Tomorrow Is Saint Valentine’s Day

Tomorrow is Saint Valentine's day
All in the morning betime,
And I a maid at your window,
To be your Valetntine.

-Shakepeare

betime(adv.)
early, at an early hour

A New Year Poem

With grateful hearts the past we own;
The future, all to us unknown,
We to Thy guardian care commit,
And peaceful leave before Thy feet.
 
Philip Doddridge 
(1702 - 1751)

A Christmas Poem

CHRISTMAS
Benjamin Copeland
(1896)

O HOLY, happy morning,
That saw the Saviour's birth!
The star, thy brow adorning,
Beams mercy on the earth.
For shepherds, and for sages,
Thy cheer, impartial, free,—
The travail of the ages
Finds recompense in thee.

My soul, be thou believing,—
No more thy past deplore;
In Christ all loss retrieving,
Rejoice for evermore.
By love unknown attended,
Thy weary watch and ward,—
Behold! the vision splendid!
The angel of the Lord!

And hark! the herald angel!
The radiant, rapturous throng!
The ravishing evangel
Floods all the hills with song:
"To God in heaven, glory,
Good will to men below;"
Speed, speed the blessed story,
That all the world may know.

Where the Spirit Shall Bask in the Summer of Heaven

'Tis the Last Day of Summer

'Tis the last day of Summer,
    Now fading away,
As behind yon blue mountain,
    The sun hides its ray;
And the low breeze is sighing,
    So chilly and drear,
That, methinks, the wood whispers,
    Stern Autumn is near!

'Tis the last day of Summer,
    And sad is the smile,
That now lights up the gloom,
    Where it lingers awhile;
Whilst the cloud that is wreathing,
    So gaily the west,
But reveals by its brightness,
    The tempest's dark crest.

'Tis the last day of Summer,
    And fleet as its ray,
Hath departed, so fleetly,
    Doth life speed away!
But beyond this drear gloom,
    Is a resting place given,
Where the spirit shall bask,
    In the summer of Heaven.

T.J.S., 1836
Frederick County, Aug. 31st, 1836.

First Day of Summer, Northern Hemisphere, 2024

  
The Woods in Summer

Pleasant it was, when woods were green,
And winds were soft and low,
To lie amidst some sylvan scene,
Where the long drooping boughs between
Shadows dark and sunlight sheen,
Alternate come and go;

Or where the denser grove receives
No sunlight from above,
But the dark foliage interweaves,
In one unbroken roof of leaves,
Underneath whose sloping eaves
The shadows hardly move.

- Longfellow


It is only in heaven that Christians shall find metaphorically 
the abiding beauty of spring, 
the recurring enjoyment of summer,
the constant fruition of autumn. 
There, the redeemed shall have no winter at all. Because  they shall have the ever shining Sun of Righteousness, 
and invariably the river of nourishing Living Water.

Eighty Years Ago: D-day, June 6, 1944

WARS

In the old wars drum of hoofs and the beat of shod feet.
In the new wars hum of motors and the tread of rubber
     tires.
In the wars to come silent wheels and whirr of rods not
     yet dreamed out in the heads of men.

In the old wars clutches of short swords and jabs into
     faces with spears.
In the new wars long range guns and smashed walls, guns
     running a spit of metal and men falling in tens and twenties.
In the wars to come new silent deaths, new silent hurlers
     not yet dreamed out in the heads of men.

In the old wars kings quarreling and thousands of men
     following.
In the new wars kings quarreling and millions of men
     following.
In the wars to come kings kicked under the dust and
     millions of men following great causes not yet
     dreamed out in the heads of men.

- Carl Sandburg, 1916

Memorial Day Weekend, 2024

THE BATTLEFIELD

They dropped like flakes, they dropped like stars,
      Like petals from a rose.
When suddenly across the June
      A wind with finger goes.

They perished in the seamless grass,—
      No eye could find the place;
But God on his repealless list
      Can summon every face.

    — Emily Dickinson

Rock Me to Sleep, Mother

Over my heart in the days that are flown
No love like mother-love ever has shown;
No other worship abides and endures —
Faithful, unselfish and patient like yours,
None like a mother can charm away pain,
From the sick soul and the world-weary brain.
Slumber's soft calm o'er my heavy lids creep,
Rock me to sleep, mother—rock me to sleep.

— Elizabeth Akers,"Rock Me to Sleep, Mother", 3rd stanza

May, In Green, the Colour of Our Hope

Waterway, Amsterdam, NL

  
Praise God to-day His choice hath been 
To clothe the lovely world in green, 
To-day when every grass-blade shows 
More finely than the opening rose: 

To-day when chestnut leaves half-spread 
Feed the starved soul with daily bread, 
When poplar-trees are emerald spears, 
And thorn-trees bring the happy tears. 

What other colours, rose or white, 
Should so support us, so delight? 
What blues or violets so brim o'er 
The cup of sweets to hold no more? 

Year after year when May comes in, 
To clothe the tender world in green, 
And set the fairy arches up 
In green, the colour of our hope, 

When every branch begins to blow 
Lightly as to an emerald snow, 
I praise God that He chose the green 
To wrap our lovely mother in. 

- Katharine Tynan Hinkson (1859-1931)

Valentine’s Day

VALENTINE

To greet the new-born blooming year, 
What varied flowery sweets appear, 
The little birds begin to sing, 
And nature smiles to welcome spring. 
Yet these, my love, soon decay; 
The songsters on the leafy spray
Will silent sit, nor heed the year,
Nor sweetly varied flowers appear.
In constant these - but I will prove
Example of unchanging love;
Entwine my faithful heart with thine, 
And ever be thy Valentine.

—Anon. 1805

A Christmas Haiku

Grace and truth is He
Jesus unshackles mankind sins 
Paradise regained

L'

I Find Sweet Peace in Depths of Autumn Woods

Half Dome Panorama, Yosemite NP, Cook's Meadow Loop View, 25 October, 2023

November 
by Elizabeth Stoddard
(1823-1902)

Much have I spoken of the faded leaf; 
Long have I listened to the wailing wind, 
And watched it ploughing through the heavy clouds, 
For autumn charms my melancholy mind. 

When autumn comes, the poets sing a dirge: 
The year must perish; all the flowers are dead; 
The sheaves are gathered; and the mottled quail 
Runs in the stubble, but the lark has fled! 

Still, autumn ushers in the Christmas cheer, 
The holly-berries and the ivy-tree: 
They weave a chaplet for the Old Year's bier 
These waiting mourners do not sing for me! 

I find sweet peace in depths of autumn woods, 
Where grow the ragged ferns and roughened moss; 
The naked, silent trees have taught me this,--
The loss of beauty is not always loss!

Then Came Hot July, Boiling Like to Fire

Moments ago, I took this picture of a freezer thermometer in the shaded garage. The thermometer reading maxed out at 90°F. It is hotter still outside of the house. It is 104°F at this writing. I am not quite naked as Spenser intoned (ha ha). Nevertheless, few verses of his came to mind on this first day of July.

"Then came hot July, boiling like to fire,
That all his garments he had cast away;
Upon a lion raging yet with ire
He boldly rode, and made him to obey."

Thy Friends Are Exultations, Agonies, and Love

Thou hast left behind
Powers that will work for thee; earth, air, and skies,
There’s not a breathing of the common wind
That will forget thee; thou hast great allies;
Thy friends are exultations, agonies,
And love, and man’s unconquerable mind.

— Wordsworth

The Heart of a Mother Has Gone with Thee

Hast thou sounded the depths of yonder sea,
And counted the sands that under it be?
Hast thou measured the height of heaven above?
Then may’st thou mete out a mother’s love.

Hast thou talked with the blessed of leading on
To the throne of God some wandering son?
Hast thou witnessed the angel’s bright employ?
Then may’st thou speak of a mother’s joy.

Evening and morn hast thou watched the bee
Go forth on her errands of industry.
The bee for himself hath gathered and toiled,
But the mother’s cares are all for her child.

Hast thou gone with the traveller Thought afar—
From pole to pole, and from star to star?
Thou hast—but on ocean, earth, and sea,
The heart of a mother has gone with thee.

There is not a grand, inspiring thought,
There is not a truth by wisdom taught,
There is not a feeling pure and high,
That may not be read in mother’s eye.

And ever, since earth began, that look
Has been to the wise an open book,
To win them back from the lore they prize,
To the holier love that edifies.

There are teachings in earth, and sky, and air,
The heavens the glory of God declare;
But louder than voice, beneath, above,
He is heard to speak through a mother’s love.

Emily Taylor, 1888

Wherewithal the Seasonable Month Endows

I cannot see what flowers are at my feet,
      Nor what soft incense hangs upon the boughs,
But, in the embalmed darkness, guess each sweet
      Wherewith the seasonable month endows
The grass, the thicket, and the fruit tree wild;
      White hawthorn, and the pastoral eglantine;
Fast-fading violets covered up in leaves;
                  And mid-May's wildest child,
      The coming musk-rose, full of dewy wine,
The murmurous haunt of flies on summer eves.

—John Keat

Love Make Anew This Throbbing Heart

Spring still makes spring in the mind,
When sixty years are told;
Love makes anew this throbbing heart,
And we are never old.
Over the winter glaciers,
I see the summer glow,
And through the wild-piled snowdrift
The warm rosebuds below.

—Ralph Waldo Emerson.

What Matter Though the Sky Be Gray?

What matter if the sun be lost? 
What matter though the sky be gray? 
There's joy enough about the house, 
For Daffodil comes home to stay. 

- Bliss Carman, 1921

New Year’s Day 2023 - Whose Blossoms Shall Be Tender Deeds

  

A New Year’s Wish

May each day bring thee something
Fair to hold in memory—
Some true light to shine
Upon thee in the after days.
May each night bring thee peace,
As when the dove broods o'er
The young she loves; may day
And night the circle of
A rich experience weave
About thy life, and make
It rich with knowledge, but radiant
With Love, whose blossoms shall be
Tender deeds.

—George Wharton James, 1909

Our Great Redemption from Above Did Bring

This is the month, and this is the happy morn,
Wherein the Son of heaven's eternal King,
Of wedded maid, and virgin mother born,
Our great redemption from above did bring. 

- John Milton