Category Archives: Poetry

Painting, Poetry

To a Child Who Inquires

February 17, 2014 Larkrise 1 Comment

To a Child Who Inquires

Olga Petrova

How did you come to me, my sweet?

From the land that no man knows?

Did Mr. Stork bring you here on his wings.?

Were you born in the heart of the rose?

Did an angel fly with you down from the sky?

Were you found in a gooseberry path?

Did a fairy bring you from fairyland

To my door—that was left on a latch?

No—my darling was born of a wonderful love,

A love that was Daddy’s and mine.

A love that was human but deep and profound,

A love that was almost divine.

Do you remember, sweetheart, when we went to the zoo,

And we saw the big bear with a grouch?

And the tigers and the lions, and that tall kangaroo

That carried her babe in a pouch?

Do you remember I told you she kept them there safe

From the cold and the wind, till they grew

Big enough to take care of themselves? And, dear heart,

That’s just how I first cared for you.

I carried you under my heart, my sweet,

And I sheltered you safe from alarms;

The one wonderful day the dear God looked down,

And I snuggled you tight in my arms.

Painting, Poetry

Red Geraniums

February 16, 2014 Larkrise

Red Geraniums

Martha Haskell Clark

Life did not bring me silken gowns,

Nor jewels for my hair,

Nor signs of gabled foreign towns

In distant countries fair,

But I can glimpse, beyond my pane, a green and friendly hill,

And red geraniums aflame upon my windowsill.

The brambled cares of everyday,

The tiny humdrum things,

May bind my feet when they would stray,

But still my heart has wings

While red geraniums are bloomed against my window glass,

And low above my green-sweet hill the gypsy wind-clouds pass.

And if my dreamings ne’er come true,

The brightest and the best,

But leave me lone my journey through,

I’ll set my heart at rest,

And thank God for home-sweet things, a green and friendly hill,

And red geraniums aflame upon my windowsill.

Painting, Poetry

The Little Home

February 15, 2014 Larkrise

Diane's Cottage, Beaumont le Roger. Louis Aston Knight. — Diane’s Cottage, Beaumont le Roger. Louis Aston Knight.

The Little Home

Edgar Albert Guest

The little house is not too small

To shelter friends who come to call.

Though low the roof and small its space

It holds the Lord’s abounding grace,

And every single room may be

Endowed with happy memory.

The little house, severely plain,

A wealth of beauty may contain.

Within it those who dwell may find

High faith which makes for peace of mind,

And that sweet understanding which

Can make the poorest cottage rich.

The little house can hold all things

From which the soul’s contentment springs.

‘Tis not too small for love to grow,

For all the joys that mortals know,

For mirth and song and that delight

Which makes the humblest dwelling bright.

Even the plainest house can be beautiful, and the tiniest home can have a very big heart. Even if your rooms are small, keep the doors open wide! Love and happiness can find plenty of space to grow and flourish.

Painting, Poetry

Results or Roses

February 14, 2014 Larkrise

Results or Roses

Edgar Albert Guest

The man who was a garden fair,

Or small or very big,

With flowers growing here or there,

Must bend his back and dig.

The things are mighty few on earth

That wishes can attain.

Whate’er we want of any worth

We’ve got to work to gain.

It matters not what goal you seek,

Its secret here reposes:

You’ve got to dig from week to week

To get Results or Roses.

This poem by Edgar Albert Guest is a reminder of the connection between work and wonderful. Nothing in this world worth having comes easily, but requires hard and diligent work.

Painting, Poetry

Paradise

February 11, 2014 Larkrise

Apples on a Bough, Study Before Picking. Andrew Wyeth.

Paradise

George Herbert

I bless thee Lord, because I GROW

Among thy trees which in a ROW

To thee both fruit and order OW.

What open force, or hidden CHARM

Can blast my fruit or bring me HARM,

While the inclosure is thine ARM?

Inclose me still for fear I START.

But to me rather sharp and TART,

Then let me want thy hand & ART.

When thou dost great judgements SPARE,

And with thy knife but prune and PARE,

Ev’n fruitful trees more fruitful ARE.

Such sharpness shows the sweetest FREND:

Such cuttings rather heal than REND:

And such beginnings touch their END.

Painting, Poetry

The Invitation

February 10, 2014 Larkrise

Parable of the Wedding Feast. Russian icon.

The Invitation

George Herbert

Come ye hither All, whose taste

Is you waste;

Save your cost, and mend your fare.

Gd is here prepar’d and drest,

And the feast,

God, in whom all dainties are.

Come ye hither All, whom wine

Doth define,

Naming you not to your own good:

Weep what you have drunk amiss,

And drink this,

Which before ye drink is blood.

Come ye hither All, whom pain

Doth arraign,

Bringing all your sins to sight:

Taste and fear not: God is here

In this cheer,

And on sin doth cast the fright.

Come ye hither All, whom joy

Doth destroy,

While ye graze without your bounds:

Here is joy that drowneth quite

Your delight,

As a flood the lower grounds.

Come ye hither All, whose love

Is your dove,

And exalts you to the sky:

Here is love, which having breath

Ev’n in death,

After death can never die.

Lord, I have invited all

And I shall

Still invite, still call to thee:

For it seems but just and right

In my sight,

Where is All, there All should be.

The Russian icon portrays the parable of the great banquet told by Jesus in Luke 14:15-24, and alluded to in George Herbert’s poem.

Painting, Poetry

Virtue

February 6, 2014 Larkrise

Giverny in Springtime. Claude Monet, 1900.

Virtue

George Herbert

Sweet day, so cool, so calm, so bright,

The bridal of the earth and sky,

The dew shall weep thy fall tonight;

For thou must die.

Sweet rose, whose hue angry and brave

Bids the rash gazer wipe his eye:

Thy root is ever in the grave,

And thou must die.

Sweet spring, full of sweet days and roses,

A box where sweets compacted lie;

My music shows ye have your closes,

And all must die.

Only a sweet and virtuous soul,

Like season’d timber, never gives;

But though the whole world turn to coal,

Then chiefly lives.

Painting, Poetry

Mattens

February 5, 2014 Larkrise 1 Comment

Seascape with Pines and Overhanging Clouds. Robert Julian Onderdonk. 1901.

Mattens

George Herbert

I cannot ope mine eyes,

But thou art ready there to catch

My morning-soul and sacrifice:

Then we must needs for that day make a match.

My God, what is a heart?

Silver, or gold, or precious stone,

Or star, or rainbow, or a part

Of all these things, or all of them in one?

My God, what is a heart,

That thou shouldst it so eye, and woo,

Pouring upon it all thy art,

As if thou hadst nothing else to do?

Indeed man’s whole estate

Amounts (and richly) to serve thee:

He did not heav’n and earth create,

Yet studies them, not him by whom they be.

Teach me thy love to know;

That this new light, which now I see,

May both the work and workman show:

Then by a sunbeam I will climb to thee.

Painting, Poetry

H. Baptisme [II]

February 4, 2014 Larkrise

The Presentation of Christ in the Temple. Fra Angelico. 1433.

H. Baptisme [II]

George Herbert

Since, Lord to thee

A narrow way and a little gate

Is all the passage, on my infancy

Thou didst lay hold, and antedate

My faith in me.

O let me still

With thee great God, and me a child:

Let me soft and supple to thy will,

Small to myself, to others mild,

Behither ill.

Although by stealth

My flesh gets on, yet let her sister

My soul bid nothing, but preserve her wealth:

The growth of flesh is but a blister;

Childhood is health.

Painting, Poetry

In Memoriam XXVII

December 29, 2013 Larkrise 2 Comments

Gone But Not Forgotten. John William Waterhouse. 1873.

In Memoriam XXVII

Alfred Lord Tennyson

I envy not in any moods

The captive void of noble rage,

The linnet born within the cage,

That never knew the summer woods:

I envy not the beast that takes

His license in the field of time,

Unfetter’d by the sense of crime,

To whom a conscience never wakes;

Nor, what may count itself as blest,

The heart that never plighted troth

But stagnates in the weeds of sloth;

Nor any want-begotten rest.

I hold it true, whate’er befall;

I fell it, when I sorrow most;

‘Tis better to have loved and lost

Than never to have loved at all.

Goethe said that everyone should read a little poetry and see a fine picture every day, to prevent worldly cares from overcoming our sense of the beautiful. Get your daily dose of beauty at Wrestle with the Angel.