Joy in the Morning: Poetry

Showing posts with label Poetry. Show all posts

Sunday, February 14, 2016

The Prayer of Sir Frances Drake

I recently listened to an audio narration of the book "Dear Kate" and was very much intrigued by the story... but that's not what I want to write about... In the story Kate quotes a lot from this poem and she really broke it down to where I really thought about each part. It's amazing! I loved it so much I thought I'd share it.

Disturb us, Lord, when
We are too well pleased with ourselves,
When our dreams have come true
Because we have dreamed too little,
When we arrived safely
Because we sailed too close to the shore.

Disturb us, Lord, when
With the abundance of things we possess
We have lost our thirst
For the waters of life;
Having fallen in love with life,
We have ceased to dream of eternity
And in our efforts to build a new earth,
We have allowed our vision
Of the new Heaven to dim.

Disturb us, Lord, to dare more boldly,
To venture on wider seas
Where storms will show your mastery;
Where losing sight of land,
We shall find the stars.

We ask You to push back
The horizons of our hopes;
And to push into the future
In strength, courage, hope, and love.

~Sir Francis Drake

Monday, March 26, 2012

Robert the Bruce (To Douglas in Dying)

'MY life is done, yet all remains,

The breath has gone, the image not,

The furious shapes once forged in heat

Live on though now no longer hot.

'Steadily the shining swords

In order rise, in order fall,

In order on the beaten field

The faithful trumpets call.

'The women weeping for the dead

Are not sad now but dutiful,

The dead men stiffening in their place

Proclaim the ancient rule.

'Great Wallace's body hewn in four,

So altered, stays as it must be.

O Douglas do not leave me now,

For past your head I see

'My dagger sheathed in Comyn's heart

And nothing there to praise or blame,

Nothing but order which must be

Itself and still the same.

'But that Christ hung upon the Cross,

Comyn would rot until time's end

And bury my sin in boundless dust,

For there is no amend.

'In order; yet in order run

All things by unreturning ways,

If Christ live not, nothing is there

For sorrow or for praise.'

So the king spoke to Douglas onceA little while before his death,

Having outfaced three English kings

And kept a people's faith.

Edwin Muir

Crossing the Bar

Sunset and evening star,
And one clear call for me!

And may there be no moaning of the bar,
When I put out to sea,

But such a tide as moving seems asleep,
Too full for sound and foam,
When that which drew from out the boundless deep
Turns again home.

Twilight and evening bell,
And after that the dark!
And may there be no sadness of farewell,
When I embark;

For though from out our bourne of Time and Place
The flood may bear me far,
I hope to see my Pilot face to face
When I have crost the bar.

Alfred Lord Tennyson

Excelsior!

The shades of night were falling fast, 
As through an Alpine village passed 
A youth, who bore, 'mid snow and ice,
 A banner with the strange device, 
    Excelsior!

His brow was sad; his eye beneath, 
Flashed like a falchion from its sheath, 
And like a silver clarion rung
 The accents of that unknown tongue, 
    Excelsior!

 In happy homes he saw the light 
Of household fires gleam warm and bright; 
Above, the spectral glaciers shone, 
And from his lips escaped a groan, 
     Excelsior!

"Try not the Pass!" the old man said; 
"Dark lowers the tempest overhead, 
The roaring torrent is deep and wide! 
And loud that clarion voice replied, 
    Excelsior!

"Oh stay," the maiden said, "and rest 
Thy weary head upon this breast!" 
A tear stood in his bright blue eye,
 But still he answered, with a sigh, 
     Excelsior!

"Beware the pine-tree's withered branch!
 Beware the awful avalanche!"
 This was the peasant's last Good-night,
 A voice replied, far up the height, 
     Excelsior!

At break of day, as heavenward 
The pious monks of Saint Bernard
 Uttered the oft-repeated prayer, 
A voice cried through the startled air, 
     Excelsior!

A traveller, by the faithful hound, 
Half-buried in the snow was found, 
Still grasping in his hand of ice 
That banner with the strange device, 
    Excelsior!

There in the twilight cold and gray,
 Lifeless, but beautiful, he lay, 
And from the sky, serene and far, 
A voice fell, like a falling star, 
    Excelsior!