tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-208593052024-03-14T03:24:18.011-05:00The-Poetry-Placea place which holds collected poetry to stir your heart, soul, and mindStephen Heinerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16207641562001375125noreply@blogger.comBlogger21125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20859305.post-1159334100658777822008-09-27T00:13:00.000-05:002008-12-29T00:18:14.304-06:00Musée des Beaux Arts, by W.H. AudenAbout suffering they were never wrong,<br />The Old Masters: how well they understood<br />Its human position; how it takes place<br />While someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully along;<br />How when the aged are reverently, passionately waiting<br />For the miraculous birth, there always must be<br />Children who did not specially want it to happen, skating<br />On a pond at the edge of the wood:<br />They never forgot<br />That even the dreadful martyrdom must run its course<br />Anyhow in a corner, some untidy spot<br />Where the dogs go on with their doggy life and the torturer's horse<br /> Scratches its innocent behind on a tree.<br />In Brueghel's Icarus, for instance: how everything turns away<br />Quite leisurely from the disaster; the ploughman may<br />Have heard the splash, the forsaken cry,<br />But for him it was not an important failure; the sun shone<br />As it had to on the white legs disappearing into the green<br />Water; and the expensive delicate ship that must have seen<br />Something amazing, a boy falling out of the sky,<br />Had somewhere to get to and sailed calmly on.Stephen Heinerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16207641562001375125noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20859305.post-1161143538967634172006-10-18T00:51:00.000-05:002006-10-18T23:29:42.586-05:00A Valediction, forbidding Mourning, by John Donne<p><span style="font-size:100%;"><span class="varspac"><span style="font-family:Georgia, Times New Roman, Times, serif;">As virtuous men pass mildly away,<br /> And whisper to their souls to go,<br /> Whilst some of their sad friends do say<br /> The breath goes now, and some say, No;</span></span></span></p> <div align="justify"> <p><span style="font-family:Georgia, Times New Roman, Times, serif;font-size:100%;"><span class="varspac">So let us melt, and make no noise,<br /> No tear-floods, nor sigh-tempests move,<br /> ‘Twere profanation of our joys<br /> To tell the laity our love.</span></span></p> </div> <div align="justify"><span style="font-family:Georgia, Times New Roman, Times, serif;font-size:100%;"><span class="varspac">Moving of th’ earth brings harms and fears,<br /> Men reckon what it did and meant;<br /> But trepidation of the spheres,<br /> Though greater far, is innocent.</span></span></div> <div align="justify"> <p><span style="font-family:Georgia, Times New Roman, Times, serif;font-size:100%;"><span class="varspac">Dull sublunary lovers’ love<br /> (Whose soul is sense) cannot admit<br /> Absence, because it doth remove<br /> Those things which elemented it.</span></span></p> </div> <div align="justify"><span style="font-family:Georgia, Times New Roman, Times, serif;font-size:100%;"><span class="varspac">But we by’a love so much refined<br /> That our selves know not what it is,<br /> Inter-assuréd of the mind,<br /> Care less, eyes, lips, and hands to miss.</span></span></div> <div align="justify"> <p><span style="font-family:Georgia, Times New Roman, Times, serif;font-size:100%;"><span class="varspac">Our two souls therefore, which are one,<br /> Though I must go, endure not yet<br /> A breach, but an expansion,<br /> Like gold to airy thinness beat.</span></span></p> </div> <div align="justify"> <p><span style="font-family:Georgia, Times New Roman, Times, serif;font-size:100%;"><span class="varspac">If they be two, they are two so<br /> As stiff twin compasses are two;<br /> Thy soul, the fixed foot, makes no show<br /> To move, but doth, if th’ other do.</span></span></p> </div> <div align="justify"> <p><span style="font-family:Georgia, Times New Roman, Times, serif;font-size:100%;"><span class="varspac">And though it in the center sit,<br /> Yet when the other far doth roam,<br /> It leans and hearkens after it,<br /> And grows erect, as that comes home.</span></span></p> </div> <div align="justify"> <p><span style="font-family:Georgia, Times New Roman, Times, serif;font-size:100%;"><span class="varspac">Such wilt thou be to me, who must<br /> Like th’ other foot, obliquely run;<br /> Thy firmness makes my circle just,<br /> And makes me end where I begun.</span></span></p> </div>Stephen Heinerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16207641562001375125noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20859305.post-1160624100563309342006-10-12T00:31:00.000-05:002006-10-12T09:24:51.170-05:00To Autumn, by John Keats1.<br /><br />Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,<br />Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;<br />Conspiring with him how to load and bless<br />With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;<br />To bend with apples the moss’d cottage-trees,<br />And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;<br /> To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells<br />With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,<br />And still more, later flowers for the bees,<br />Until they think warm days will never cease,<br /> For Summer has o’er-brimm’d their clammy cells.<br /><br />2.<br /><br />Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?<br />Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find<br />Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,<br />Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;<br />Or on a half-reap’d furrow sound asleep,<br />Drows’d with the fume of poppies, while thy hook<br /> Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers:<br />And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep<br />Steady thy laden head across a brook;<br />Or by a cyder-press, with patient look,<br /> Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours.<br /><br />3.<br /><br />Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?<br />Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,—<br />While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,<br />And touch the stubble plains with rosy hue;<br />Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn<br />Among the river sallows, borne aloft<br /> Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;<br />And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;<br />Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft<br />The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft;<br /> And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.Stephen Heinerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16207641562001375125noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20859305.post-1155532361847714032006-08-14T02:12:00.000-05:002006-08-14T00:12:41.863-05:00Mother to Son, by Langston HughesWell, son, I'll tell you:<br />Life for me ain't been no crystal stair.<br />It's had tacks in it,<br />And splinters,<br />And boards torn up,<br />And places with no carpet on the floor—<br />Bare.<br />But all the time<br />I'se been a-climbin' on,<br />And reachin' landin's,<br />And turnin' corners,<br />And sometimes goin' in the dark<br />Where there ain't been no light.<br />So, boy, don't you turn back.<br />Don't you set down on the steps.<br />'Cause you finds it's kinder hard.<br />Don't you fall now—<br />For I'se still goin', honey,<br />I'se still climbin',<br />And life for me ain't been no crystal stair.Stephen Heinerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16207641562001375125noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20859305.post-1155179454021469522006-08-10T02:10:00.000-05:002006-08-09T22:10:54.033-05:00Out, Out - by Robert FrostThe buzz saw snarled and rattled in the yard<br /> And made dust and dropped stove-length sticks of wood,<br /> Sweet-scented stuff when the breeze drew across it.<br /> And from there those that lifted eyes could count<br /> Five mountain ranges one behind the other<br /> Under the sunset far into Vermont.<br /> And the saw snarled and rattled, snarled and rattled,<br /> As it ran light, or had to bear a load.<br /> And nothing happened: day was all but done.<br /> Call it a day, I wish they might have said<br /> To please the boy by giving him the half hour<br /> That a boy counts so much when saved from work.<br /> His sister stood beside them in her apron<br /> To tell them "Supper." At the word, the saw,<br /> As if to prove saws knew what supper meant,<br /> Leaped out at the boy's hand, or seemed to leap—<br /> He must have given the hand. However it was,<br /> Neither refused the meeting. But the hand!<br /> The boy's first outcry was a rueful laugh,<br /> As he swung toward them holding up the hand<br /> Half in appeal, but half as if to keep<br /> The life from spilling. Then the boy saw all—<br /> Since he was old enough to know, big boy<br /> Doing a man's work, though a child at heart—<br /> He saw all spoiled. "Don't let him cut my hand off—<br /> The doctor, when he comes. Don't let him, sister!"<br /> So. But the hand was gone already.<br /> The doctor put him in the dark of ether.<br /> He lay and puffed his lips out with his breath.<br /> And then—the watcher at his pulse took fright.<br /> No one believed. They listened at his heart.<br /> Little—less—nothing!—and that ended it.<br /> No more to build on there. And they, since they<br /> Were not the one dead, turned to their affairs.Stephen Heinerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16207641562001375125noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20859305.post-1155095458260540872006-08-09T02:49:00.000-05:002006-08-08T22:50:58.273-05:00God's Grandeur, by Fr. Gerard Manley HopkinsThe world is charged with the grandeur of God.<br /> It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;<br /> It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil<br />Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod?<br />Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;<br /> And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;<br /> And wears man's smudge and shares man's smell: the soil<br />Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.<br /> <br /> And for all this, nature is never spent;<br /> There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;<br />And though the last lights off the black West went<br /> Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs—<br />Because the Holy Ghost over the bent<br /> World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.Stephen Heinerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16207641562001375125noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20859305.post-1155011132086628742006-08-08T02:24:00.000-05:002006-08-07T23:25:32.096-05:00Hope is the thing with feathers, by Emily Dickinson"Hope" is the thing with feathers –<br /> That perches in the soul –<br /> And sings the tune without the words –<br /> And never stops – at all – <p> And sweetest – in the Gale – is heard –<br /> And sore must be the storm –<br /> That could abash the little Bird<br /> That kept so many warm – </p> I've heard it in the chillest land –<br /> And on the strangest Sea –<br /> Yet, never, in Extremity,<br /> It asked a crumb – of Me.Stephen Heinerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16207641562001375125noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20859305.post-1154574446227728532006-08-03T02:05:00.000-05:002006-08-02T22:07:26.236-05:00If, by Rudyard KiplingIf you can keep your head when all about you<br /> Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,<br /> If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,<br /> But make allowance for their doubting too;<br /> If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,<br /> Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,<br /> Or being hated don't give way to hating,<br /> And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:<br /><br /> If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;<br /> If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;<br /> If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster<br /> And treat those two impostors just the same;<br /> If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken<br /> Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,<br /> Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,<br /> And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:<br /><br /> If you can make one heap of all your winnings<br /> And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,<br /> And lose, and start again at your beginnings<br /> And never breathe a word about your loss;<br /> If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew<br /> To serve your turn long after they are gone,<br /> And so hold on when there is nothing in you<br /> Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"<br /><br /> If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,<br /> Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,<br /> If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,<br /> If all men count with you, but none too much;<br /> If you can fill the unforgiving minute<br /> With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,<br /> Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,<br /> And—which is more—you'll be a Man, my son!Stephen Heinerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16207641562001375125noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20859305.post-1154495753802198642006-08-02T02:14:00.000-05:002006-08-02T00:15:53.810-05:00Sonnet XXIX, by William ShakespeareWhen, in disgrace with Fortune and men's eyes,<br /> I all alone beweep my outcast state,<br /> And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries,<br /> And look upon myself and curse my fate,<br /> Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,<br /> Featured like him, like him with friends possessed,<br /> Desiring this man's art and that man's scope,<br /> With what I most enjoy contented least;<br /> Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising,<br /> Haply I think on thee, and then my state<br /> (Like to the lark at break of day arising<br /> From sullen earth) sings hymns at heaven's gate;<br /> For thy sweet love remembered such wealth brings<br /> That then I scorn to change my state with kings.Stephen Heinerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16207641562001375125noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20859305.post-1153969629041601762006-07-31T02:48:00.000-05:002006-07-31T00:40:33.630-05:00Sonnet LXXIII, by William ShakespeareThat time of year thou mayst in me behold<br />When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang<br />Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,<br />Bare ruin'd choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.<br />In me thou seest the twilight of such day<br />As after sunset fadeth in the west,<br />Which by and by black night doth take away,<br />Death's second self, that seals up all in rest.<br />In me thou see'st the glowing of such fire<br />That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,<br />As the death-bed whereon it must expire<br />Consumed with that which it was nourish'd by.<br /> This thou perceivest, which makes thy love more strong,<br /> To love that well which thou must leave ere long.Stephen Heinerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16207641562001375125noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20859305.post-1153800558983363342006-07-25T02:06:00.000-05:002006-07-24T23:09:18.993-05:00Sonnet CXVI, by William ShakespeareLet me not to the marriage of true minds<br />Admit impediments. Love is not love<br />Which alters when it alteration finds,<br />Or bends with the remover to remove:<br />Oh, no! it is an ever-fixéd mark,<br />That looks on tempests and is never shaken;<br />It is the star to every wandering bark,<br />Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.<br />Love's not time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks<br />Within his bending sickle's compass come'<br />Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,<br />But bears it out even to the edge of doom.<br /> If this be error and upon me proved,<br /> I never writ, nor no man ever loved.Stephen Heinerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16207641562001375125noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20859305.post-1153715802724268382006-07-24T02:35:00.000-05:002006-07-25T21:51:00.283-05:00Inversnaid, by Fr. Gerard Manley HopkinsThis darksome burn, horseback brown,<br />His rollrock highroad roaring down,<br />In coop and in comb the fleece of his foam<br />Flutes and low to the lake falls home.<br /><br />A windpuff-bonnet of fáwn-fróth<br />Turns and twindles over the broth<br />Of a pool so pitchblack, féll-frówning,<br />It rounds and rounds Despair to drowning.<br /><br />Degged with dew, dappled with dew<br />Are the groins of the braes that the brook treads through,<br />Wiry heathpacks, flitches of fern,<br />And the beadbonny ash that sits over the burn.<br /><br />What would the world be, once bereft<br />Of wet and of wildness? Let them be left,<br />O let them be left, wildness and wet;<br />Long live the weeds and the wilderness yet.Stephen Heinerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16207641562001375125noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20859305.post-1153456927618016342006-07-21T23:38:00.000-05:002006-07-20T23:42:07.636-05:00What Fifty Said, by Robert FrostWhen I was young my teachers were the old.<br />I gave up fire for form till I was cold.<br />I suffered like a metal being cast.<br />I went to school to age to learn the past.<br /><br />Now I am old my teachers are the young.<br />What can't be molded must be cracked and sprung.<br />I strain at lessons fit to start a suture.<br />I go to school to youth to learn the future.Stephen Heinerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16207641562001375125noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20859305.post-1153368658315832452006-07-20T02:07:00.000-05:002006-07-19T23:10:58.326-05:00Stopping by woods on a snowy evening, by Robert FrostWhose woods these are I think I know.<br /> His house is in the village, though;<br /> He will not see me stopping here<br /> To watch his woods fill up with snow.<br /><br /> My little horse must think it's queer<br /> To stop without a farmhouse near<br /> Between the woods and frozen lake<br /> The darkest evening of the year.<br /><br /> He gives his harness bells a shake<br /> To ask if there's some mistake.<br /> The only other sound's the sweep<br /> Of easy wind and downy flake.<br /><br /> The woods are lovely, dark, and deep,<br /> But I have promises to keep,<br /> And miles to go before I sleep,<br /> And miles to go before I sleep.Stephen Heinerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16207641562001375125noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20859305.post-1153284519613078642006-07-19T02:47:00.000-05:002006-07-18T23:49:07.500-05:00Birches, by Robert FrostWhen I see birches bend to left and right<br />Across the lines of straighter darker trees,<br />I like to think some boy's been swinging them.<br />But swinging doesn't bend them down to stay.<br />Ice-storms do that. Often you must have seen them<br />Loaded with ice a sunny winter morning<br />After a rain. They click upon themselves<br />As the breeze rises, and turn many-colored<br />As the stir cracks and crazes their enamel.<br />Soon the sun's warmth makes them shed crystal shells<br />Shattering and avalanching on the snow-crust--<br />Such heaps of broken glass to sweep away<br />You'd think the inner dome of heaven had fallen.<br />They are dragged to the withered bracken by the load,<br />And they seem not to break; though once they are bowed<br />So low for long, they never right themselves:<br />You may see their trunks arching in the woods<br />Years afterwards, trailing their leaves on the ground<br />Like girls on hands and knees that throw their hair<br />Before them over their heads to dry in the sun.<br />But I was going to say when Truth broke in<br />With all her matter-of-fact about the ice-storm<br />(Now am I free to be poetical?)<br />I should prefer to have some boy bend them<br />As he went out and in to fetch the cows--<br />Some boy too far from town to learn baseball,<br />Whose only play was what he found himself,<br />Summer or winter, and could play alone.<br />One by one he subdued his father's trees<br />By riding them down over and over again<br />Until he took the stiffness out of them,<br />And not one but hung limp, not one was left<br />For him to conquer. He learned all there was<br />To learn about not launching out too soon<br />And so not carrying the tree away<br />Clear to the ground. He always kept his poise<br />To the top branches, climbing carefully<br />With the same pains you use to fill a cup<br />Up to the brim, and even above the brim.<br />Then he flung outward, feet first, with a swish,<br />Kicking his way down through the air to the ground.<br />So was I once myself a swinger of birches.<br />And so I dream of going back to be.<br />It's when I'm weary of considerations,<br />And life is too much like a pathless wood<br />Where your face burns and tickles with the cobwebs<br />Broken across it, and one eye is weeping<br />From a twig's having lashed across it open.<br />I'd like to get away from earth awhile<br />And then come back to it and begin over.<br />May no fate willfully misunderstand me<br />And half grant what I wish and snatch me away<br />Not to return. Earth's the right place for love:<br />I don't know where it's likely to go better.<br />I'd like to go by climbing a birch tree,<br />And climb black branches up a snow-white trunk<br />Toward heaven, till the tree could bear no more,<br />But dipped its top and set me down again.<br />That would be good both going and coming back.<br />One could do worse than be a swinger of birches.Stephen Heinerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16207641562001375125noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20859305.post-1153197286426534662006-07-18T02:33:00.000-05:002006-07-17T23:34:46.436-05:00Neither out far nor in deep, by Robert FrostThe people along the sand<br />All turn and look one way.<br />They turn their back on the land.<br />They look at the sea all day.<br /><br />As long as it takes to pass<br />A ship keeps raising its hull;<br />The wetter ground like glass<br />Reflects a standing gull.<br /><br />The land may vary more;<br />But wherever the truth may be---<br />The water comes ashore,<br />And the people look at the sea.<br /><br />They cannot look out far.<br />They cannot look in deep.<br />But when was that ever a bar<br />To any watch they keep?Stephen Heinerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16207641562001375125noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20859305.post-1153102879714754082006-07-17T21:20:00.000-05:002006-07-16T21:21:19.723-05:00Tell all the Truth, by Emily DickinsonTell all the Truth but tell it slant---<br />Success in Circuit lies<br />Too bright for our infirm Delight<br />The Truth's superb surprise<br />As Lightening to the Children eased<br />With explanation kind<br />The Truth must dazzle gradually<br />Or every man be blind---Stephen Heinerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16207641562001375125noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20859305.post-1148804417941135602006-05-29T03:17:00.000-05:002006-05-28T03:21:23.610-05:00By the Babe Unborn, by G.K. Chesterton<p class="body14"><span style="font-style: italic;">This is truly one of my favorite poems -s.</span><span class="body14"><br /></span></p><p class="body14"><span class="body14">If trees were tall and grasses short,<br />As in some crazy tale,<br />If here and there a sea were blue<br />Beyond the breaking pale,<br /> </span></p><p class="body14"> <span class="body14">If a fixed fire hung in the air<br />To warm me one day through,<br />If deep green hair grew on great hills,<br />I know what I should do.<br /></span></p><p class="body14"><span class="body14"> In dark I lie; dreaming that there<br />Are great eyes cold or kind,<br />And twisted streets and silent doors,<br />And living men behind. </span></p><p class="body14"> <span class="body14">Let storm clouds come: better an hour,<br />And leave to weep and fight,<br />Than all the ages I have ruled<br />The empires of the night. </span></p><p class="body14"> <span class="body14">I think that if they gave me leave<br />Within the world to stand,<br />I would be good through all the day<br />I spent in fairyland.<br /></span></p><p class="body14"><span class="body14"> They should not hear a word from me<br />Of selfishness or scorn,<br />If only I could find the door,<br />If only I were born. </span></p>Stephen Heinerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16207641562001375125noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20859305.post-1143698233658488462006-03-30T02:53:00.000-06:002006-03-30T17:24:57.126-06:00The Laetare Sunday Rose blessing, translated by Mr. John DredgerConcerning the blessing of the Rose, which takes place on Laetare Sunday, and its tradition.<br /><br />At Rome the Popes have been accustomed on the Fourth Sunday of Lent, in which is sung in the Church: Laetare Jerusalem, to bless the golden Rose, and, after the solemnities of the Mass, to give it as a gift to some great leader, if one is present in the Curia. But if there is not a leader worthy of such a great offering in the Curia, it is sent outside to some king or leader as it will have pleased our most holy Lord (Pope) with the council of the sacred college. For the Holy Pontiff is accustomed either before or after the Mass to call the cardinals together for a meeting in his chamber, or wherever it pleases him, and to deliberate with them, to whom the rose should be given and sent. Therefore for its blessing next to the prepared bench, where the Pope receives his vestments, a small altar is prepared, and on it two candlesticks, and the Pope, wearing an amice, alb, cincture, stole, pluvial, and mitre, approaches this altar, and with the mitre removed, says:<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Our help is in the name of the Lord.</span><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Who has made heaven and earth.</span><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">The Lord be with you.</span><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">And with your spirit.</span><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">O God, by Whose word and power all things have been made, and by Whose will all things are directed: You Who are the joy and delight of all the faithful: humbly we beg Your majesty, that You may deign in Your holiness to bless and sanctify this rose most pleasing in odor and sight, which today we carry in our hands as a sign of spiritual joy, as the people consecrated to you and led out of the yoke of the Babylonian captivity, through the grace of Your Only begotten Son: Who is the glory and exultation of the Israelite people of that Jerusalem, which is our mother on high, may You make joy present in our sincere hearts, and because Your Church exults and rejoices today in this sign for the honor of Your name, may You, O Lord, grant it true and perfect joy, and accepting its devotion may You forgive its sins, fill it with faith, foster it with indulgence, protect it with mercy, destroy its adversities, grant all things prosperous for it: as far as it may go through the fruit of good work into the odor of the perfumes of that flower, which having been produced from the root of Jesse, is mystically called the flower of the field and the lily of the valleys: with which it may rejoice without end in celestial glory with all the saints. Who lives and reigns in the unity of the Holy Ghost God world without end. Amen.</span><br /><br />After the prayer is finished he anoints the golden rose with balsam, which is in the little branch itself, and places rubbed moss upon it, which are brought to him from the sacristy: and he puts incense in the thurible in the accustomed manner, and lastly he sprinkles the rose with holy water, and incenses it. Meanwhile the Cleric of the Apostolic Chamber holds up the rose, which he then gives into the hands of the Cardinal Deacon from the right and the Cardinal Deacon gives it into the hands of the Pope, who, carrying the rose in his left hand, and blessing with his right hand, proceeds to the chapel, while the Cardinal Deacons lift the fringe of the pluvial on the way: when he has reached the faldistorium (kneeling stool), he gives the rose to the aforesaid Deacon, who hands it to the Cleric of the chamber, and the Cleric places it on the altar.<br /><br />After the Mass is finished, the Pope having prayed before the altar, receives the rose as above, and carries it to his chamber. And if the one, to whom he wishes to give it, is present, he calls him to his feet, and gives the rose to him kneeling, while the Pope says:<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Receive from our hands, who although undeserving hold the place of God on earth, this rose, through which is signified the joy of both Jerusalems, namely the Church Triumphant and the Church Militant, through which that most beautiful flower itself, which is the joy and crown of all the saints is manifested to all the faithful of Christ, accept this, O most beloved son, who according to the age are noble, powerful, and endowed with much virtue, so that you may be made more renowned in every virtue in Christ Our Lord as the rose planted on the banks of many waters, which grace may He Who is three and one deign to grant you from His abundant clemency, forever and ever. Amen.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.</span><br /><br />This was done in the chapel sometimes after the Mass was finished, before the Pope descended from his seat; but it is more suitable that the Pope should return to his chamber with the rose, and I find it done thus by earlier popes. The one to whom the rose is given, after he kissed the hand and foot of the Pope, and thanked him as the time demanded, when the Pope took off his sacred vestment in his chamber, that one, carrying the rose in his hand, is accompanied all the way to his home by the college of Cardinals, himself between two older Deacons behind all the other Cardinals, while around him are the footsoldiers of the Roman Curia with their baculi, who are accustomed on that day to receive gifts from the one who has the rose.Stephen Heinerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16207641562001375125noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20859305.post-1137732343673092782006-01-19T22:42:00.000-06:002006-01-19T22:46:31.600-06:00The Road not Taken, by Robert FrostTwo roads diverged in a yellow wood,<br />And sorry I could not travel both<br />And be one traveler, long I stood<br />And looked down one as far as I could<br />To where it bent in the undergrowth;<br /><br />Then took the other, as just as fair,<br />And having perhaps the better claim,<br />Because it was grassy and wanted wear;<br />Though as for that, the passing there<br />Had worn them really about the same,<br /><br />And both that morning equally lay<br />In leaves no step had trodden black.<br />Oh, I kept the first for another day!<br />Yet knowing how way leads on to way,<br />I doubted if I should ever come back.<br /><br />I shall be telling this with a sigh<br />Somewhere ages and ages hence:<br />Two roads diverged in a wood, and I -<br />I took the one less traveled by,<br />And that hs made all the difference.Stephen Heinerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16207641562001375125noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20859305.post-1137570162830929462006-01-18T01:40:00.000-06:002006-01-18T01:42:42.830-06:00Pity me not because the light of day, by Edna St. Vincent MillayPity me not because the light of day<br />At close of day no longer walks the sky;<br />Pity me not for beauties passed away<br />From field and thicket as the year goes by;<br />Pity me not the waning of the moon,<br />Not that the ebbing tide goes out to sea,<br />Not that a man's desire is hushed so soon,<br />And you no longer look with love on me.<br />This have I known always: Love is no more<br />Than the wide blossom which the wind assails,<br />Than the great tide that treads the shifting shore,<br />Strewing fresh wreckage gathered in the gales:<br />Pity me that the heart is slow to learn<br />What the swift mind beholds at every turn.Stephen Heinerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16207641562001375125noreply@blogger.com0