Spring Arrives

             

For, see, the Winter is past:

Its rain is over and gone away.

The flowers appear in the land;

The time of singing has arrived,

And the voice of the turtledove 

               is heard in our land.

The fig tree gives out her green figs,

And the vines, the tender grapes,

Give a good smell.

--Song of Solomon 2: 11-13a  

   (translated c.m.b., 2024)

The Months

 
January brings the snow,

Makes our feet and fingers glow.

February brings the rain*,

Thaws the frozen lake again.

March brings breezes large and shrill,

Stirs the dancing daffodil.

April brings the primrose sweet,

Scatters daisies at our feet.

May brings flocks of pretty lambs,

Skipping by their fleecy damns.

June brings tulips, lilies, roses,

Fills the children's hands with posies.

Hot July brings cooling showers,

Apricots and gillyflowers**.

August brings the sheaves of corn***,

Then the harvest home is borne.

Warm September brings the fruit,

Sportsmen then begin to shoot.

Fresh October brings the pheasants,

Then to gather nuts is pleasant.

Dull November brings the blast,

Then the leaves are whirling fast.

Chill December brings the sleet*,

Blazing fire and Christmas treat. 

     ---Sara Coleridge (1802-1852)

     English writer Sara Coleridge is most known as the only daughter of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and an editor of his work, particularly after her father and her husband died.  However, she was an author and translator in her own right.

     In the 21st century, a discovery of over 100 of her unpublished poems was made.  A lecturer at University College, London, Dr. Swaab, discovered them in the Coleridge manuscripts and published them in 2007.

*Many places in the northern hemisphere will still snow in December & February. The British Isles, being smallish and surrounded by water, do not always have the conditions for snow.

**Gillyflowers:  most often, another term for "carnations", though the term may be applied to other flowers,

***Corn: old-school, Old World, meant "wheat" (whereas New World "corn" was called some variant of "maize.")

****Though this poem is not overtly religious, Sara was.  She opposed the Oxford Movement (Tractarian Movement), in the 1840s.  The movement led to an Anglican Church that was more "high church" or more similar to Roman Catholicism, as opposed to other protestant ideas present in England.  [Gerard Manly Hopkins, whose work is featured elsewhere in this blog, did approve of the Tractarian Movement.  Eventually he went so far as to formally become Roman Catholic.]

Consider*

Consider 

The lilies of the field whose bloom is brief:--

We are as they;

Like them we fade away,

As doth a leaf.

Consider 

The sparrows of the air of small account:

Our God doth view

Whether they fall or mount**--

He guards us, too.

Consider 

The lilies that do neither toil nor spin,

Yet are most fair:--

What profits all this care

And all this coil***?

Consider 

The birds that have no barns nor harvest-weeks;

God gives them food:--

Much more our Father seeks

To do us good.   --Christina Rossetti, 1866  

*"consider the lilies and the birds [ravens]"; Luke 12:22-31, Matthew 6:25-33

**mount the wing, take flight

***mortal coil: this fleshly, physical life

Bird in Lilies Tug Hill Tomorrow Land Trust

An Easter Carol

               

                Spring bursts to-day,
For Christ is risen and all the earth's at play.

                Flash forth, thou Sun,
The rain is over and gone, its work is done.

                Winter is past,
Sweet Spring is come at last, is come at last.

                Bud, Fig and Vine,
Bud, Olive, fat with fruit and oil and wine*.

                Break forth this morn
In roses, thou but yesterday a Thorn**.

                Uplift thy head,
O pure white Lily through the Winter dead.

                Beside your dams
Leap and rejoice, you merry-making Lambs.

                All Herds and Flocks
Rejoice, all Beasts of thickets and of rocks.

                Sing, Creatures, sing,
Angels and Men and Birds and everything.

                All notes of Doves
Fill all our world: this is the time of loves.    

                                                  -Christina G. Rossetti (1830-1894)

  

*Habakkuk chapter 3
**Compares the flowerless rose, all thorns "just yesterday", to the contrast between Good Friday, when the Lord died, to the blossom of His resurrection on Easter.

To a Beautiful Child*

 

...thy book

Is cliff, and wood, and foaming waterfall;

Thy playmates-- the wild sheep and birds that call

Hoarse to the storm; -- thy sport is with the storm

To wrestle; -- and thy piety to stand

Musing on things create, and their Creator's hand.

 --Manley Hopkins (father of poet Gerard Manley Hopkins, S.J.), c. 1875

Valentine's Day is for more than "couples' love."  In fact, the legends of the original Saints Valentine (there were up to three men possibly) were about sacrificial, spiritual love. This is a good time to reflect on other types of love.

Autumn Violets

 

Keep love for youth, and violets for the spring:
Or if these bloom when worn-out autumn grieves,
Let them lie hid in double shade of leaves,
Their own, and others dropped down withering;
For violets suit when home birds build and sing,
Not when the outbound bird a passage cleaves;
Not with dry stubble of mown harvest sheaves,
But when the green world buds to blossoming.
Keep violets for the spring, and love for youth,
Love that should dwell with beauty, mirth, and hope:
Or if a later sadder love be born,
Let this not look for grace beyond its scope,
But give itself, nor plead for answering truth—
A grateful Ruth tho' gleaning scanty corn*. 

  --Christina Rosetti; Macmillan's Magazine; NOV, 1868 

*Book of Ruth.  Landowners were required not to glean (gather grain crops) overly zealously; they were supposed to leave something behind for the poor.  Ruth, who moved from her home in Moab to Israel with her Israelite mother-in-law Naomi (after both were widowed), gleaned to support both of them.  The landowner eventually fell in love with her and married her; she became an ancestress of Christ.

Birds' Nests

 

"Temptations, of course, cannot be avoided.  But because we cannot keep birds from flying over our heads, there is no need that we should let them build a nest in our hair."  -- Martin Luther's Large Catechism,  "Explanation of the Sixth Petition" ("Lead us not into temptation.")

Easter Week

 

See the land, her Easter keeping,
Rises as her Maker rose.
Seeds, so long in darkness sleeping,
Burst at last from winter snows.
Earth with heaven above rejoices;
Fields and gardens hail the spring;
Shaughs* and woodlands ring with voices,
While the wild birds build and sing.

You, to whom your Maker granted
Powers to those sweet birds unknown,
Use the craft by God implanted;
Use the reason not your own.
Here, while heaven and earth rejoices,
Each his Easter tribute bring-
Work of fingers, chant of voices,
Like the birds who build and sing.

--Charles Kingsley (1819-1875)

*archaic term for small woods, thicket

Lilies on My Table

 Flowers I bought to off-set the wicked heat and drought outdoors. Set on our bird themed tablecloth, a gift to ourselves for our last anniversary.  They opened over a couple of days, just as the store promised.

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[Joy & Peace in Believing]

(from the Olney hymns)

Sometimes a light surprises
     The Christian while he sings;
It is the Lord who rises
     With healing on His wings;*
When comforts are declining,
     He grants the soul again
A season of clear shining,
     To cheer it after rain.

In holy contemplation
     We sweetly then pursue
The theme of God's salvation,
     And find it ever new;
Set free from present sorrow,
     We cheerfully can say,
E'en let the unknown to-morrow
     Bring with it what it may!

It can bring with it nothing,
     But He will bear us through;
Who gives the lilies clothing,**
     Will clothe His people too;
Beneath the spreading heavens
     No creature but is fed;
And He who feeds the ravens
     Will give His children bread.

Though vine nor fig tree neither***
     Their wonted fruit shall bear,
Though all the field should wither,
     Nor flocks nor herds be there:
Yet God the same abiding,
     His praise shall tune my voice;
For, while in Him confiding,
     I cannot but rejoice.

--William Cowper [pronounced "Cooper"], 1779; part of Olney 

hymns, written alongside his friend, John Newton, author of 

"Amazing Grace" 

*Malchi 4:2--  the Sun of Righteousness [Christ] will rise with 

healing  in His wings. This idea is also found in a verse of "Hark 

the Herald Angels Sing"

**Matthew 6 & Luke 12--  Jesus told His followers that God

clothes the grasses in beautiful lilies that outshine wealthy King 

Solomon's best clothing.  He feeds the birds, specifically ravens, 

though they don't work and plan as the farmer does.  Jesus tells His 

followers that His Father will certainly take care of them, also, and 

that they shouldn't worry. 

***Habakkuk 3:17-19, a paraphrase.  If all else goes badly, rejoice. 

This is not idle, wishful thinking, nor pie in the sky optimism.  

Cowper suffered from crippling, pitch black depression at a time

before there were psychiatric medications. 

(Habakkuk is one of my favorite books of the Bible.) 

Nature is Never Spent (*)

"For all this, nature is never spent."*
As unto urban wastelands sent
Was this poetic English gent
Ourselves are now to parched lands lent,
Absorbing well what Hopkins meant.

I see no British Isles lush~
I look on desert city rush~
Adapting as that orange-breast thrush**
I find my own internal hush.  

"There lives the dearest freshness deep-down things,"*
As I admire our flowerings
And still the robin gamely sings.**

"For all this, nature is never spent."
On earth, this comes as form of rent
Until we dwell in Christ's new tent.***
--C. Marie Byars, 2020 (c) 
[during covid and unrest times, but not in direct response] 

*From Gerard Manley Hopkins', SJ, 1877 poem
God's Grandeur

**A robin is a type of thrush. Its wide range suggests it's adaptable.

***Tent/tabernacle/dwelling.  The Old Testament Tabernacle was a durable, highly ornate tent with a special purpose for worship. There, God's visible presence on earth could be found.  In John 1: 14, "The Word [Christ] became flesh and 'tabernacled' among us."  The Greek word for 'dwelling' means more literally 'tented.'

In May

The time that hints the coming leaf, 
 When buds are dropping chaff and scale,  
And, wafted from the greening vale,
Are pungent odors, keen as grief.

Now shad-bush wears a robe of white,  
And orchards hint a leafy screen; 
 While willows drop their veils of green
Above the limpid waters bright.

New songsters come with every morn, 
 And whippoorwill is overdue, 
 While spice bush gold is coined anew
Before her tardy leaves are born.

The cowslip now with radiant face  
Makes mimic sunshine in the shade, 
 Anemone is not afraid,
Although she trembles in her place.

Now adder's-tongue new gilds the mould*,
The ferns unroll their woolly coils,  
And honey-bee begins her toils
Where maple trees their fringe unfold.

The goldfinch dons his summer coat,  
The wild bee drones her mellow bass, 
 And butterflies of hardy race
In genial sunshine bask and float.

The Artist now is sketching in 
 The outlines of his broad design  
So soon to deepen line on line,
Till June and summer days begin.

Now Shadow soon will pitch her tent
Beneath the trees in grove and field,
And all the wounds of life be healed,
By orchard bloom and lilac scent.

--John Burroughs, 1837-1921

*"Mold" in British English.  Flowers are now adorning the ground, where before moldy leaf remnants lay

Fountain of Life

These pictures are from Fossil Creek in Northern Arizona.  The waterfall and pool make me think of "Cauldron Pool" in The Last Battle, Book 7 of "The Chronicles of Narnia."

---

from Psalm 36

Your love, O Yahweh, reaches to the heavens,
Your faithfulness to the clouds.
Your righteousness is like the mountains of God,
Your judgements are like the great deep.
You, O Yahweh, preserve both people and animals.
How priceless is your unfailing love, O God!
Humanity's children take refuge in the shadow of Your wings...
You give them drink from Your river of delights.
For with You is the fountain of life;
    in Your light we see light.

Oh, continue Your love to those who know You,
Your righteousness to the upright in heart.

(BTW, here is a picture of an interesting rock type I've never seen before:  thin sheets of granite "frozen" in lava!  All over the place at Fossil Creek, but no one who'd visited ever told me about this.)