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1907: Books and Literature

Aug21

The Nobel Prize in Literature 1907 was awarded to Rudyard Kipling “in consideration of the power of observation, originality of imagination, virility of ideas and remarkable talent for narration which characterize the creations of this world-famous author.”

I love Kipling. I’ve posted poems by Kipling: Recessional, By Oak, and Ash, and Thorn, L’envoi (When Earth’s Last Picture Is Painted). And, of course, Kipling’s Jungle Book is a lovely set of stories about Mowgli and Bagheera and Shere Khan and the other inhabitants of the Indian jungle. “If” is probably Kipling’s most famous poem:

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too:
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise;

If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;
If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim,
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same:
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss:
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: “Hold on!”

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much:
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!

The Shepherd of the Hills is a book written in 1907 by author Harold Bell Wright. The setting is the Ozark mountains of Missouri, and the book was one of those that appeared on a list of required reading for my Advanced Reading Survey class in college. It’s fairly old-fashioned and sentimental, but not a bad read.

Songs of a Sourdough is a book of poetry published in 1907 by Canadian poet Robert W. Service. Two particularly popular ballads in the collection are “The Shooting of Dan McGrew” and “The Cremation of Sam McGee.” (Click on the title to either poem to read or listen to the story.)

Poem #40: Mother, I Cannot Mind My Wheel by Walter Savage Landor, 1829

Jun2

Linked to Poetry Friday at The Writer’s Armchair.

Mother, I cannot mind my wheel;
My fingers ache, my lips are dry:
O, if you felt the pain I feel!
But O, who ever felt as I?

No longer could I doubt him true –
All other men may use deceit;
He always said my eyes were blue,
And often swore my lips were sweet.

OK, commenters and poets, ‘splain.

God’s Trombones by James Weldon Johnson

Apr8

40 Inspirational Classics for Lent

These poems, based on the preaching style of the traditional Black preacher, contain some of the finest images of Biblical truth and of Scriptural exposition that I have read. I posted here a You-tube video of pastor Wintley Phipps performing Johnson’s poem, “Go Down, Death.” Here’s another poem from God’s Trombones, “The Creation”:

But this poem, The Prodigal Son, is my favorite one from the collection. “Young man, your arm’s too short to box with God.” Oh, it is, and thank God that it is and that we can learn to “be still and know that He is God” and that we are not.

Poetry of Christina Rossetti

Apr1

40 Inspirational Classics for Lent

I’ve posted several poems by Ms. Rossetti in the course of writing this blog—because I like her deceptively simple poetry.

In the Bleak Midwinter, lyrics by Christina Rossetti.
Summer by Christina Rossetti.
Love Came Down at Christmas, another Christmas carol by Christina Rossetti.
An End by Christina Rossetti: “Love, strong as Death, is dead.”
Beneath Thy Cross by Christina Rossetti.
A Better Resurrection by Christina Rossetti.
A Birthday by Christina Rossetti: “My heart is like a singing bird.”

And here’s yet another, entitled Up-hill:

Does the road wind up-hill all the way?
  Yes, to the very end.
Will the day’s journey take the whole long day?
  From morn to night, my friend.

But is there for the night a resting-place?
  A roof for when the slow dark hours begin.
May not the darkness hide it from my face?
  You cannot miss that inn.

Shall I meet other wayfarers at night?
  Those who have gone before.
Then must I knock or call when just in sight?
  They will not keep you standing at that door.

Shall I find comfort, travel-sore and weak?
  Of labour you shall find the sum.
Will there be beds for me and all who seek?
  Yes, beds for all who come.

Poems for Fools

Apr1

Happy April Fools’ Day! Have you been fooled yet? Or fooled anyone? What’s the best April Fools’ joke you ever witnessed or experienced?

Today is also the first day of National Poetry Month, a celebration that I enforce upon the poor hapless souls here at Semicolon family every year, whether they like it or not. I choose to believe that secretly they do, like it, that is.

I like poetry. Not all poetry, but lots of poetry. My younger children like poetry, too. They memorize poetry. We had a Poet-Tea a couple of weeks ago where we read poems out loud, and drank tea, and a lovely time was had by all. (Betsy-Bee had the idea of the Poet-Tea, and she and Z-baby planned and catered it all.)

My older children (teens and up) also love poetry, but they don’t know it. Shhh, don’t tell them, but the song lyrics they recite and sing and post on their Facebook pages are all poetry. Some of the lyrics are good poetry, poetry that will last, and some are not so immortal, but they’re poetry, nevertheless.

So, to start this poetry month off with a bang and a whistle, here are a few links to Poetry for Fools:

Ogden Nash. One of my favorites, Mr. Nash had a gift for making the ordinary things of life fun and joy-filled.
Shel Silverstein. Mr. Silverstein’s website for kids is filled with poetry , but also lots of teaching helps, printables, poetry starters, and other foolish and fancy foibles and follies.
Edward Lear and A Blog of Bosh.

Poetry Friday: Poetry and Sermons of John Donne

Mar25

“Despair is the damp of hell, as joy is the serenity of heaven.”
~John Donne

40 Inspirational Classics for Lent

I’ve written several times here at Semicolon about the seventeenth century poet and Anglican priest, John Donne:

A Valediction Forbidding Mourning by John Donne, 1611
Holy Sonnet X (Death Be Not Proud) by John Donne
The Sunne Rising by John Donne
Song (Go and Catch a Falling Star) by John Donne
Hymn to God, My God, in my Sickness by John Donne
The End of the Alphabet, Wit and John Donne

I strongly suggest both the poetry and the sermons of Mr. Donne for your Lenten edification.

From A Lent Sermon preached at White-hall, February 20, 1629 on Matthew 6:21, For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also:

The words admit well that inversion, “Where your Treasure is, there will your heart be also,” implies this; Where your Heart is, That is your Treasure.

Do all in the Fear of God: In all warlike preparations, remember the Lord of Hosts, and fear Him; In all treaties of peace, remember the Prince of Peace, and fear Him; In all Consultations, remember the Angle of the Great Council, and fear Him: fear God as much at Noon, as at Midnight; as much in the Glory and Splendor of his Sun-shine, as in his darkest Eclipses,: fear God as much in thy Prosperity, as in thine Adversity; as much in thy Preferment, as in thy Disgrace.

(Heaven) Where all tears shall be wiped from mine eyes; not onely tears of Compunction for my self, and tears of Compassion for others; but even tears of Joy, too: for there shall be no sudden Joy, no Joy unexperienced there. There I shall have all joys, altogether, always. There Abraham shall not be gladder of his own salvation, then of mine; nor I surer of the Everlastingness of my God, then of my Everlastingness in Him. This is that Treasure.

Poetry Friday: Poetry of Gerard Manley Hopkins

Mar18

40 Inspirational Classics for Lent

Mr. Hopkins and I share a birthday, and I’ve posted poems by him before:
At the Wedding March
Pied Beauty

And here’s another:

Easter Communion

Pure fasted faces draw unto this feast:
God comes all sweetness to your Lenten lips.
You striped in secret with breath-taking whips,
Those crooked rough-scored chequers may be pieced
To crosses meant for Jesu’s; you whom the East
With draught of thin and pursuant cold so nips
Breathe Easter now; you serged fellowships,
You vigil-keepers with low flames decreased,

God shall o’er-brim the measures you have spent
With oil of gladness, for sackcloth and frieze
And the ever-fretting shirt of punishment
Give myrrhy-threaded golden folds of ease.
Your scarce-sheathed bones are weary of being bent:
Lo, God shall strengthen all the feeble knees.

Hopkins’ poetry is somewhat difficult to read and understand because he uses words in odd ways and plays with syntax and sentence structure until it’s almost unrecognizable. However, his poems are worth the effort. Read them aloud. Play with the poems as Hopkins plays with your understanding. You might come away inspired.

The poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins.

Poetry Friday: Poetry of George Herbert

Mar11

40 Inspirational Classics for Lent

LOVE. (II)

IMMORTALL Heat, O let thy greater flame
Attract the lesser to it : let those fires
Which shall consume the world, first make it tame,
And kindle in our hearts such true desires,

As may consume our lusts, and make thee way.
Then shall our hearts pant thee ; then shall our brain
All her invention on thine Altar lay,
And there in hymnes send back thy fire again :

Our eies shall see thee, which before saw dust ;
Dust blown by wit, till that they both were blinde :
Thou shalt recover all thy goods in kinde,
Who wert disseized by usurping lust :

All knees shall bow to thee ; all wits shall rise,
And praise him who did make and mend our eies.

I’ve posted poems by George Herbert, the seventeenth century Christian poet, on this blog numerous times. If one were to spend Lent and Eastertide just reading through the poems of Mr. Herbert, one a day, it would be devotional enough to last you through the season and to bring you to an awareness of poetry of faith.

Here are some of the posts from Semicolon about George Herbert’s poetry:
Love Bade Me Welcome
The Pulley
Christmas
The Dawning
The Sonne
A Wreath
Easter Wings

Other Links:
More poetry by George Herbert.
The God of Love My Shepherd Is by George Herbert at Rebecca Writes.

Pied Beauty by Gerard Manley Hopkins

Mar4

Pied Beauty
by Gerard Manley Hopkins

Glory be to God for dappled things—
  For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;
    For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;
Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches’ wings;
  Landscape plotted and pieced— fold, fallow, and plough;
    And áll trádes, their gear and tackle and trim.

All things counter, original, spare, strange;
  Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)
    With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;
He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:
        Praise him.

Megan at Homeschooling on the Run: “Here is my all-time favorite GMH poem – it smacks of glorious springtime, and happy abandon in the warming climes of creation.”
Kelly Fineman at Writing and Ruminating: “What I like about the second stanza is its ambiguity: is Manley telling all those things that are freckled, fickle, etc. to praise God, or is he praising God for having made them? The stanza reads well both ways, and I rather think that was on purpose.” (Kelly has a good discussion of the poem. You should read it if you’re interested in poetry in general or in Mr. Hopkins in particular.

Poetry Friday: I Remember, I Remember by Thomas Hood, 1837

Feb11

I remember, I remember
The house where I was born,
The little window where the sun
Came peeping in at morn;
He never came a wink too soon
Nor brought too long a day;
But now, I often wish the night
Had borne my breath away.

I remember, I remember
The roses red and white,
The violets and the lily cups–
Those flowers made of light!
The lilacs where the robin built,
And where my brother set
The laburnum on his birthday,–
The tree is living yet!

I remember, I remember
Where I was used to swing,
And thought the air must rush as fresh
To swallows on the wing;
My spirit flew in feathers then
That is so heavy now,
The summer pools could hardly cool
The fever on my brow.

I remember, I remember
The fir-trees dark and high;
I used to think their slender tops
Were close against the sky:
It was a childish ignorance,
But now ’tis little joy
To know I’m farther off from Heaven
Than when I was a boy.

Sad poem with a kind of Thomas Hardy/A.E. Houseman feel to it. According to Wikipedia, Hood was a humorist and a poet. He liked puns and wordplay. He certainly wasn’t feeling very humorous when he wrote I Remember, but it does have an almost pleasant sort of melancholy feel to it.

Hood was friends with Victorian novelist William Makepeace Thackeray who said of Hood: “Oh sad, marvelous picture of courage, of honesty, of patient endurance, of duty struggling against pain! … Here is one at least without guile, without pretension, without scheming, of a pure life, to his family and little modest circle of friends tenderly devoted.”
Nice epitaph.