis Allen Lange and thebardonthehill.wordpress.com, 2017.

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The Woodspurge by Dante Gabriel Rossetti

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The wind flapped loose, the wind was still,
Shaken out dead from tree and hill:
I had walked on at the wind’s will, –
I saw now, for the wind was still.

Between my knees my forehead was, –
My lips, drawn in, said not Alas!
My hair was over in the grass,
My naked ears heard the day pass.

My eyes, wide open, had the run
Of some ten weeds to fix upon;
Among those few, out of the sun,
The woodspurge flowered, three cups in one.

From perfect grief there need not be
Wisdom or even memory:
One thing then learnt remains to me, –
The woodspurge has a cup of three.

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Analysis:
http://www.victorianweb.org/authors/dgr/healey5.html

http://matthewspoetryanalysis.blogspot.com/2013/05/the-woodspurge-dante-gabriel-rossetti.html

https://hokku.wordpress.com/2013/02/23/the-woodspurge-all-thought-exhausted/

https://igcseblog.wordpress.com/2014/05/04/the-woodspurge-by-daniel-gabriel-rossetti/

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Sonnet 20 – The Testing Ground by Dennis Lange

Through ages, men have puzzled over life
As to its purpose, meaning, and the end;
The issue, more than love and all the strife:
From whence we came? and which way do we wend?

We see the flow, like waters of a lake,
A constant stream that’s entering this earth,
As others, flowing forth, death’s journey take –
Between, the brief sojourn that starts at birth.

Just as a team runs players through the drills,
To fill its roster, find the qualified,
The special few with heart, desire, and skills,
This life is testing ground where men are tried.

On earth, we’re planted so that God may find
Which ones are suited for the heav’nly kind.
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© Dennis Lange and thebardonthehill.wordpress.com, 2015.

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What’s It All About? by Dennis Lange

Archerfish (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

What’s It All About?

One day the universe will end
With whimper, if not shout.
Will you have it figured then,
What life is all about?

The beaver knows to build a dam,
Has teeth to fell a tree,
And hangs within his handsome lodge
An engineer’s degree.

The archerfish can shoot a stream,
And knows just where to aim;
Takes to account light’s bending beam
In bringing down his game.

All were designed with end in mind,
And so it is with man.
And we must search until we find
Our part within the plan.

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article on beavers http://dandydesign.org/id31.html

article on archerfish:
http://www.apologeticspress.org/APContent.aspx?category=9&article=1998

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© Dennis Lange and thebardonthehill.wordpress.com, 2012.

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