Tag Archives: Julian Onderdonk

Mattens

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

The Noble Nature

Old live Oak Tree and Bluebonnets on the West Texas Military Grounds, San Antonio. Julian Onderdonk. 1920.

 

The Noble Nature

Ben Jonson

 

It is not growing like a tree

In bulk, doth make man better be;

Or standing long an oak, three hundred year,

To fall a log at last, dry, bald, and sere:

A lily of a day

Is fairer far in May,

Although it fall and die that night—

It was the plant and flower of Light.

In small proportions we just beauties see;

And in short measures life may perfect be.

Afternoon on a Hill

Girl in a Bluebonnet Field. Julian Onderdonk. 1920.

 

Afternoon on a Hill

Edna St. Vincent Millay, 1917

 

I will be the gladdest thing

Under the sun!

I will touch a hundred flowers

And not pick one.

 

I will look at cliffs and clouds

With quiet eyes,

Watch the wind bow down the grass,

And the grass rise.

 

And when the lights begin to show

Up from the town,

I will mark which must be mine,

And then start down!