"A Solis Ortus Cardine"

"From lands that see the sun arise
To earth's remotest boundaries,
The Virgin-born today we sing,
The Son of Mary, Christ the King.

"Blest Author of this earthly frame,
To take a servant's form He came,
That, liberating flesh by flesh,
Whom He had made might live afresh.

"In that chaste parent's holy womb
Celestial grace hath found its home;
And she, as earthly bride unknown,
Yet calls that Offspring blest her own.

"The mansion of the modest breast
Becomes a shrine where God shall rest:
The pure and undefiled one
Conceived in her womb the Son.

"That Son, that Royal Son she bore,
Whom Gabriel's voice had told afore;
Whom, in His mother yet concealed,
The infant Baptist had revealed.

"The manger and the straw He bore,
The cradle did He not abhor;
By milk in infant portions fed,
Who gives e'en fowls their daily bread.

"The heavenly chorus filled the sky,
The Angels sang to God on high,
What time to shepherds, watching lone,
They made creation's Shepherd known.

"All honor, laud, and glory be,
O Jesus, Virgin-born, to thee:
All glory, as is ever meet,
To Father and to Paraclete.
Amen."

A hymn from the Lauds of the Nativity.

"The Road Not Taken"

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim
Because it was grassy and wanted wear,
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I marked the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I,
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

A poem by Robert Frost.

"The Hard Road"

Pure wine costs, for the golden cup, ten thousand coppers a flagon,
And a jade plate of dainty food calls for a million coins.
I fling aside my food-sticks and cup, I cannot eat nor drink...
I pull out my dagger, I peer four ways in vain.
I would cross the Yellow River, but ice chokes the ferry;
I would climb the Taihang Mountains, but the sky is blind with snow...
I would sit and poise a fishing-pole, lazy by a brook -
But I suddenly dream of riding a boat, sailing for the sun...
Journeying is hard,
Journeying is hard.
There are many turnings -
Which am I to follow?...
I will mount a long wind some day and break the heavy waves
And set my cloudy sail straight and bridge the deep, deep sea.

A poem by Li Bai.

"Ozymandias"

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: `Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert... Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear -
"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

By Percy Bysshe Shelley.

"Walkers with the Dawn"

Being walkers with the dawn and morning,
Walkers with the sun and morning,
We are not afraid of night,
Nor days of gloom,
Nor darkness -
Being walkers with the sun and morning.

A poem by Langston Hughes. Pictured is downtown Seattle with its King Street Station at dawn.

"A Widow in Black"

A widow in black - the crying fall
Covers all hearts with a depressing cloud...
While her man's words are clearly recalled,
She will not stop her lamentations loud.
It will be so, until the snow puff
Will give a mercy to the pined and tired.
Forgetfulness of suffering and love -
Though paid by life - what more could be desired?

A poem by Anna Akhmatova.

Quote of the Day: Fr. Alexander Elchaninov

A rule of life: To change my residence only when circumstances force me to do so; to undertake nothing in the practical sphere on my own initiative, but to delve deeply into the earth on the spot where God has placed me.

"The Smoke Upon Your Altar Dies"

"The smoke upon your Altar dies,
The flowers decay,
The Goddess of your sacrifice
Has flown away.
What profit, then, to sing or slay
The sacrifice from day to day?

"We know the Shrine is void," they said,
"The Goddess flown -
Yet wreaths are on the Altar laid -
The Altar-Stone
Is black with fumes of sacrifice,
Albeit She has fled our eyes.

"For it may be, if still we sing
And tend the Shrine,
Some Deity on wandering wing
May there incline;
And, finding all in order meet,
Stay while we worship at Her feet."

A poem by Rudyard Kipling.

"The Shadow on the Stone"

I went by the Druid stone
That broods in the garden white and lone,
And I stopped and looked at the shifting shadows
That at some moments fall thereon
From the tree hard by with a rhythmic swing,
And they shaped in my imagining
To the shade that a well-known head and shoulders
Threw there when she was gardening.

I thought her behind my back,
Yea, her I long had learned to lack,
And I said: ‘I am sure you are standing behind me,
Though how do you get into this old track?’
And there was no sound but the fall of a leaf
As a sad response; and to keep down grief
I would not turn my head to discover
That there was nothing in my belief.

Yet I wanted to look and see
That nobody stood at the back of me;
But I thought once more: ‘Nay, I’ll not unvision
A shape which, somehow, there may be.’
So I went on softly from the glade,
And left her behind me throwing her shade,
As she were indeed an apparition -
My head unturned lest my dream should fade.

A poem by Thomas Hardy. Pictured is one of the haunting sculptures from the Holocaust Memorial in Washington Park, Portland.

Quote of the Day: Fr. Alexander Elchaninov

Only the first steps in the approach to God are easy; the feeling that we have wings, the enthusiasm caused by the certainty that we are approaching God, are followed by a gradual cooling down, by doubt. In order to sustain our faith, it is necessary to make an effort, to struggle, to fight for it.

From page 98 of "The Diary of a Russian Priest," a posthumous compilation of the notes of Fr. Alexander, who served as a priest in a Russian Orthodox parish in the south of France after the Bolshevik Revolution.

"I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud"

I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced, but they
Out-did the sparkling leaves in glee;
A poet could not be but gay,
In such a jocund company!
I gazed—and gazed—but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.

The picture is from the area around Maryhill, Washington, in the Columbia Gorge. This poem (by William Wordsworth) seems especially true right now as I begin to close the door on this latest phase of my life's journey and prepare to reopen the door to another. What 'loneliness and toil' there has been, but what incredible beauty too...

Quote of the Day: Fr. Alexander Elchaninov

"In our present life everything is so uncertain, insecure, painful, almost intolerable, that death in no way appears as something terrifying. I often think of death as a calm and luminous haven, where there is no sickness, no sadness and, in particular, no parting. When, during morning and evening prayers, I pray for my loved ones in minutes of sadness, I am almost glad to think that I will soon be with them, and their life seems more certain than our phantom existence."

From page 117 of "The Diary of a Russian Priest," a posthumous compilation of the notes of Fr. Alexander Elchaninov, a Russian Orthodox priest who served in the south of France after the Bolshevik Revolution.

"Queen of things! I dare not die..."

All that's good and great with thee
Stands in deep conspiracy.
Thou hast bribed the dark and lonely
To report thy features only,
And the cold and purple morning
Itself with thoughts of thee adorning,
The leafy dell, the city mart,
Equal trophies of thine art,
E'en the flowing azure air
Thou hast touched for my despair,
And if I languish into dreams,
Again I meet the ardent beams.
Queen of things! I dare not die
In Being's deeps past ear and eye,
Lest there I find the same deceiver,
And be the sport of Fate forever.
Dread power, but dear! if God thou be,
Unmake me quite, or give thyself to me.

From Ralph Waldo Emerson's "Ode to Beauty."

Quote of the Day: Francis de Sales

It is too true that I who write about the devout life am not myself devout, but most certainly I am not without the wish to become so, and it is this wish which encourages me to teach you. A notable literary man has said that a good way to learn is to study, a better to listen, and the best to teach. And St. Augustine, writing to the devout Flora, says that giving is a claim to receive and teaching a way to learn.

A beautiful quote from Bishop Francis de Sales of Geneva, a Roman Catholic saint who worked to bring Protestants back into the Church of Rome.

"Loss and Gain"

When I compare
What I have lost with what I have gained,
What I have missed with what attained,
Little room do I find for pride.

I am aware
How many days have been idly spent;
How like an arrow the good intent
Has fallen short or been turned aside.

But who shall dare
To measure loss and gain in this wise?
Defeat may be victory in disguise;
The lowest ebb is the turn of the tide.

A poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

Paschal Stichera

An excerpt of the Paschal Stichera sung during Paschal Matins in Orthodox churches of the Byzantine Rite around the world this past weekend.

"Swallows Travel To and Fro"

Swallows travel to and fro,
And the great winds come and go,
And the steady breezes blow,
Bearing perfume, bearing love.
Breezes hasten, swallows fly,
Towered clouds forever ply,
And at noonday, you and I
See the same sunshine above.

Dew and rain fall everywhere,
Harvests ripen, flowers are fair,
And the whole round earth is bare
To the moonshine and the sun;
And the live air, fanned with wings,
Bright with breeze and sunshine, brings
Into contact distant things,
And makes all the countries one.

Let us wander where we will,
Something kindred greets us still;
Something seen on vale or hill
Falls familiar on the heart;
So, at scent or sound or sight,
Severed souls by day and night
Tremble with the same delight -
Tremble, half the world apart.

By Robert Louis Stevenson.

"A Heart Divided"

He so spares himself

He so fears the coverings

The sky’s blue coverlet

And pillows of cloud

He is ill-clothed by his faith

He is so afraid of steps that go awry

And streets chipped in the ice

He is too tiny for winter

He so fears the cold

He is transparent in his mirror

He is so hazy he loses himself

Time rolls him under its waves

At moments his blood flows the wrong way

And his tears stain the linen

His hand gathers green trees

And nosegays of seaweed from the strand

His faith is a thorn bush

His hands bleed against his heart

His eyes have lost their glow

And his feet trail over the sea

Like the dead arms of devil-fish

He is lost in the universe

He stumbles against cities

Against himself and his own failings

Then pray that the Lord

Erase even the memory

Of this man from His mind.

A poem by Pierre Reverdy, a Cubist poet who later became a monk at the Solesmes Monastery (pictured above) in France.

"The Cloister on Kazbek"

High, o’er the family of tops, lead,
Kazbek, your royal dome’s spread,
And shines with timeless beams around.
Your cloister, hidden behind clouds,
Like some ark of the heaven-land,
Glides, vaguely seen over the mounds.

Oh, distant and desired strand!
There, saying ‘farewell’ to the gorges,
To lift self to the free abode –
Into the cell o’er clouds, gorgeous,
Into the neighborhood of God...

Aleksandr S. Pushkin

"Russian-American Romance" by A.A. Voznesenskiy

In my land and yours they do hit the hay
and sleep the whole night in a similar way.

There's the golden moon with a double shine.
It lightens your land and it lightens mine.

At the same low price, that is for free,
there's the sunrise for you and the sunset for me.

The wind is cool at the break of day,
it's neither your fault nor mine, anyway.

Behind your lies and behind my lies
there is pain and love for our motherlands.

I wish in your land and mine some day
we'd put all idiots out of the way.

"In the Valley of the Elwy"

I remember a house where all were good
To me, God knows, deserving no such thing:
Comforting smell breathed at very entering,
Fetched fresh, as I suppose, off some sweet wood.
That cordial air made those kind people a hood
All over, as a bevy of eggs the mothering wing
Will, or mild nights the new morsels of spring:
Why, it seemed of course; seemed of right it should.

Lovely the woods, waters, meadows, combes, vales,
All the air things wear that build this world of Wales;
Only the inmate does not correspond:
God, lover of souls, swaying considerate scales,
Complete thy creature dear O where it fails,
Being mighty a master, being a father and fond.

Gerard Manley Hopkins