Till That May Morn

  
Such a starved bank of moss 
Till that May morn, 
Blue ran the flash across: 
Violets were born. 

—Robert Browning

On a Bright Summit of Some Glory Cloud

Dear B_:

Tomorrow is the first day of May. O, well.

In April, I was writing a book review-a project fading fast-on a historical fiction based on the Gilded Age. In my opinion, one should include the prop (i.e., the Gilded Age) to support the scenery (i.e., the characters) of this novel. Intentionally or not, the author only implied this momentous epoch in American story. There were no supports or the “whys” in the novel. To me, the “whys” always influenced the character behavior in a story.

Case in point. The opening paragraph in Edith Wharton’s story, The Age of Innocence, she set the tone the “old money” New York folk neither welcome nor want the “new money” (e.g., Vanderbilt, Carnegie, etc.,) into their club, the Acadamy of Music . Not in the story, the “new money” said fine. They built the Met. Metaphorically, the Met killed the Academy of Music. The rest, as they say, is history. Wharton only implied the reader knew or cared about the Gilded Age. The protagonist in the book, Newland Archer was ambiguous throught out the book. He even was to the point of rebellion against the informal rules of the time. The Gilded Age was really the “why” that gave a more in-depth meaning to the Wharton story.

But I digress.

Given the American Civil War was the first industrial war of the world, it was also the first “why” that spawned the Gilded Age. Below, each of the paragraphs or a combination, I could use as a lead-in or part of a critique in my vapor book review.

The word “April” got me started on writing the review (maybe). Why waste the verbiage, as I thought of Victor Hugo’s play, Le roi s’amuse. Anyway, I strung together the italized paragraphs below for your reading and amusement. The paragraphs sort of meshed. Note that each paragraph contains the word “April”.

When the army of the South surrenders to the Union forces of the North on April 9, 1865, a bittersweet closing the four-year American Civil War. At the Appomattox Courthouse, Virginia, in the fourth spring hence 1861, lasting peace is achieved from the internecine carnage.

Metaphorically, “Aprill with his shoures soothe.” Spring rain would bathe and debride the throbbing wounds of the civil bloodshed. The wind which billows the war, its tail transforms into warm April breezes. The season’s warm winds would assuage the inflamed veins of braving the four-year war.

For the Confederacy, “April is the cruellest month.” At Appomattox, the knell peels for King Cotton of the South. Strewn thick on the “all the fertile land within that bound,” are detritus of a once proud civilization. The “road to Tara” is a byword of forgotten grandeurs. Scorned are polite society ascribing to “every gesture dignity and love”. Lying fallow are plantations groaned “underneath a weight of slavish toil.” Trampled underfoot are manicured gardens of yesteryears, “frothing of pink peach blossoms and dogwood dappling with white stars.” Dismissively neglected are carcasses of antebellum estates. All are gone with the wind of war. The memento mori of the South, indeed, does “take all feeling else.”

Pulsing in the bosoms is once shackled, scarred, and bartered frames. All are wearing one heart the insatiable spirit to “be free as is the wind.” Tender leaves of hopes are emerging in the soil of emancipation. At Appomattox, “a day in April never came so sweet.”

The assassination of President Lincoln in April 1865 is the penultimate of the Civil War. His death and burial bring to a close this chapter of horrific upheaval in American history. Unequivocally, the war answers a haunting profundity. Eighty seven year ago, on the last day of the Constitutional Convention in 1787, Benjamin Franklin proffers a challenge. That is, if the Republic of the United States were to abide, the people must accept and defend its governance (i.e., the Constitution). To this end, the death of President Lincoln and many others affirms this Franklin conjecture. The Constitution holds with the Republic stands indivisible.

On a “bright summit of some glory cloud,” the Gilded Age unfurls…

L'

Of the Blue April Air with a Most Sweet Refrain

 EASTER BELLS

  Oh bells of Easter morn, oh solemn sounding bells,
     Which fill the hollow cells
   Of the blue April air with a most sweet refrain,
     Ye fill my heart with pain.
  For when, as from a thousand holy altar-fires,
     A thousand resonant spires
   Sent up the offering—the glad thanksgiving strain—
     "The Lord is risen again!"
  He went from us who shall return no more, no more!
     I say the sad words o'er,
   And they are mixed and blent with your triumphant psalm,
     Like bitterness and balm,
  We stood with him beside the black and silent river,
     Cold, cold and soundless ever;
   But there our feet were stayed—unloosed our clasping fond,
     And he has passed beyond.
  And still that solemn hymn, like smoke of sacrifice,
     Clomb the blue April skies,
   And on our anguish placed its sacramental chrism,
     "Behold, the Lord is risen!"
  Oh, bells of Easter morn! your mighty voices reach
     A deeper depth than speech;
   We heard, "Because He liveth they shall live with Him;"
     This was our Easter hymn.
  And while the slow vibrations swell, and sink, and cease,
     They bring divinest peace,
   For we commit our best beloved to the dust,
     In sure and certain trust.
     
- Kate Seymour Maclean,1880

Matthew 28:6

"He is not here, for he has risen, as he said."

But Seek Thy Sheep, True Shepherd of the Flock

Good Friday
Christina Rossetti (1830-1894)

Am I a stone, and not a sheep,
That I can stand, O Christ, beneath Thy cross,
To number drop by drop Thy blood's slow loss,
And yet not weep?

Not so those women loved
Who with exceeding grief lamented Thee;
Not so fallen Peter weeping bitterly;
Not so the thief was moved;

Not so the Sun and Moon
Which hid their faces in a starless sky,
A horror of great darkness at broad noon--
I, only I.

Yet give not o'er,
But seek Thy sheep, true Shepherd of the flock;
Greater than Moses, turn and look once more
          And smite a rock.

Ils Ne Connaissent Pas de Bonheur

Home Grown Roses, Mission Viejo, CA

Dear B:

The firsts line of a French poem by Francis Ponge (1899-1988), is “Les rois ne touchent pas aux portes.” It is lonely at the top, as the adage goes. So it was and continues to be that kings or the likes, never touch doors. Fortunately, it is left to us commoners, holding open the door to spring in embrace.

Thank you for the National Geographic flower pictures! They are the beauteous epitome of springtide. Let us appreciate the season while it lasts,“of splendour in the grass, of glory in the flower.”

Be well.

L'

April Charm

Le Jardins de Quatre-Vents, La Malbaie, Québec

When April scatters coins of primrose gold
Among the copper leaves in thickets old,
And singing skylarks from the meadows rise,
To twinkle like black stars in sunny skies;

When I can hear the small woodpecker ring
Time on a tree for all the birds that sing;
And hear the pleasant cuckoo, loud and long—
The simple bird that thinks two notes a song;

When I can hear the woodland brook,that could
Not drown a babe, with all his threatening mood:
Upon whose banks the violets make their home,
And let a few small strawberry blossoms come;

When I go forth on such a pleasant day,
One breath outdoors takes all my care away;
It goes like heavy smoke, when flames take hold
Of wood that’s green and fill a grate with gold.

- William H. Davies, 1920