"The Shepherds Calendar - November" by John Clare

 

Late November snow, 2018

The landscape sleeps in mist from morn till noon;
And, if the sun looks through, 'tis with a face
Beamless and pale and round, as if the moon,
When done the journey of her nightly race,
Had found him sleeping, and supplied his place.
For days the shepherds in the fields may be,
Nor mark a patch of sky - blindfold they trace,
The plains, that seem without a bush or tree,
Whistling aloud by guess, to flocks they cannot see.

The timid hare seems half its fears to lose,
Crouching and sleeping 'neath its grassy lair,
And scarcely startles, tho' the shepherd goes
Close by its home, and dogs are barking there;
The wild colt only turns around to stare
At passer by, then knaps his hide again;
And moody crows beside the road forbear
To fly, tho' pelted by the passing swain;
Thus day seems turn'd to night, and tries to wake in vain.

The owlet leaves her hiding-place at noon,
And flaps her grey wings in the doubling light;
The hoarse jay screams to see her out so soon,
And small birds chirp and startle with affright;
Much doth it scare the superstitious wight,
Who dreams of sorry luck, and sore dismay;
While cow-boys think the day a dream of night,
And oft grow fearful on their lonely way,
Fancying that ghosts may wake, and leave their graves by day.

Yet but awhile the slumbering weather flings
Its murky prison round - then winds wake loud;
With sudden stir the startled forest sings
Winter's returning song - cloud races cloud,
And the horizon throws away its shroud,
Sweeping a stretching circle from the eye;
Storms upon storms in quick succession crowd,
And o'er the sameness of the purple sky
Heaven paints, with hurried hand, wild hues of every dye.

At length it comes along the forest oaks,
With sobbing ebbs, and uproar gathering high;
The scared, hoarse raven on its cradle croaks,
And stockdove-flocks in hurried terrors fly,
While the blue hawk hangs o'er them in the sky.-
The hedger hastens from the storm begun,
To seek a shelter that may keep him dry;
And foresters low bent, the wind to shun,
Scarce hear amid the strife the poacher's muttering gun.

The ploughman hears its humming rage begin,
And hies for shelter from his naked toil;
Buttoning his doublet closer to his chin,
He bends and scampers o'er the elting soil,
While clouds above him in wild fury boil,
And winds drive heavily the beating rain;
He turns his back to catch his breath awhile,
Then ekes his speed and faces it again,
To seek the shepherd's hut beside the rushy plain.

The boy, that scareth from the spiry wheat
The melancholy crow - in hurry weaves,
Beneath an ivied tree, his sheltering seat,
Of rushy flags and sedges tied in sheaves,
Or from the field a shock of stubble thieves.
There he doth dithering sit, and entertain
His eyes with marking the storm-driven leaves;
Oft spying nests where he spring eggs had ta'en,
And wishing in his heart 'twas summer-time again.

Thus wears the month along, in checker'd moods,
Sunshine and shadows, tempests loud, and calms;
One hour dies silent o'er the sleepy woods,
The next wakes loud with unexpected storms;
A dreary nakedness the field deforms -
Yet many a rural sound, and rural sight,
Lives in the village still about the farms,
Where toil's rude uproar hums from morn till night
Noises, in which the ears of Industry delight.

At length the stir of rural labour's still,
And Industry her care awhile forgoes;
When Winter comes in earnest to fulfil
His yearly task, at bleak November's close,
And stops the plough, and hides the field in snows;
When frost locks up the stream in chill delay,
And mellows on the hedge the jetty sloes,
For little birds - then Toil hath time for play,
And nought but threshers' flails awake the dreary day.

"Story’s End" by Kathleen Raine

 

O, I would tell soul’s story to the end,
Psyche on bruised feet walking the hard ways,
The knives, the mountain of ice,
Seeking her beloved through all the world,
Remembering – until at last she knows
Only that long ago she set out to find –
But whom or in what place
No longer has a name.
So through life’s long years she stumbles on
From habit enduring all. Clouds
Disintegrate in sky’s emptiness.
She who once loved remembers only that once she loved:
Is it I who wrote this?

"The Moon and the Yew Tree" by Sylvia Plath

 

This is the light of the mind, cold and planetary
The trees of the mind are black. The light is blue.
The grasses unload their griefs on my feet as if I were God
Prickling my ankles and murmuring of their humility
Fumy, spiritous mists inhabit this place.
Separated from my house by a row of headstones.
I simply cannot see where there is to get to.

The moon is no door. It is a face in its own right,
White as a knuckle and terribly upset.
It drags the sea after it like a dark crime; it is quiet
With the O-gape of complete despair. I live here.
Twice on Sunday, the bells startle the sky —
Eight great tongues affirming the Resurrection
At the end, they soberly bong out their names.

The yew tree points up, it has a Gothic shape.
The eyes lift after it and find the moon.
The moon is my mother. She is not sweet like Mary.
Her blue garments unloose small bats and owls.
How I would like to believe in tenderness –
The face of the effigy, gentled by candles,
Bending, on me in particular, its mild eyes.

I have fallen a long way. Clouds are flowering
Blue and mystical over the face of the stars
Inside the church, the saints will all be blue,
Floating on their delicate feet over the cold pews,
Their hands and faces stiff with holiness.
The moon sees nothing of this. She is bald and wild.
And the message of the yew tree is blackness – blackness and silence.

"December" by John Clare

 

While snow the window-panes bedim,
The fire curls up a sunny charm,
Where, creaming o'er the pitcher's rim,
The flowering ale is set to warm;
Mirth, full of joy as summer bees,
Sits there, its pleasures to impart,
And children, 'tween their parent's knees,
Sing scraps of carols o'er by heart.

And some, to view the winter weathers,
Climb up the window-seat with glee,
Likening the snow to falling feathers,
In fancy infant ecstasy;
Laughing, with superstitious love,
O'er visions wild that youth supplies,
Of people pulling geese above,
And keeping Christmas in the skies.

As tho' the homestead trees were drest,
In lieu of snow, with dancing leaves,
As tho' the sun-dried martin's nest,
Instead of ickles, hung the eaves,
The children hail the happy day -
As if the snow were April's grass,
And pleas'd, as 'neath the warmth of May,
Sport o'er the water froze as glass.

"the nation is divided . . ."

 

The Unicorn Rests in a Garden
(or The Unicorn in Captivity)
by an unknown artist, 1495–1505

When the nation is divided

there is no nation: when history is discarded

the old regret what life has become;

there is no nation when people

have lost belief in the soul; there is no nation

when people are divided and turn on each other;

when the nation turns its back 

on what made it a nation

there is no nation:

    ships don't reach harbour,

    cod fish so plentiful off Nfld's coast are gone,

    the massacre of buffalos, a mountain of bones 

    on a bleak autumn morning,

    flash mobs stealing everything from stores,

    crows, carrion, and crowds of people

    live in darkness, 

    goodness is ridiculed, vulgarity         

    celebrated, macabre faces in clouds, 

    mobs pounding on old people's front doors:

what is old is cancelled

as decreed, as legislated; 

and people love ignorance and renounce

their own culture; 

they are crossing the bridge

cities burn and the ruins 

are ploughed into dust—

                                            11 May 2023

"St, Michael the Weigher" by James Russell Lowell

 

James Russell Lowell

Stood the tall Archangel weighing
All man’s dreaming, doing, saying,
All the failure and the pain,
All the triumph and the gain,
In the unimagined years,
Full of hopes, more full of tears,
Since old Adam’s hopeless eyes
Backward searched for Paradise,
And, instead, the flame-blade saw
Of inexorable Law.

Waking, I beheld him there,
With his fire-gold, flickering hair,
In his blinding armor stand,
And the scales were in his hand:
Mighty were they, and full well
They could poise both heaven and hell
“Angel,” asked I humbly then,
“Weighest thou the souls of men?

That thine office is, I know.”
“Nay,” he answered me, “not so;
But I weigh the hope of Man
Since the power of choice began,
In the world, of good or ill.”
Then I waited and was still.

In one scale I saw him place
All the glories of our race,
Cups that lit Belshazzar’s feast,
Gems, the lightning of the East,
Kublai’s sceptre, Caesar’s sword,
Many a poet’s golden word,
Many a skill of science, vain
To make men as gods again.

In the other scale he threw
Things regardless, outcast, few,
Martyr-ash, arena sand,
Of St. Francis’ cord a strand,
Beechen cups of men whose need
Fasted that the poor might feed,
Disillusions and despairs
Of young saints with grief-grayed hairs,
Broken hearts that brake for Man.

Marvel through my pulses ran
Seeing then the beam divine
Swiftly on this hand decline,
While Earth’s splendor and renown
Mounted light as thistle-down.

Stood the tall Archangel weighing
All man’s dreaming, doing, saying,
All the failure and the pain,
All the triumph and the gain,
In the unimagined years,
Full of hopes, more full of tears,
Since old Adam’s hopeless eyes
Backward searched for Paradise,
And, instead, the flame-blade saw
Of inexorable Law.

Waking, I beheld him there,
With his fire-gold, flickering hair,
In his blinding armor stand,
And the scales were in his hand:
Mighty were they, and full well
They could poise both heaven and hell
“Angel,” asked I humbly then,
“Weighest thou the souls of men?

That thine office is, I know.”
“Nay, ” he answered me,” not so;
But I weigh the hope of Man
Since the power of choice began,
In the world, of good or ill.”
Then I waited and was still.

In one scale I saw him place
All the glories of our race,
Cups that lit Belshazzar’s feast,
Gems, the lightning of the East,
Kublai’s sceptre, Caesar’s sword,
Many a poet’s golden word,
Many a skill of science, vain
To make men as gods again.

In the other scale he threw
Things regardless, outcast, few,
Martyr-ash, arena sand,
Of St. Francis’ cord a strand,
Beechen cups of men whose need
Fasted that the poor might feed,
Disillusions and despairs
Of young saints with grief-grayed hairs,
Broken hearts that brake for Man.

Marvel through my pulses ran
Seeing then the beam divine
Swiftly on this hand decline,
While Earth’s splendor and renown
Mounted light as thistle-down.

"October" by Robert Frost

 

Gilbert Layton Park in October 2012

O hushed October morning mild,

Thy leaves have ripened to the fall;

Tomorrow’s wind, if it be wild,

Should waste them all.

The crows above the forest call;

Tomorrow they may form and go.

O hushed October morning mild,

Begin the hours of this day slow.

Make the day seem to us less brief.

Hearts not averse to being beguiled,

Beguile us in the way you know.

Release one leaf at break of day;

At noon release another leaf;

One from our trees, one far away.

Retard the sun with gentle mist;

Enchant the land with amethyst.

Slow, slow!

For the grapes’ sake, if they were all,

Whose leaves already are burnt with frost,

Whose clustered fruit must else be lost—

For the grapes’ sake along the wall.

Untitled Poem, -- to Natalya Rykova by Anna Akhmatova

 

Anna Akhmatova

Everything has been plundered, betrayed, sold out,

The wing of black death has flashed,

Everything has been devoured by starving anguish,

Why, then, is it so bright?

The fantastic woods near the town

Wafts the scent of cherry blossoms by day,

At night new constellations shine

In the transparent depths of the skies of July --

And how near the miraculous draws

To the dirty, tumbledown huts . . .  

No one, no one knows what it is,

But for centuries we have longed for it. 

June 1921

"September 1913" by W.B. Yeats

 

William Butler Yeats in 1923

What need you, being come to sense,

But fumble in a greasy till

And add the halfpence to the pence

And prayer to shivering prayer, until

You have dried the marrow from the bone;

For men were born to pray and save:

Romantic Ireland’s dead and gone,

It’s with O’Leary in the grave.

Yet they were of a different kind,

The names that stilled your childish play,

They have gone about the world like wind,

But little time had they to pray

For whom the hangman’s rope was spun,

And what, God help us, could they save?

Romantic Ireland’s dead and gone,

It’s with O’Leary in the grave.

Was it for this the wild geese spread

The grey wing upon every tide;

For this that all that blood was shed,

For this Edward Fitzgerald died,

And Robert Emmet and Wolfe Tone,

All that delirium of the brave?

Romantic Ireland’s dead and gone,

It’s with O’Leary in the grave.

Yet could we turn the years again,

And call those exiles as they were

In all their loneliness and pain,

You’d cry, ‘Some woman’s yellow hair

Has maddened every mother’s son’:

They weighed so lightly what they gave.

But let them be, they’re dead and gone,

They’re with O’Leary in the grave.

Justinius, Emperor of Canada

Our leader, Justin Trudeau

It will be decades before the country recovers

from Justin Trudeau's years in office, before the debt accrued

is behind us, over 500 billion dollars debt in seven years,

and his woke values—diversity, equity, and gender fluidity—

aiming to destroy values like decency, respect, and trust,

values that sustained the country during Depression and wars;

we have been weakened & betrayed by a man with no moral center,                                                                    a man entitled and privileged by his birth,

a man with no adherence to truth.

               

1

Justinius, he is the Emperor! His refrain and legacy

is that he kept us safe! He insists what citizens want is to be safe

and his government will make us safe, but always under more government

control; he has a cure for aches, pains, arthritis, the common cold,

and unwanted pregnancies: his compassion is great, he will end people's

suffering with medical assistance in dying for all, for the sick, the old, the military,

the mentally ill, even sick children may one day be euthanized; David Lametti,

the Justice Minister: "Extending medical assistance to people with mental illness

'remains a top priority for our government'." (17 December 2022).

A woman who had been in an apparently pro-euthanasia ad (on TV),

in fact she "couldn't find healthcare, applied for medically assisted death

out of desperation after failed attempts to seek appropriate care" (6 December 2022);  

And: "Recent years have seen a growing number of institutions treating

medical assistance in dying as a normal component of the country's

medical system" (22 December 2022). The public have been deceived, 

"One third of Canadians are apparently fine with prescribing assisted suicide 

for no other reason than the fact that the patient is homeless" and "51%

endorsed 'inability to receive medical treatment' as sufficient reason

for assisted death" (18 May 2023); what has our country become?

It's Canada under Justinius's rule. you can't make up how diabolical

the country has become . . .

 

2

There is no complexity to Justinius, human complexity has been replaced

by his single desire: to be a celebrity. He's Justinius, son of Pierre,

heir to the Dynasty. He's the Selfie King, dressing up in costumes,

wearing black face, dancing the wild fandango from Mississauga to Mumbai,

from Surrey to Delhi. Pierre the Elder pirouetted behind Queen Elizabeth

(nothing is extemporaneous with these people, nothing is honest; integrity

does not exist for these people); in London for the Queen's funeral, Justinius

left the hotel's piano lounge door open, and loudly sang "Bohemian Rhapsody",

it was all see me see me see me, look at me look at me look at me; and there he was,

smiling in T-shirt, shallow and vacuous, in whom gravitas never existed,

it's all phony with Justinius; not a word spoken by this man is true.

His hotel room cost taxpayers $6,000. a night, while Canadians

economized, lived on the cheap, worried about job security, some ending up homeless and

unemployed, and we all saw the country decline. He will spend us into Third World status,

money means nothing to Justinius, he is the profligate son of money and entitlement.

 

3

You can't make up what Justinius has done to destroy the country:

increasing numbers of Canadians are homeless, living on the streets, in parks,

back alleys, bus shelters, and sleeping under tarps in winter; drug addiction

is an epidemic; rents have doubled; home ownership impossible for most Canadians,

they can't even afford an apartment in any major city (so what does Justin do?

he lets in to the country 500K immigrants, push the population passed 40M);

the medical system is broken, doctors and nurses are fleeing, hospitals are collapsing;

massive debt and out of control inflation; the cost of groceries prohibitive;

the mismanagement of the everyday running of government; thousands of people

camped out overnight in long lines to get a passport; three out of ten worst airports

in the world are in Canada; out of control government spending and out of control

national debt; an entitled and privileged prime minister selling out minorities;

he'd be El Generalissimo with epaulets and phony medals if he could,

if he wanted, maybe he does.And this is just the beginning of the list . . .

            Justinius doesn't care about anybody: consider his Covid mandates, 

his love of Communist China, his admiration for Fidel Castro. 

As part of the Emergencies Act, bank accounts of the Freedom Convoy members 

were frozen—but then how to pay rent? Buy groceries? Medication?—it was petty 

and punitive and unnecessary; it was the authoritarian act of an authoritarian bully. 

At every chance he repeats his lies about the Freedom Convoy; he has no love of freedom 

and to hell with our Constitution, for what the Constitution is worth.

            It's all psychology with Justinius, he's the narcissistic son copying and one-upping his famous 

father; while Pierre stood up to the thugs who threw bottles at him at a St. Jean Baptiste parade, 

Justinius hid during the Freedom Convoy; Pierre had the War Measure's Act

so Justinius had to have the Emergencies Act.

            Re. the inquiry into the Emergencies Act:

"The Ontario Provincial Police intelligence unit never found evidence demonstrating that the Freedom Convoy posed a direct threat to national security before the unprecedented use of the Emergencies Act was invoked by the federal government" and they "saw no direct threat in the convoy" (21 October 2022), and neither did CSIS;  there was no right wing American money funding the Convoy; the Freedom Convoy was never Canada's January 6th insurrection; there was no desecration of monuments, this was made up by the CBC and used to convince people that the Convoy was dangerous; it was a peaceful if inconvenient demonstration; it was a festival of freedom.

 

4

You can smell the decomp in Ottawa from sea to sea to sea, but you won't hear about it

on the CBC; Justinius has friends at the CBC, he pays their way, $1.5B a year

(visualize a beached dead whale, bloated double in size with decaying matter and gas, decomposing on 

a deserted beach). The CBC's mandate betrayed, now they're full-time

social justice warriors; climate change, gender fluidity, and diversity—no wonder they fail in both 

ratings and entertainment—, but who needs a large audience when they have an unlimited subsidy from 

taxpayers? If no one watched the CBC would the CBC care? They don't care,

they have Justinius on their side; Justinius who is destroying what it took Canadians

150 years to build; he's working on destroying our history, our freedom, our values, our culture;                                                                                                 the country

                                                                                                made over

                                                                                                in his image;

                                                                                                it will be decades

                                                                                                before the damage

                                                                                                caused by this man

                                                                                                is behind us. 

"August" by Helen Hunt Jackson

 

August 2016

• 
• 
• 

Silence again. The glorious symphony
Hath need of pause and interval of peace.
Some subtle signal bids all sweet sounds cease,
Save hum of insects’ aimless industry.
Pathetic summer seeks by blazonry
Of color to conceal her swift decrease.
Weak subterfuge! Each mocking day doth fleece
A blossom, and lay bare her poverty.
Poor middle-agèd summer! Vain this show!
Whole fields of golden-rod cannot offset
One meadow with a single violet;
And well the singing thrush and lily know,
Spite of all artifice which her regret
Can deck in splendid guise, their time to go!

"Sloop John B" performed by The Beach Boys

 

My father, Edgar Morrissey, mid-1930s

We come on the sloop John B.
My grandfather and me.
Around Nassau town we did roam,
Drinkin' all night
Got into a fight
Well, I feel so broke-up,
I wanna go home.

So hoist up the John B. sail,
See how the mainsail sets,
Call for the captain ashore
Let me go home, let me go home!
I wanna go home!(yeah, yeah)
Well, I feel so broke-up,
I wanna go home!

The first mate, he got drunk,
Broke in the Captain's trunk,
The Constable had to come and take him away!
Sheriff John Stone,
Why don't you leave me alone?
Well, I feel so broke-up,
I wanna go home.

So, hoist up the John B. sail,
See how the mainsails set,
Call for the captain ashore,
Let me go home, let me go home!
I wanna go home, (let me go home)
Why don't they let me go home?
(hoist up the John B. sail)
Well, I feel so broke-up,
I wanna go home.

The poor cook, he caught the fits,
Threw away all my grits,
And then he took and he ate up all of my corn!
Let me go home!
Why don't they let me go home?

This is the worst trip I've ever been on!
So hoist up the John B. sail,
See how the mainsails set,
Call for the captain ashore
Let me go home, let me go home...
I wanna go home....

Note: Although popularized by The Beach Boys, "Sloop John B" is a Bahamian folk song; the lyrics were included in a 1916 publication by Richard Le Gallienne and in a 1927 book by Carl Sandburg.