A sweet and strange unquiet

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A n g e l   N o i r

Macedonia Lutheran Cemetery

Prosperity, South Carolina

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When the white flame in us is gone,
 And we that lost the world's delight
Stiffen in darkness, left alone
 To crumble in our separate night;
When your swift hair is quiet in death,
 And through the lips corruption thrust
Has stilled the labour of my breath --
 When we are dust, when we are dust! --
Not dead, not undesirous yet,
 Still sentient, still unsatisfied,
We'll ride the air, and shine, and flit,
 Around the places where we died,
And dance as dust before the sun,
 And light of foot, and unconfined,
Hurry from road to road, and run
 About the errands of the wind.
And every mote, on earth or air,
 Will speed and gleam, down later days,
And like a secret pilgrim fare
 By eager and invisible ways,
Nor ever rest, nor ever lie,
 Till, beyond thinking, out of view,
One mote of all the dust that's I
 Shall meet one atom that was you.
Then in some garden hushed from wind,
 Warm in a sunset's afterglow,
The lovers in the flowers will find
 A sweet and strange unquiet grow
Upon the peace; and, past desiring,
 So high a beauty in the air,
And such a light, and such a quiring,
 And such a radiant ecstasy there,
They'll know not if it's fire, or dew,
 Or out of earth, or in the height,
Singing, or flame, or scent, or hue,
 Or two that pass, in light, to light,
Out of the garden, higher, higher . . .
 But in that instant they shall learn
The shattering ecstasy of our fire,
 And the weak passionless hearts will burn
And faint in that amazing glow,
 Until the darkness close above;
And they will know -- poor fools, they'll know! --
 One moment, what it is to love.

= Rupert Brooke =

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Happy Thursday

Seek me or fly from my sight

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W a l k i n g   B y   F a i t h

Elmwood Cemetery

Charlotte, North Carolina

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I am the mother of sorrows,

I am the ender of grief;

I am the bud and the blossom,

I am the late-falling leaf.

I am thy priest and thy poet,

I am thy serf and thy king;

I cure the tears of the heartsick,

When I come near they shall sing.

White are my hands as the snowdrop;

Swart are my fingers as clay;

Dark is my frown as the midnight,

Fair is my brow as the day.

Battle and war are my minions,

Doing my will as divine;

I am the calmer of passions,

Peace is a nursling of mine.

Speak to me gently or curse me,

Seek me or fly from my sight;

I am thy fool in the morning,

Thou art my slave in the night.

Down to the grave I will take thee,

Out from the noise of the strife,

Then shalt thou see me and know me —

Death, then, no longer, but life.

Then shalt thou sing at my coming,

Kiss me with passionate breath,

Clasp me and smile to have thought me

Aught save the foeman of death.

Come to me, brother, when weary,

Come when thy lonely heart swells;

I'll guide thy footsteps and lead thee

Down where the Dream Woman dwells.

= Paul Laurence Dunbar =

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Happy Wednesday

Eternity is in love with the production of time

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H o l d o u t s

The Horseshoe

University of South Carolina at Columbia

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    In seed time learn, in harvest teach, in winter enjoy.
    Drive your cart and your plow over the bones of the dead.
    The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom.
    Prudence is a rich, ugly old maid courted by Incapacity.
    He who desires but acts not, breeds pestilence.
    The cut worm forgives the plow.
    Dip him in the river who loves water.
    A fool sees not the same tree that a wise man sees.
    He whose face gives no light, shall never become a star.
  Eternity is in love with the productions of time.
  The busy bee has no time for sorrow.
  The hours of folly are measur'd by the clock;

but of wisdom, no clock can measure.
  All wholesome food is caught without a net or a trap.
  Bring out number, weight and measure in a year of dearth.
  No bird soars too high, if he soars with his own wings.
  A dead body revenges not injuries.
  The most sublime act is to set another before you.
  If the fool would persist in his folly he would become wise.
  Folly is the cloak of knavery.
  Shame is Pride's cloke.
  Prisons are built with stones of law, brothels with bricks of religion.
  Excess of sorrow laughs. Excess of joy weeps.
  The roaring of lions, the howling of wolves, the raging of the stormy sea,

and the destructive sword, are portions of eternity, too great for the eye of man.
  The fox condemns the trap, not himself.
  Joys impregnate. Sorrows bring forth.
  One thought fills immensity.
  Always be ready to speak your mind, and a base man will avoid you.
  Every thing possible to be believ'd is an image of truth.
  The eagle never lost so much time as when he submitted to learn of the crow.
  The fox provides for himself, but God provides for the lion.
  Think in the morning. Act in the noon. Eat in the evening. Sleep in the night.
  He who has suffer'd you to impose on him, knows you.
  As the plow follows words, so God rewards prayers.
  The tygers of wrath are wiser than the horses of instruction.
  Expect poison from the standing water.
  You never know what is enough unless you know what is more than enough.
  The thankful receiver bears a plentiful harvest.
  If others had not been foolish, we should be so.
  The soul of sweet delight can never be defil'd.
  When thou seest an eagle, thou seest a portion of genius; lift up thy head!
  As the air to a bird or the sea to a fish, so is contempt to the contemptible.
  The crow wish'd every thing was black, the owl that every thing was white.
  Exuberance is Beauty.
  If the lion was advised by the fox, he would be cunning.
  Improvement makes strait roads;

but the crooked roads without improvement are roads of genius.
  Truth can never be told so as to be understood, and not be believ'd.
  Enough! or too much.

= William Blake =

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Happy Tuesday

I am dumb in the pealing song

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S c e n e   F r o m   t h e   P o r c h

Columbia, South Carolina

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Mine are the night and morning,

The pits of air, the gulf of space,

The sportive sun, the gibbous moon,

The innumerable days.

I hid in the solar glory,

I am dumb in the pealing song,

I rest on the pitch of the torrent,

In slumber I am strong.

No numbers have counted my tallies,

No tribes my house can fill,

I sit by the shining Fount of Life.

And pour the deluge still;

And ever by delicate powers

Gathering along the centuries

From race on race the rarest flowers,

My wreath shall nothing miss.

And many a thousand summers

My apples ripened well,

And light from meliorating stars

With firmer glory fell.

I wrote the past in characters

Of rock and fire the scroll,

The building in the coral sea,

The planting of the coal.

And thefts from satellites and rings

And broken stars I drew,

And out of spent and aged things

I formed the world anew;

What time the gods kept carnival,

Tricked out in star and flower,

And in cramp elf and saurian forms

They swathed their too much power.

Time and Thought were my surveyors,

They laid their courses well,

They boiled the sea, and baked the layers

Of granite, marl, and shell.

But he, the man-child glorious --

Where tarries he the while?

The rainbow shines the harbinger,

The sunset gleams his smile.

My boreal lights leap upward,

Forthright my planets roll,

And still the man-child is not born,

The summit of the whole.

Must time and tide forever run?

Will never my winds go sleep in the west?

Will never my wheels which whirl the sun

And satellites have rest?

Too much of donning and doffing,

Too slow the rainbow fades,

I weary of my robe of snow,

My leaves and my cascades;

I tire of globes and races,

Too long the game is played;

What without him is summer's pomp,

Or winter's frozen shade?

I travail in pain for him,

My creatures travail and wait;

His couriers come by squadrons,

He comes not to the gate.

Twice I have moulded an image,

And thrice outstretched my hand,

Made one of day, and one of night,

And one of the salt sea-sand.

One in a Judean manger,

And one by Avon stream,

One over against the mouths of Nile,

And one in the Academe.

I moulded kings and saviours,

And bards o'er kings to rule; --

But fell the starry influence short,

The cup was never full.

Yet whirl the glowing wheels once more,

And mix the bowl again;

Seethe, fate! the ancient elements,

Heat, cold, wet, dry, and peace, and pain.

Let war and trade and creeds and song

Blend, ripen race on race,

The sunburnt world a man shall breed

Of all the zones, and countless days.

No ray is dimmed, no atom worn,

My oldest force is good as new,

And the fresh rose on yonder thorn

Gives back the bending heavens in dew.

= Ralph Waldo Emerson =

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Happy Monday

I can read his righteous sentence

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' N e a t h   t h e   B a n n e r   o f   t h e   C r o s s

Bonaventure Cemetery

Savannah, Georgia

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Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord;
He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored;
He hath loosed the fateful lightning of his terrible swift sword:
His truth is marching on.

I have seen him in the watch-fires of a hundred circling camps;
They have builded him an altar in the evening dews and damps;
I can read his righteous sentence by the dim and flaring lamps;
His day is marching on.

I have read a fiery gospel, writ in burnished rows of steel:
"As ye deal with my contemners, so with you my grace shall deal;
Let the Hero, born of woman, crush the serpent with his heel,
Since God is marching on."

He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call retreat;
He is sifting out the hearts of men before his judgment-seat;
Oh, be swift, my soul, to answer him! be jubilant, my feet!
Our God is marching on.

In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea,
With a glory in his bosom that transfigures you and me:
As he died to make men holy, let us die to make men free,
While God is marching on.

Glory, glory, hallelujah!

Glory, glory, hallelujah!

Glory, glory, hallelujah!

Our God is marching on.

= Julia Ward Howe =

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Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free,

and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage.

Galatians 5:1

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Happy Sunday