Sea Fever

I must go down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky,
And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by;
And the wheel’s kick and the wind’s song and the white sail’s shaking,
And a grey mist on the sea’s face, and a grey dawn breaking.

I must go down to the seas again, for the call of the running tide
Is a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied;
      And all I ask is a windy day with the white clouds flying,
And the flung spray and the blown spume, and the sea-gulls crying.

I must go down to the seas again, to the vagrant gypsy life,
To the gull’s way and the whale’s way where the wind’s like a whetted knife;
And all I ask is a merry yarn from a laughing fellow-rover,
And quiet sleep and a sweet dream when the long trick’s over.

--John Masefield (1878-1967), English poet and poet laureate

The Rainbow

MY heart leaps up when I behold
A rainbow in the sky:
So was it when my life began;
So is it now I am a man;
So be it when I shall grow old,
     Or let me die!
The Child is father of the Man;
I could wish my days to be
Bound each to each by natural piety.

--William Wordsworth (1770-1850)

Especially when the October wind

Especially when the October wind
With frosty fingers punishes my hair,
Caught by the crabbing sun I walk on fire
And cast a shadow crab upon the land,
By the sea’s side, hearing the noise of birds,
Hearing the raven cough in winter sticks,
My busy heart who shudders as she talks
Sheds the syllabic blood and drains her words.

Shut, too, in a tower of words, I mark
On the horizon walking like the trees
The wordy shapes of women, and the rows
Of the star-gestured children in the park.
Some let me make you of the vowelled beeches,
Some of the oaken voices, from the roots
Of many a thorny shire tell you notes,
Some let me make you of the water’s speeches.

Behind a pot of ferns the wagging clock
Tells me the hour’s word, the neural meaning
Flies on the shafted disk, declaims the morning
And tells the windy weather in the cock.
Some let me make you of the meadow’s signs;
The signal grass that tells me all I know
Breaks with the wormy winter through the eye.
Some let me tell you of the raven’s sins.

Especially when the October wind
(Some let me make you of autumnal spells,
The spider-tongued, and the loud hill of Wales)
With fists of turnips punishes the land,
Some let me make you of the heartless words.
The heart is drained that, spelling in the scurry
Of chemic blood, warned of the coming fury.
By the sea’s side hear the dark-vowelled birds.

--Dylan Thomas (1914-1953), from 18 Poems, 1934

Traditional Prayer to St. Brigid

Saint Brigid.
You were a woman of peace.
You brought harmony where there was conflict.
You brought light to the darkness.
You brought hope to the downcast.
May the mantle of your peace cover those
who are troubled and anxious,
and may peace be firmly rooted in our hearts
and in our world.
Inspire us to act justly
and to reverence all God has made.
Brigid, you were a voice for the wounded and the weary.
Strengthen what is weak within us.
Calm us into a quietness that heals and listens.
May we grow each day into greater wholeness
in mind, body and spirit.
Amen.

--from the Order of St. Brigid

My Thankful Heart with Glorying Tongue

My thankfull heart with glorying Tongue
Shall celebrate Thy name,
Who hath restor’d, redeem’d, recur’d
From sickness, death, and Pain.

I cry’d thou seem’st to make some stay,
I sought more earnestly;
And in due time thou succour’st me
And sent’st me help from High.

Lord, whilst my fleeting time shall last,
Thy Goodness let me Tell.
And new Experience I have gain’d,
My future Doubts repell.

An humble, faitefull life, O Lord,
For ever let me walk;
Let my obedience testefye,
My Praise lies not in Talk.

Accept, O Lord, my simple mite,
For more I cannot give;
What Thou bestow’st I shall restore,
For of thine Alms I live.

--Anne Bradstreet (1612-1672), early colonial Puritan poet, 1661

A rainbow on the floor of La Sagrada Familia in Barcelona.

Heschel on Prayer

Our goal should be to live life in radical amazement... get up in  the morning and look at the world in a way that takes nothing for granted. Everything is phenomenal; everything is incredible; never treat life casually. To be spiritual is to be amazed.

― Abraham Joshua Heschel (1907-1972)

The primary purpose of prayer is not to make requests. The primary purpose is to praise, to sing, to chant. Because the essence of prayer is a song, and man cannot live without a song. Prayer may not save us. But prayer may make us worthy of being saved.”

― Abraham Joshua Heschel (1907-1972), from Moral Grandeur and Spiritual Audacity: Essays

Sabbath Bells

Oh holy Sabbath bells,
Ye have a pleasant voice!
Through all the land your music swells,
And man with one commandment tells
To rest and to rejoice.

As birds rejoice to flee
From dark and stormy skies
To brighter lands beyond the sea
Where skies are calm, and wings are free
To wander and to rise;

As thirsty travellers sing,
Through desert paths that pass,
To hear the welcome waters spring,
And see, beyond the spray they fling
Tall trees and waving grass;

So we rejoice to know
Your melody begun;
For when our paths are parched below
Ye tell us where green pastures glow
And living waters run.

--George MacDonald (1824-1905), Scottish poet, Celtic scholar, and minister, 1840


Photo: the big bell at Christ Church Cathedral, St. Louis, originally made for the 1904 World's Fair.

In the Valley of Death

With arms outstretched on the hill

An American chestnut tree stands resureected.

Silently she draws new life from an old, dead stump

Where her ancestors died with blighted roots a hundred years ago.

She bears witness to the graves lying stoneless in her valley.

The sunken earth is the only marker

For brothers and sisters enslaved, laid too shallow.

The woodland cemetery is adorned with vine wreathes

Among pawpaws and May apples that keep wake.

People lay down and wept here in the shadow of death.

The rising Chestnut holds this broken history in her belly.

On this sacred ground an owl flies at half-mast and calls out,

"We cannot kill what God calls very good."

Nothing is forsaken since love seeps through

Shallow graves and dead stumps.

We weep for blights and injustices,

But even if we hung up our lyre,

The bluebirds and yellowbellied sapsuckers

Sing for the weary, "There is love after death."

-- The Rev. Becca Stevens, from Love Heals (p. 98), 2017

Confession of Sin from A New Zealand Prayer Book

Happy are those whose sins are forgiven,
whose wrongs are pardoned.
I will confess my sins to the Lord,
I will not conceal my wrongdoings.

Silence

God forgives and heals us.
We need your healing, merciful God:
give us true repentance.
Some sins are plain to us;
some escape us,
some we cannot face.
Forgive us;
set us free to hear your word to us;
set us free to serve you.

The presiding priest says

God forgives you.
Forgive others;
Forgive yourself.

Silence

Through Christ, God has put away your sin:
approach your God in peace.


--From" Eucharistic Liturgy of Thanksgiving for Creation and Redemption," in He Karakia Mihinare o Aoteoroa: A New Zealand Prayer Book

Wind in the Pine

Oh, I can hear you, God, above the cry
     Of the tossing trees—
Rolling your windy tides across the sky,
     And splashing your silver seas
     Over the pine,
     To the water-line
     Of the moon.
          Oh, I can hear you, God,
     Above the wail of the lonely loon—
     When the pine-tops pitch and nod—
          Chanting your melodies
     Of ghostly waterfalls and avalanches,
Washing your wind among the branches
     To make them pure and white.
Wash over me, God, with your piney breeze,
And your moon’s wet-silver pool;
Wash over me, God, with your wind and night,
     And leave me clean and cool.

--Lew Sarett (1888-1954) American poet and professor