Marnie1591: December 2012

Deep in the Quiet Wood

Are you bowed down in heart?

Do you but hear the clashing discord and the din of life?

Then come away, come to the peaceful wood.

Here bathe your soul in silence. Listen! Now,

From out the palpitating solitude

Do you not catch, yet faint, elusive strains?

They are above, around, within you, everywhere.

Silently listen! Clear, and still more clear, they come.

They bubble up in rippling notes, and swell in singing tones.

Now let your soul run the whole gamut of the wondrous scale

Until, responsive to the tonic chord,

It touches the diapason of God’s grand cathedral organ,

Filling earth for you with heavenly peace

And holy harmonies.

James Weldon Johnson, Saint Peter Relates an Incident (New York, London, Victoria, Toronto, Auckland: Penguin Books, 1993), 52.

My City

When I come down to sleep death’s endless night,

The threshold of the unknown dark to cross,

What to me then will be the keenest loss,

When this bright world blurs on my fading sight?

Will it be that no more I shall see the trees

Or smell the flowers or hear the singing birds

Or watch the flashing streams or patient herds?

No. I am sure it will be none of these.

But, ah! Manhattan’s sights and sounds, her smells,

Her crowds, her throbbing force, the thrill that comes

From being of her part, her subtle spells,

Her shining towers, her avenues, her slums—

Oh God! the stark, unutterable pity,

To be dead, and never again behold my city.

James Weldon Johnson, Saint Peter Relates an Incident (New York, London, Victoria, Toronto, Auckland: Penguin Books, 1993), 37.

Life

Out of the infinite sea of eternity

To climb, and for an instant stand

Upon an island speck of time.

From an impassible peace of the darkness

To wake, and blink at the garish light

Through one short space of fretfulness.

James Weldon Johnson, Saint Peter Relates an Incident (New York, London, Victoria, Toronto, Auckland: Penguin Books, 1993), 39.

Monday, 24 December 2012