--Anthony Doerr, All The Light We Cannot See
We rise again in the grass. In the flowers. In songs.
--Anthony Doerr, All The Light We Cannot See In the ancient world, blue was a breed of darkness.
--Christopher Moore, Sacre Bleu Annunciation
(The angel speaks) It's not that you are closer to God than we; We are all far from God. But your hands seem to me so wonderfully blessed, made ready as no other woman's. They are almost radiant. I am the day, I am the dew. You, though, are the tree. I am tired now, I have traveled a long way. Forgive me, but I have forgotten what He, enthroned in gold like the sun, wanted me to tell you, quiet one. All that space made me dizzy, but I am just the beginning. You, though, are the tree. --Rainer Maria Rilke Easter 1916
I have met them at close of day Coming with vivid faces From counter or desk among grey Eighteenth-century houses. I have passed with a nod of the head Or polite meaningless words, Or have lingered awhile and said Polite meaningless words, And thought before I had done Of a mocking tale or a gibe To please a companion Around the fire at the club, Being certain that they and I But lived where motley is worn: All changed, changed utterly: A terrible beauty is born. That woman's days were spent In ignorant good-will, Her nights in argument Until her voice grew shrill. What voice more sweet than hers When, young and beautiful, She rode to harriers? This man had kept a school And rode our wingèd horse; This other his helper and friend Was coming into his force; He might have won fame in the end, So sensitive his nature seemed, So daring and sweet his thought. This other man I had dreamed A drunken, vainglorious lout. He had done most bitter wrong To some who are near my heart, Yet I number him in the song; He, too, has resigned his part In the casual comedy; He, too, has been changed in his turn, Transformed utterly: A terrible beauty is born. Hearts with one purpose alone Through summer and winter seem Enchanted to a stone To trouble the living stream. The horse that comes from the road, The rider, the birds that range From cloud to tumbling cloud, Minute by minute they change; A shadow of cloud on the stream Changes minute by minute; A horse-hoof slides on the brim, And a horse plashes within it; The long-legged moor-hens dive, And hens to moor-cocks call; Minute by minute they live: The stone's in the midst of all. Too long a sacrifice Can make a stone of the heart. O when may it suffice? That is Heaven's part, our part To murmur name upon name, As a mother names her child When sleep at last has come On limbs that had run wild. What is it but nightfall? No, no, not night but death; Was it needless death after all? For England may keep faith For all that is done and said. We know their dream; enough To know they dreamed and are dead; And what if excess of love Bewildered them till they died? I write it out in a verse-- MacDonagh and MacBride And Connolly and Pearse Now and in time to be, Wherever green is worn, Are changed, changed utterly: A terrible beauty is born. --William Bulter Yeats Ikon: The Harrowing of Hell
Down through the tomb’s inward arch He has shouldered out into Limbo to gather them, dazed, from dreamless slumber: the merciful dead, the prophets, the innocents just His own age and those unnumbered others waiting here unaware, in an endless void He is ending now, stooping to tug at their hands, to pull them from their sarcophagi, dazzled, almost unwilling. Didmas, neighbor in death, Golgotha dust still streaked on the dried sweat of his body no one had washed and anointed, is here, for sequence is not known in Limbo; the promise, given from cross to cross at noon, arches beyond sunset and dawn. All these He will swiftly lead to the Paradise road: they are safe. That done, there must take place that struggle no human presumes to picture: living, dying, descending to rescue the just from shadow, were lesser travails than this: to break through earth and stone of the faithless world back to the cold sepulchre, tearstained stifling shroud; to break from them back into breath and heartbeat, and walk the world again, closed into days and weeks again, wounds of His anguish open, and Spirit streaming through every cell of flesh so that if mortal sight could bear to perceive it, it would be seen His mortal flesh was lit from within, now, and aching for home. He must return, first, in Divine patience, and know hunger again, and give to humble friends the joy of giving Him food--fish and a honeycomb. --Denise Levertov The angel’s entrance (you must realize)
was not what made her frightened. The surprise he gave her by his coming was no more than sun or moon-beam stirring on the floor would give another, — she had long since grown used to the form that angels wear, descending; never imaging this coming-down was hard for them. (O it’s past comprehending, how pure she was. Did not one day, a hind that rested in a wood, watchfully staring, feel her deep influence, and did it not conceive the unicorn, then, without pairing, the pure beast, beast which light begot, — ) No, not to see him enter, but to find the youthful angel’s countenance inclined so near to her; that when he looked, and she looked up at him, their looks so merged in one the world outside grew vacant, suddenly, and all things being seen, endured and done were crowded into them: just she and he eye and its pasture, visions and its view, here at the point and at this point alone:- see, this arouses fear. Such fear both knew. --Rainer Maria Rilke, "The Life Of Mary" There was just such a man when I was young—an Austrian who invented a new way of life and convinced himself that he was the chap to make it work. He tried to impose his reformation by the sword, and plunged the civilized world into misery and chaos. But the thing which this fellow had overlooked, my friend, was that he had a predecessor in the reformation business, called Jesus Christ. Perhaps we may assume that Jesus knew as much as the Austrian did about saving people. But the odd thing is that Jesus did not turn the disciples into storm troopers, burn down the Temple at Jerusalem, and fix the blame on Pontius Pilate. On the contrary, he made it clear that the business of the philosopher was to make ideas available, and not to impose them on people.
--T.H. White, The Once And Future King There was no harm in taking aim, even if the target was a dream.
--John Knowles, A Separate Peace |
Alissa B.Nothing commonplace about The Common Place. Archives
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