Tag Archives: Poetry

Ring Out, Wild Bells by Alfred, Lord Tennyson

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Alfred Tennyson, 1st Baron Tennyson, by George...

Alfred Lord Tennyson/Wikipedia

This poem by Alfred, Lord  Tennyson seems very appropriate for the New Year -the Advent New Year beginning today.

Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky,
The flying cloud, the frosty light;
The year is dying in the night;
Ring out, wild bells, and let him die.

Ring out the old, ring in the new,
Ring, happy bells, across the snow:
The year is going, let him go;
Ring out the false, ring in the true.

Ring out the grief that saps the mind,
For those that here we see no more,
Ring out the feud of rich and poor,
Ring in redress to all mankind.

Ring out a slowly dying cause,
And ancient forms of party strife;
Ring in the nobler modes of life,
With sweeter manners, purer laws.

Ring out the want, the care the sin,
The faithless coldness of the times;
Ring out, ring out my mournful rhymes,
But ring the fuller minstrel in.

Ring out false pride in place and blood,
The civic slander and the spite;
Ring in the love of truth and right,
Ring in the common love of good.

Ring out old shapes of foul disease,
Ring out the narrowing lust of gold;
Ring out the thousand wars of old,
Ring in the thousand years of peace.

Ring in the valiant man and free,
The larger heart, the kindlier hand;
Ring out the darkness of the land,
Ring in the Christ that is to be.

In Praise

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Praise like cascading waters, like rushing rivers,

Praise like flying birds, and flight of eagles.

Praise like thundering herds cross vast expanse.

Praise written cross skies in clouds and drifting mists.

Praise with the quaking aspen. Praise golden and blissful.

Praise to the heavens, to the highest heavens.

Heartfelt and hallowed, on angels’ wings and from the mouths of babes.

Hush; listen in silence.
Creation, on tip toe, peering beyond Time to Eternity.

Time poised on the brink of the Eternal, awaiting Your Word.

Praise from the heart, one poor and yearning heart.

Come, O Immortal. Come!
 

By Joann Nelander



Flowers and Drunken Bees

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2

Flowers in the rain
Petals open to sustain

Life that is and is to be
Crouched in hidden expectancy

Bees by colors in delight,
Arrested, nay, beguiled, alight.

To sip and gather on furry feet
Nectar and pollen of life so sweet.

Flower to flower in drunken run
Dance the mystery now begun.

by Joann Nelander

*  “A hapless male bee, blind drunk with the flower’s overpowering pheromones, might well mistake a toadstool for a suitable mate” a tidbit from Wikipedia


Hope Enough for One Day

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Hard to know God’s will,

to do no less,

to do no more.

Hard to stay with the ordinary things of holiness,

to pray for the good,

to succor the poor,

to love our enemies.

Hard, though, is not without hope.

Reaching down, He picks us up.

Wiping our tears, He cheers us.

Seeing our holy desire, He supplies all.

Unborn and Unwanted

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1

In a universe replete with Space and Time and Bounty,

the Sign of the Times reads “No Room In The Inn.”

Conceived first in the Mind of God, and then in Mother’s womb.

There remains but little of  Time for you.

Come home to My Arms, O Little One.

Outside of  Time, in Mysterious Space,

My Angels will sing you a welcome.

Home, now, the Sonshine of Father’s Face.

William Shakespeare, a Secret Catholic in an Anti-Catholic Age?

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Joseph Pearce in his The Quest for Shakespeare argues convincingly for the Catholicism of  William Shakespeare.  Pearce builds his position with scholarship and logic like a gothic arch;  one pillar rising on biographical evidence and the other from the text of Shakespeare’s  works.

From The Merchant of Venice, when Portia speaks to Shylock,  Act IV, Scene I:

The quality of mercy is not strained.
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath.  It is twice blest:
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes.
Tis mightiest in the mightiest; it becomes
The throned monarch better than his crown.
His scepter shows the force of temporal power,
The attribute to awe and majesty,
Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings.
But mercy is above this sceptered sway;
It is enthroned in the hearts of kings;
It is an attribute of God himself;
And earthly power doth then show like God’s
When mercy seasons justice.

William Shakespeare
1600