He knew no haste

>>>>++<<<<

L o v e   I s   P a t i e n t

Greenville Union Cemetery

Greenville, Ohio

>>>>++<<<<

Because I could not stop for Death --

He kindly stopped for me --

The Carriage held but just Ourselves --

And Immortality.

We slowly drove -- He knew no haste

And I had put away

My labor and my leisure too,

For His Civility --

We passed the School, where Children strove

At Recess -- in the Ring --

We passed the Fields of Gazing Grain --

We passed the Setting Sun --

Or rather -- He passed Us --

The Dews drew quivering and chill --

For only Gossamer, my Gown --

My Tippet -- only Tulle --

We paused before a House that seemed

A Swelling of the Ground --

The Roof was scarcely visible --

The Cornice -- in the Ground --

Since then -- 'tis Centuries -- and yet

Feels shorter than the Day

I first surmised the Horses' Heads

Were toward Eternity --

> Emily Dickinson <

>>>>++<<<<

Happy Saturday

Fight on, fare ever

>>>>++<<<<

I   D e w

Miniature Morning Glory

Columbia, South Carolina

>>>>++<<<<

At the midnight in the silence of the sleep-time,
When you set your fancies free,
Will they pass to where -- by death, fools think, imprisoned --
Low he lies who once so loved you, whom you loved so,
-- Pity me?

Oh to love so, be so loved, yet so mistaken!
What had I on earth to do
With the slothful, with the mawkish, the unmanly?
Like the aimless, helpless, hopeless, did I drivel
-- Being -- who?

One who never turned his back but marched breast forward,
Never doubted clouds would break,
Never dreamed, though right were worsted, wrong would triumph,
Held we fall to rise, are baffled to fight better,
Sleep to wake.

No, at noonday in the bustle of man’s work-time
Greet the unseen with a cheer!
Bid him forward, breast and back as either should be,
“Strive and thrive!” cry “Speed, -- fight on, fare ever
There as here!”

> Robert Browning <

>>>>++<<<<

Happy Friday

The day shall never end

>>>>++<<<<

T h e y   A l s o   S e r v e

302 Senate

Columbia, South Carolina

>>>>++<<<<

There is unknown dust that is near us,
Waves breaking on shores just over the hill,
Trees full of birds that we have never seen,
Nets drawn down with dark fish.

The evening arrives; we look up and it is there,
It has come through the nets of the stars,
Through the tissues of the grass,
Walking quietly over the asylums of the waters.

The day shall never end, we think:
We have hair that seems born for the daylight;
But, at last, the quiet waters of the night will rise,
And our skin shall see far off, as it does underwater.

> Robert Bly <

>>>>++<<<<

Happy Thursday

Odd question from a forest bird

>>>>++<<<<

T h e   B o y

Elmwood Cemetery

Columbia, South Carolina

>>>>++<<<<

The warping night air having brought the boom
Of an owl's voice into her darkened room,
We tell the wakened child that all she heard
Was an odd question from a forest bird,
Asking of us, if rightly listened to,
"Who cooks for you?" and then "Who cooks for you?"

Words, which can make our terrors bravely clear,
Can also thus domesticate a fear,
And send a small child back to sleep at night
Not listening for the sound of stealthy flight
Or dreaming of some small thing in a claw
Borne up to some dark branch and eaten raw.

> Richard Wilbur <

>>>>++<<<<

Happy Wednesday

Tender grief that is not woe

>>>>++<<<<

A b i d i n g

Elmwood Cemetery

Columbia, South Carolina

>>>>++<<<<

The human heart has hidden treasures,
In secret kept, in silence sealed;­
The thoughts, the hopes, the dreams, the pleasures,
Whose charms were broken if revealed.
And days may pass in gay confusion,
And nights in rosy riot fly,
While, lost in Fame's or Wealth's illusion,
The memory of the Past may die.

But there are hours of lonely musing,
Such as in evening silence come,
When, soft as birds their pinions closing,
The heart's best feelings gather home.
Then in our souls there seems to languish
A tender grief that is not woe;
And thoughts that once wrung groans of anguish,
Now cause but some mild tears to flow.

And feelings, once as strong as passions,
Float softly back­ -- a faded dream;
Our own sharp griefs and wild sensations,
The tale of others' sufferings seem.
Oh! when the heart is freshly bleeding,
How longs it for that time to be,
When, through the mist of years receding,
Its woes but live in reverie!

And it can dwell on moonlight glimmer,
On evening shade and loneliness;
And, while the sky grows dim and dimmer,
Feel no untold and strange distress­ --
Only a deeper impulse given
By lonely hour and darkened room,
To solemn thoughts that soar to heaven,
Seeking a life and world to come.

> Charlotte Bronte <

>>>>++<<<<

Happy Tuesday

Harbinger of something harder

>>>>++<<<<

R i g h t   B a c k   A t   Y o u

Niketown :: Fifty-Seventh Street

New York, New York

>>>>++<<<<

How hard it is to take September
straight—not as a harbinger
of something harder.

Merely like suds in the air, cool scent
scrubbed clean of meaning -- or innocent
of the cold thing coldly meant.

How hard the heart tugs at the end
of summer, and longs to haul it in
when it flies out of hand

at the prompting of the first mild breeze.
It leaves us by degrees
only, but for one who sees

summer as an absolute,
Pure State of Light and Heat, the height
to which one cannot raise a doubt,

as soon as one leaf's off the tree
no day following can fall free
of the drift of melancholy.

> Mary Jo Salter <

>>>>++<<<<

Happy Monday

Till the hour of our receiving

>>>>++<<<<

A t   M y   F i n g e r t i p s

Green Mount Cemetery

Baltimore, Maryland

>>>>++<<<<

Praise the Saviour, ye who know Him

Who can tell how much we owe Him?

Gladly let us render to Him

All we have and are.

Jesus is the name that charms us

He for conflicts fits and arms us

Nothing moves and nothing harms us

When we trust in Him.

Trust in Him, ye saints, for ever

He is faithful, changing never

Neither force nor guile can sever

Those He loves from Him.

Keep us, Lord, oh, keep us cleaving

To Thyself, and still believing

Till the hour of our receiving

Promised joys in heaven.

Then we shall be where we would be

Then we shall be what we should be

Things which are not now, nor could be

Then shall be our own.

> Thomas Kelly <

>>>>++<<<<

Blessed is the man that trusteth in the Lord,
and whose hope the Lord is.

 
For he shall be as a tree planted by the waters,
and that spreadeth out her roots by the river,
and shall not see when heat cometh,
but her leaf shall be green;
and shall not be careful in the year of drought,
neither shall cease from yielding fruit.

> Jeremiah 17:7-8 <

>>>>++<<<<

Happy Sunday

I am not used to hope

>>>>++<<<<

M y   H e a r t ' s   O n   M y   S i d e

Edgar Allan Poe Square

Baltimore, Maryland

>>>>++<<<<

It might be lonelier

Without the Loneliness --

I'm so accustomed to my Fate --

Perhaps the Other -- Peace --

Would interrupt the Dark --

And crowd the little Room --

Too scant -- by Cubits -- to contain

The Sacrament -- of Him --

I am not used to Hope --

It might intrude upon --

Its sweet parade -- blaspheme the place --

Ordained to Suffering --

It might be easier

To fail -- with Land in Sight --

Than gain -- My Blue Peninsula --

To perish -- of Delight --

> Emily Dickinson <

>>>>++<<<<

Happy Caturday

All awash with angels

>>>>++<<<<

I ' d   F o r g e t   M y   H e a d

Hollywood Cemetery

Richmond, Virginia

>>>>++<<<<

Love Calls Us To The Things Of This World

The eyes open to a cry of pulleys,
And spirited from sleep, the astounded soul
Hangs for a moment bodiless and simple
As false dawn.
Outside the open window
The morning air is all awash with angels.

Some are in bed-sheets, some are in blouses,
Some are in smocks: but truly there they are.
Now they are rising together in calm swells
Of halcyon feeling, filling whatever they wear
With the deep joy of their impersonal breathing;

Now they are flying in place, conveying
The terrible speed of their omnipresence, moving
And staying like white water; and now of a sudden
They swoon down into so rapt a quiet
That nobody seems to be there.
The soul shrinks

From all that it is about to remember,
From the punctual rape of every blessèd day,
And cries,
“Oh, let there be nothing on earth but laundry,
Nothing but rosy hands in the rising steam
And clear dances done in the sight of heaven.”

Yet, as the sun acknowledges
With a warm look the world’s hunks and colors,
The soul descends once more in bitter love
To accept the waking body, saying now
In a changed voice as the man yawns and rises,
“Bring them down from their ruddy gallows;
Let there be clean linen for the backs of thieves;
Let lovers go fresh and sweet to be undone,
And the heaviest nuns walk in a pure floating
Of dark habits,
keeping their difficult balance.”

> Richard Wilbur <

>>>>++<<<<

Happy Friday :: Happy September

We ask none leave to love

>>>>++<<<<

E i t h e r   W a y

Cherry Street

Richmond, Virginia

>>>>++<<<<

So, so, break off this last lamenting kiss,
Which sucks two souls, and vapours both away;
Turn, thou ghost, that way, and let me turn this,
And let ourselves benight our happiest day.
We ask none leave to love; nor will we owe
Any so cheap a death as saying, “Go.”

Go; and if that word have not quite killed thee,
Ease me with death, by bidding me go too.
Or, if it have, let my word work on me,
And a just office on a murderer do.
Except it be too late, to kill me so,
Being double dead, going, and bidding, “Go.”

> John Donne <

>>>>++<<<<

Happy Thursday