Falling in Love with Language

noel jones, aago

http://www.npr.org/2014/08/15/340700735/falling-in-love-with-language-through-the-power-of-hymns

melofluent

Codgers quite alight, assuaging rancor
Whether noon or night, their words cause cankers
Manuscript or byte, until the cows come home.

Words are merely 1’s, in alternatim
Zeros make their sum, in combinations.
In the end they’re none, as feckless as a gnome.

Dangers by design, transparent meaning
We can toss them all aside, despite their gleaming
They are still and yet mere sound
Rising to the ground
As the smoke of Satan, words are patient during excavation.

Dooby dooby doo, words are but smitten
Even the great Grail is copy “written”
Rend your mind’s delight, to codgers in the night.

©2014 Melofluent/Charles D. Culbreth

Apologies to Frank….

Kathy

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hfVUGob7Uvw

Kathy

"Ere God had built the mountains,
Or raised the fruitful hills;
Before he fill'd the fountains
That feed the running rills;
In me from everlasting,
The wonderful I am,
Found pleasures never wasting,
And Wisdom is my name.

"When, like a tent to dwell in,
He spread the skies abroad,
And swathed about the swelling
Of Ocean's mighty flood;
He wrought by weight and measure,
And I was with Him then:
Myself the Father's pleasure,
And mine, the sons of men."

Thus Wisdom's words discover
Thy glory and Thy grace,
Thou everlasting lover
Of our unworthy race!
Thy gracious eye survey'd us
Ere stars were seen above;
In wisdom thou hast made us,
And died for us in love.

And couldst thou be delighted
With creatures such as we,
Who, when we saw Thee, slighted,
And nail'd Thee to a tree?
Unfathomable wonder,
And mystery divine!
The voice that speaks in thunder,
Says, "Sinner, I am thine!"

William Cowper

Liam

"I would hate to turn out boys who, in later life, would claim to have a love of lit'rature, or speak of the lure of language, and their love of wooords. Wooords, said in a way that's somehow... Welsh."

Hector, The History Boys.

Kathy

But Isaac was not one of these:-a widower these twenty years, who in all his life had owned but one object more than he could wear and carry in his pockets and his hands at one time, and this was the narrow iron cot and the stained lean mattress which he used camping in the woods for deer and bear or for fishing or simply because he loved the woods; who owned no property and never desired to since the earth was no man's but all men's, as light and air and weather were; who lived still in the cheap frame bungalow in Jefferson which his wife's father gave them

on their marriage and which his wife had willed to him at her death and which he had pretended to accept, acquiesce to, to humor her, ease her going but which was not his, will or not, chancery dying wishes mortmain possession or whatever, himself merely holding it for his wife's sister and her children who had lived in it with him since his wife's death, holding himself welcome to live in one room of it as he had during his wife's time or she during her time or the sister-in-law and her children during the rest of his and after

not something he had participated in or even remembered except from the hearing, the listening, come to him through and from his cousin McCaslin born in 1850 and sixteen years his senior and hence, his own father being near seventy when Isaac, an only child, was born. rather his brother than cousin and rather his father than either, out of the old time, the old days

Kathy

With all the powers my poor heart hath
Of humble love and loyal faith,
Thus low (my hidden life!) I bow to Thee,
Whom too much love hath bow'd more low for me.
Down, down, proud Sense! discourses die!
Keep close, my soul's inquiring eye
Nor touch nor taste must look for more,
But each sit still in his own door.

Your ports are all superfluous here,
Save that which lets in Faith, the ear.
Faith is my skill; Faith can believe
As fast as Love new laws can give.
Faith is my force : Faith strength affords
To keep pace with those pow'rful words.
And words more sure, more sweet than they,
Love could not think, Truth could not say.

O let Thy wretch find that relief
Thou didst afford the faithful thief.
Plead for me, Love I allege and show
That Faith has farther here to go,
And less to lean on : because then
Though hid as God, wounds writ Thee man;
Thomas might touch, none but might see
At least the suffering side of Thee;
And that too was Thyself which Thee did cover,
But here ev'n that's hid too which hides the other.

Sweet, consider then, that I,
Though allowed nor hand nor eye,
To reach at Thy loved face; nor can
Taste Thee God, or touch Thee man,
Both yet believe, and witness Thee
My Lord too, and my God, as loud as he.

Help, Lord, my faith, my hope increase,
And fill my portion in Thy peace :
Give love for life; nor let my days
Grow, but in new powers to Thy name and praise.

O dear memorial of that Death
Which lives still, and allows us breath!
Rich, royal food! Bountiful bread
Whose use denies us to the dead;
Whose vital gust alone can give
The same leave both to eat and live.
Live ever, bread of loves, and be
My life, my soul, my surer self to me.

O soft, self -wounding Pelican!
Whose breast weeps balm for wounded man :
Ah, this way bend Thy benign flood
To a bleeding heart that gasps for blood.
That blood, whose least drops sovereign be
To wash my world of sins from me.

Come Love ! come Lord ! and that long day
For which I languish, come away.
When this dry soul those eyes shall see,
And drink the unseal'd source of Thee :
When Glory's sun Faith's shades shall chase,
And for Thy veil give me Thy face. Amen.

Welcome to the MusicaSacra Forum!

Categories