The Altar: George Herbert
A broken ALTAR, Lord, thy servant rears,
Made of a heart and cemented with tears:
Whose parts are as thy hand did frame;
No workman’s tool hath touch’d the same.
A HEART alone
Is such a stone,
As nothing but
Thy pow’r doth cut.
Wherefore each part
Of my hard heart
Meets in this frame,
To praise thy name:
That if I chance to hold my peace,
These stones to praise thee may not cease.
Oh, let thy blessed SACRIFICE be mine,
And sanctify this ALTAR to be thine.
Easter Wings: George Herbert
Lord, who createdst man in wealth and store,
Though foolishly he lost the same,
Decaying more and more,
Till he became
Most poore:
With thee
O let me rise
As larks, harmoniously,
And sing this day thy victories:
Then shall the fall further the flight in me.
My tender age in sorrow did beginne
And still with sicknesses and shame.
Thou didst so punish sinne,
That I became
Most thinne.
With thee
Let me combine,
And feel thy victorie:
For, if I imp my wing on thine,
Affliction shall advance the flight in me.
The Caged Skylark: Gerard Manley Hopkins
As a dare-gale skylark scanted in a dull cage,
Man’s mounting spirit in his bone-house, mean house, dwells —
That bird beyond the remembering his free fells;
This in drudgery, day-labouring-out life’s age.
Though aloft on turf or perch or poor low stage
Both sing sometímes the sweetest, sweetest spells,
Yet both droop deadly sómetimes in their cells
Or wring their barriers in bursts of fear or rage.
Not that the sweet-fowl, song-fowl, needs no rest —
Why, hear him, hear him babble & drop down to his nest,
But his own nest, wild nest, no prison.
Man’s spirit will be flesh-bound, when found at best,
But uncumberèd: meadow-down is not distressed
For a rainbow footing it nor he for his bónes rísen.
Winter Journey: Louise Glück
Well, it was just as I thought, the path
all but obliterated—
We had moved then
from the first to the second stage,
from the dream to the proposition.
And look—
here is the line between,
resembling
this line from which our words emerge:
resembling
this line from which our words emerge:
moonlight breaks through.
Shadows on the snow
cast by pine trees.*
Say good-bye to standing up,
my sister said. We were sitting on our favorite bench
outside the common room, having
a glass of gin without ice.
Looked a lot like water, so the nurses
smiled at you as they passed,
pleased with how hydrated you were becoming.
a glass of gin without ice.
Looked a lot like water, so the nurses
smiled at you as they passed,
pleased with how hydrated you were becoming.
Inside the common room, the advanced cases
were watching television under a sign that said
Welcome to Happy Hour.
If you can’t read, my sister said,
If you can’t read, my sister said,
can you be happy?
We were having a fine old time getting old,
everything hunky-dory as the nurses said,
though you could tell
snow was beginning to fall,
not fall exactly, more like weave side to side
snow was beginning to fall,
not fall exactly, more like weave side to side
sliding around in the sky—
*
Now we are home, my mother said;
before, we were at Aunt Posy’s.
And between, in the car, the Pontiac,
And between, in the car, the Pontiac,
driving from Hewlett to Woodmere.
You children, my mother said, must sleep
You children, my mother said, must sleep
as much as possible. Lights
were shining in the trees:
those are the stars, my mother said.
Then I was in my bed. How could the stars be there
those are the stars, my mother said.
Then I was in my bed. How could the stars be there
when there were no trees?
On the ceiling, silly, that’s where they were.*I must say
I was very tired walking along the road,
On the ceiling, silly, that’s where they were.*I must say
I was very tired walking along the road,
very tired—I put my hat on a snowbank.
Even then I was not light enough,
my body a burden to me.Along the path, there were
things that had died along the way—lumps of snow,
that’s what they were—
things that had died along the way—lumps of snow,
that’s what they were—
The wind blew. Nights I could see
shadows of the pines, the moon
was that bright.
Every hour or so my friend turned to wave at me
or I believed she did, though
the dark obscured her.
Still her presence sustained me:
the dark obscured her.
Still her presence sustained me:
some of you will know what I mean.
