Still, a moment wait for me

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I r o n c l a d

Quaker Cemetery

Camden, South Carolina

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I lov'd thee from the earliest dawn,

When first I saw thy beauty's ray,

And will, until life's eve comes on,

And beauty's blossom fades away;

And when all things go well with thee,

With smiles and tears remember me.

I'll love thee when thy morn is past,

And wheedling gallantry is o'er,

When youth is lost in age's blast,

And beauty can ascend no more,

And when life's journey ends with thee,

O, then look back and think of me.

I'll love thee with a smile or frown,

'Mid sorrow's gloom or pleasure's light,

And when the chain of life runs down,

Pursue thy last eternal flight,

When thou hast spread thy wing to flee,

Still, still, a moment wait for me.

I'll love thee for those sparkling eyes,

To which my fondness was betray'd,

Bearing the tincture of the skies,

To glow when other beauties fade,

And when they sink too low to see,

Reflect an azure beam on me.

= George Moses Horton =

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Happy Thursday

Sigh, it is lost on the air

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F l o w e r   P o w e r

Above a Tiny Downtown Graveyard

Lexington, South Carolina

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Laugh, and the world laughs with you

Weep, and you weep alone;

For the sad old earth must borrow its mirth,

But has trouble enough of its own.

Sing, and the hills will answer;

Sigh, it is lost on the air;

The echoes bound to a joyful sound,

But shrink from voicing care.

Rejoice, and men will seek you;

Grieve, and they turn and go;

They want full measure of all your pleasure,

But they do not need your woe.

Be glad, and your friends are many;

Be sad, and you lose them all, --

There are none to decline your nectared wine,

But alone you must drink life's gall.

Feast, and your halls are crowded;

Fast, and the world goes by.

Succeed and give, and it helps you live,

But no man can help you die.

There is room in the halls of pleasure

For a large and lordly train,

But one by one we must all file on

Through the narrow aisles of pain.

= Ella Wheeler Wilcox =

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Happy Wednesday

Living sea of waking dreams

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P o w e r   P l a y

From the Passenger's Seat

Batesburg-Leesville, South Carolina

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I am -- yet what I am none cares or knows;
My friends forsake me like a memory lost:
I am the self-consumer of my woes --
They rise and vanish in oblivious host,
Like shadows in love’s frenzied stifled throes
And yet I am, and live -- like vapours tossed

Into the nothingness of scorn and noise,
Into the living sea of waking dreams,
Where there is neither sense of life or joys,
But the vast shipwreck of my life’s esteems;
Even the dearest that I loved the best
Are strange -- nay, rather, stranger than the rest.

I long for scenes where man hath never trod
A place where woman never smiled or wept
There to abide with my Creator, God,
And sleep as I in childhood sweetly slept,
Untroubling and untroubled where I lie
The grass below -- above the vaulted sky.

= John Clare =

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Happy Tuesday

We hunger for eloquence

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R e a c h

Lindler Homeplace

Lexington, South Carolina

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I wanted to see where beauty comes from
without you in the world, hauling my heart
across sixty acres of northeast meadow,
my pockets filling with flowers.
Then I remembered,
it’s you I miss in the brightness
and body of every living name:
rattlebox, yarrow, wild vetch.
You are the green wonder of June,
root and quasar, the thirst for salt.
When I finally understand that people fail
at love, what is left but cinquefoil, thistle,
the paper wings of the dragonfly
aeroplaning the soul with a sudden blue hilarity?
If I get the story right, desire is continuous,
equatorial. There is still so much
I want to know: what you believe
can never be removed from us,
what you dreamed on Walnut Street
in the unanswerable dark of your childhood,
learning pleasure on your own.
Tell me our story: are we impetuous,
are we kind to each other, do we surrender
to what the mind cannot think past?
Where is the evidence I will learn
to be good at loving?
The black dog orbits the horseshoe pond
for treefrogs in their plangent emergencies.
There are violet hills,
there is the covenant of duskbirds.
The moon comes over the mountain
like a big peach, and I want to tell you
what I couldn’t say the night we rushed
North, how I love the seriousness of your fingers
and the way you go into yourself,
calling my half-name like a secret.
I stand between taproot and treespire.
Here is the compass rose
to help me live through this.
Here are twelve ways of knowing
what blooms even in the blindness
of such longing. Yellow oxeye,
viper’s bugloss with its set of pink arms
pleading do not forget me.
We hunger for eloquence.
We measure the isopleths.
I am visiting my life with reckless plenitude.
The air is fragrant with tiny strawberries.
Fireflies turn on their electric wills:
an effulgence. Let me come back
whole, let me remember how to touch you
before it is too late.

= Stacie Cassarino =

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Happy Monday

Ransomed from the fall

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I   A m   T h e   V i n e

Trinity Episcopal Cathedral Cemetery

Columbia, South Carolina

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All hail the pow'r of Jesus' name

Let angels prostrate fall

Bring forth the royal diadem

And crown Him Lord of all!

Bring forth the royal diadem

And crown Him Lord of all.

Ye chosen seed of Israel's race

Ye ransomed from the fall

Hail Him Who saves you by His grace

And crown Him Lord of all!

Hail Him Who saves you by His grace

And crown Him Lord of all.

Let ev'ry kindred, every tribe

On this terrestrial ball

To Him all majesty ascribe

And crown Him Lord of all!

To Him all majesty ascribe

And crown Him Lord of all.

O that with yonder sacred throng

We at His feet may fall

We'll join the everlasting song

And crown Him Lord of all!

We'll join the everlasting song

And crown Him Lord of all.

= Edward Perronet =

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Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him,

and given him a name which is above every name:

That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,

of things in heaven, and things in earth,

and things under the earth;

And that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord,

to the glory of God the Father.

Philippians 2:9-11

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Happy Sunday