This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Richard Jefferies, fully John Richard Jefferies
Or it is morning on the hills, when Hope is as wide as the world; or it is the evening on the shore
Hope |
Richard L. Evans, fully Richard Louis Evans
Realize that the privilege to work is a gift. Love of work is success. Be thankful that every morning that you get up that you have something that must be done (whether you like it or not).
The morning was glorious, one of those crystalline, dry, blue, fall days when the temperature hovers right at anticipation.
Right |
A truly great book should be read in youth, again in maturity and once more in old age, as a fine building should be seen by morning light, at noon and by moonlight.
Old |
As I've gotten older, I find I am able to be nourished more by sorrow and to distinguish it from depression.
Distinguish | Sorrow |
Robert Benchley, fully Robert Charles Benchley
As the storm came nearer I began to realize that I hadn't made the most of my three years' immunity. In fact, I hadn't done a single thing about cleaning up my life. I was, if anything, an even more logical target for lightning than the last time I was in range. And thunderstorms don't creep up on you at seven o'clock in the morning in a non-thunderstorm country for nothing, you know. I lined up a rather panicky schedule of reforms.
Time |
When I lie waking all alone, Recounting what I have ill done, My thoughts on me then tyrannize, Fear and sorrow me surprise, Whether I tarry still or go, Methinks the time moves very slow, All my griefs to this are jolly, Naught so sad as melancholy. 'Tis my sole plague to be alone, I am a beast, a monster grown,I will no light nor company, I find it now my misery. The scene is turn'd, my joys are gone, Fear, discontent, and sorrows come. All my griefs to this are folly, Naught so fierce as melancholy.
I walked a mile with Pleasure She chatted all the way But left me none the wiser For all she had to say. I walked a mile with Sorrow And neer word said she But oh the things I learned from her When Sorrow walked with me!
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 kept 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.
He thought he kept the universe alone; For all the voice in answer he could wake Was but the mocking echo of his own From some tree-hidden cliff across the lake. Some morning from the boulder-broken beach He would cry out on life, that what it wants Is not its own love back in copy speech, But counter-love, original response. And nothing ever came of what he cried Unless it was the embodiment that crashed In the cliff's talus on the other side, And then in the far-distant water splashed, But after a time allowed for it to swim, Instead of proving human when it neared And someone else additional to him, As a great buck it powerfully appeared, Pushing the crumpled water up ahead, And landed pouring like a waterfall, And stumbled through the rocks with horny tread, And forced the underbrush--and that was all.
Robert Southwell, also Saint Robert Southwell
Upon the Image of Death - Before my face the picture hangs That daily should put me in mind Of those cold names and bitter pangs That shortly I am like to find ; But yet, alas, full little I Do think hereon that I must die. I often look upon a face Most ugly, grisly, bare, and thin ; I often view the hollow place Where eyes and nose had sometimes been ; I see the bones across that lie, Yet little think that I must die. I read the label underneath, That telleth me whereto I must ; I see the sentence eke that saith Remember, man, that thou art dust! But yet, alas, but seldom I Do think indeed that I must die. Continually at my bed's head A hearse doth hang, which doth me tell That I ere morning may be dead, Though now I feel myself full well ; But yet, alas, for all this, I Have little mind that I must die. The gown which I do use to wear, The knife wherewith I cut my meat, And eke that old and ancient chair Which is my only usual seat,— All these do tell me I must die, And yet my life amend not I. My ancestors are turned to clay, And many of my mates are gone ; My youngers daily drop away, And can I think to 'scape alone? No, no, I know that I must die, And yet my life amend not I. Not Solomon for all his wit, Nor Samson, though he were so strong, No king nor person ever yet Could 'scape but death laid him along ; Wherefore I know that I must die, And yet my life amend not I. Though all the East did quake to hear Of Alexander's dreadful name, And all the West did likewise fear To hear of Julius Cæsar's fame, Yet both by death in dust now lie ; Who then can 'scape but he must die? If none can 'scape death's dreadful dart, If rich and poor his beck obey, If strong, if wise, if all do smart, Then I to 'scape shall have no way. Oh, grant me grace, O God, that I My life may mend, sith I must die.
Art | Death | Life | Life | Little | Mind | Art | Old | Think |
Roland B. Gittelsohn, fully Roland Bertram Gittelsohn
This is the grimmest, and surely the holiest task we have faced since D–day. Here before us lie the bodies of comrades and friends. Men who until yesterday or last week laughed with us, joked with us, trained with us. Men who were on the same ships with us, and went over the side with us as we prepared to hit the beaches of this island.It is not easy to do so,” He continued. Some of us have buried our closest friends here. We saw these men killed before our very eyes. Any one of us might have died in their place. Indeed some of us are alive and breathing at this very monent only because men who lie here beneath us had the courage and strength to give their lives for ours. To speak in memory of men such as these is not easy . . . No, our poor power of speech can add nothing to what these men and the other dead of our Division who are not here have already done. All we can even hope to do is follow their example. To show the same selfless courage in peace as they did in war. To swear by the grace of God and the stubborn strength and power of human will, their sons and ours will never suffer these pains again. These men have done their job well. They have paid the ghastly price of freedom. . . . “We dedicate ourselves, first, to live together in peace the way they fought and are buried in this war. Here lie men who loved America because their ancestors generations ago helped in her founding and other men who loved her with equal passion because they themselves or their own fathers escaped from oppression to her blessed shores. Here lie officers and men, Negroes and whites, rich men and poor--- together . . . . Theirs is the highest and purest democracy. Any man among us, the living, who fails to understand that will thereby betray those who lie here dead. Whoever of us lifts his hand in hate against a brother . . . . makes of this ceremony and of the bloody sacrifice it commemorates an empty, hollow mockery. To one thing more do we consecrate ourselves in memory of those who sleep beneath these crosses and stars. We shall not foolishly suppose, as did the last generation of America’s fighting men, that victory on the battlefield will automatically guarantee the triumph of Democracy at home. This war with all its frightful heartache and suffering, is but the beginning of our generations struggle for democracy . . . . Thus do we memorialize those who, have ceased living with us, now live within us. Thus do we consecrate ourselves, the living, to carry on the struggle they began. Too much pain and heartache have fertilized the earth on which we stand. We here solemnly swear: This shall not be in vain! Out of this, and from the suffering and sorrow of those who mourn this, will come—we promise – the birth of a new freedom for the sons of men everywhere.
Beginning | Birth | Ceremony | Courage | Democracy | Earth | Fighting | Freedom | God | Guarantee | Hate | Hope | Man | Memory | Men | Mourn | Nothing | Pain | Peace | Power | Price | Sacrifice | Sorrow | Speech | Strength | Struggle | War | Will | God | Blessed | Friends | Understand |
After the Dinner Party - You two sit at the table late, each, now and then, Twirling a near-empty wine glass to watch the last red Liquid blimb up the crystalline spin to the last moment when Centrifugality fails: with nothing now said. What is left to say when the last logs sag and wink? The dark outside is streaked with the casual snowflake Of winter’s demise, all guests long gone home, and you think Of others who never again can come to partake Of food, wine, laughter, and philosophy— Though tonight one guest has quoted a killing phrase we owe To a lost one whose grin, in eternal atrophy, Now in dark celebrates some last unworded jest none can know. Now a chair scrapes, sudden, on tiles, and one of you Moves soundless, as in hypnotic certainty, The length of table. Stands there a moment or two, Then sits, reaches out a hand, open and empty. How long it seems till a hand finds that hand there laid, While ash, still glowing, crumbles, and silence is such That the crumbling of ash is audible. Now naught’s left unsaid Of the old heart-concerns, the last, tonight, which Had been of the absent children, whose bright gaze Over-arches the future’s horizon, in the mist of your prayers, The last log is black, while ash beneath displays No last glow. You snuff candles. Soon the old stairs Will creak with your grave and synchronized tread as each mounts To a briefness of light, then true weight of darkness, and then That heart-dimness in which neither joy nor sorrow counts. Even so, one hand gropes out for another, again.
Eternal | Grave | Guests | Joy | Nothing | Silence | Sorrow | Old |
Robert Southwell, also Saint Robert Southwell
A VALE OF TEARS - A vale there is, enwrapt with dreadful shades, Which thick of mourning pines shrouds from the sun, Where hanging cliffs yield short and dumpish glades, And snowy flood with broken streams doth run. Where eye-room is from rock to cloudy sky, From thence to dales with stony ruins strew'd, Then to the crushèd water's frothy fry, Which tumbleth from the tops where snow is thaw'd. Where ears of other sound can have no choice, But various blust'ring of the stubborn wind In trees, in caves, in straits with divers noise; Which now doth hiss, now howl, now roar by kind. Where waters wrestle with encount'ring stones, That break their streams, and turn them into foam, The hollow clouds full fraught with thund'ring groans, With hideous thumps discharge their pregnant womb. And in the horror of this fearful quire Consists the music of this doleful place; All pleasant birds from thence their tunes retire, Where none but heavy notes have any grace. Resort there is of none but pilgrim wights, That pass with trembling foot and panting heart; With terror cast in cold and shivering frights, They judge the place to terror framed by art. Yet nature's work it is, of art untouch'd, So strait indeed, so vast unto the eye, With such disorder'd order strangely couch'd, And with such pleasing horror low and high, That who it views must needs remain aghast, Much at the work, more at the Maker's might; And muse how nature such a plot could cast Where nothing seemeth wrong, yet nothing right. A place for mated mindes, an only bower Where everything do soothe a dumpish mood; Earth lies forlorn, the cloudy sky doth lower, The wind here weeps, here sighs, here cries aloud. The struggling flood between the marble groans, Then roaring beats upon the craggy sides; A little off, amidst the pebble stones, With bubbling streams and purling noise it glides. The pines thick set, high grown and ever green, Still clothe the place with sad and mourning veil; Here gaping cliff, there mossy plain is seen, Here hope doth spring, and there again doth quail. Huge massy stones that hang by tickle stays, Still threaten fall, and seem to hang in fear; Some wither'd trees, ashamed of their decays, Bereft of green are forced gray coats to wear. Here crystal springs crept out of secret vein, Straight find some envious hole that hides their grace; Here searèd tufts lament the want of rain, There thunder-wrack gives terror to the place. All pangs and heavy passions here may find A thousand motives suiting to their griefs, To feed the sorrows of their troubled mind, And chase away dame Pleasure's vain reliefs. To plaining thoughts this vale a rest may be, To which from worldly joys they may retire; Where sorrow springs from water, stone and tree; Where everything with mourners doth conspire. Sit here, my soul, main streams of tears afloat, Here all thy sinful foils alone recount; Of solemn tunes make thou the doleful note, That, by thy ditties, dolour may amount. When echo shall repeat thy painful cries, Think that the very stones thy sins bewray, And now accuse thee with their sad replies, As heaven and earth shall in the latter day. Let former faults be fuel of thy fire, For grief in limbeck of thy heart to still Thy pensive thoughts and dumps of thy desire, And vapour tears up to thy eyes at will. Let tears to tunes, and pains to plaints be press'd, And let this be the burden of thy song,— Come, deep remorse, possess my sinful breast; Delights, adieu! I harbour'd you too long.
Art | Earth | Grief | Heart | Heaven | Hope | Little | Motives | Mourning | Music | Nature | Noise | Nothing | Order | Rest | Sorrow | Sound | Tears | Terror | Work | Art | Think |
Roland B. Gittelsohn, fully Roland Bertram Gittelsohn
Here lie men who loved America because their ancestors generations ago helped in her founding. And other men who loved her with equal passion because they themselves or their own fathers escaped from oppression to her blessed shores. Here lie officers and men, Negroes and Whites, rich men and poor, together. Here are Protestants, Catholics, and Jews together. Here no man prefers another because of his faith or despises him because of his color. Here there are no quotas of how many from each group are admitted or allowed. Among these men there is no discrimination. No prejudices. No hatred. Theirs is the highest and purest democracy... Whosoever of us lifts his hand in hate against a brother, or who thinks himself superior to those who happen to be in the minority, makes of this ceremony and the bloody sacrifice it commemorates, an empty, hollow mockery. To this then, as our solemn sacred duty, do we the living now dedicate ourselves: To the right of Protestants, Catholics, and Jews, of White men and Negroes alike, to enjoy the democracy for which all of them have here paid the price... We here solemnly swear this shall not be in vain. Out of this and from the suffering and sorrow of those who mourn this, will come, we promise, the birth of a new freedom for the sons of men everywhere.
Birth | Ceremony | Democracy | Faith | Freedom | Hate | Man | Men | Mourn | Oppression | Passion | Right | Sacred | Sacrifice | Sorrow | Suffering | Will | Blessed |
The Trial By Existence - Even the bravest that are slain Shall not dissemble their surprise On waking to find valor reign, Even as on earth, in paradise; And where they sought without the sword Wide fields of asphodel fore’er, To find that the utmost reward Of daring should be still to dare. The light of heaven falls whole and white And is not shattered into dyes, The light for ever is morning light; The hills are verdured pasture-wise; The angel hosts with freshness go, And seek with laughter what to brave;— And binding all is the hushed snow Of the far-distant breaking wave. And from a cliff-top is proclaimed The gathering of the souls for birth, The trial by existence named, The obscuration upon earth. And the slant spirits trooping by In streams and cross- and counter-streams Can but give ear to that sweet cry For its suggestion of what dreams! And the more loitering are turned To view once more the sacrifice Of those who for some good discerned Will gladly give up paradise. And a white shimmering concourse rolls Toward the throne to witness there The speeding of devoted souls Which God makes his especial care. And none are taken but who will, Having first heard the life read out That opens earthward, good and ill, Beyond the shadow of a doubt; And very beautifully God limns, And tenderly, life’s little dream, But naught extenuates or dims, Setting the thing that is supreme. Nor is there wanting in the press Some spirit to stand simply forth, Heroic in its nakedness, Against the uttermost of earth. The tale of earth’s unhonored things Sounds nobler there than ’neath the sun; And the mind whirls and the heart sings, And a shout greets the daring one. But always God speaks at the end: ’One thought in agony of strife The bravest would have by for friend, The memory that he chose the life; But the pure fate to which you go Admits no memory of choice, Or the woe were not earthly woe To which you give the assenting voice.’ And so the choice must be again, But the last choice is still the same; And the awe passes wonder then, And a hush falls for all acclaim. And God has taken a flower of gold And broken it, and used therefrom The mystic link to bind and hold Spirit to matter till death come. ‘Tis of the essence of life here, Though we choose greatly, still to lack The lasting memory at all clear, That life has for us on the wrack Nothing but what we somehow chose; Thus are we wholly stripped of pride In the pain that has but one close, Bearing it crushed and mystified.
Agony | Awe | Choice | Daring | Death | Existence | Fate | God | Gold | Good | Heart | Heaven | Laughter | Life | Life | Light | Little | Memory | Mind | Pain | Pride | Reward | Sacrifice | Spirit | Thought | Valor | Valor | Witness | Woe | Wonder | Fate | Trial | God | Thought |
Salomon ibn Gabirol, aka Solomon ben Judah or Avicebron
Root of our saviour, The scion of Jesse, Till when wilt thou linger, Invisible, buried? Bring forth a flower, For winter is over! Why should a slave rule The lineage of princes, A hairy barbarian Replace our young sovran? The years are a thousand Since, broken and scattered, We wander in exile, Like waterfowl lost in The depths of the desert. No man in white linen Reveals at our asking The end of our Exile. God sealed up the matter, And closed up the knowledge.
Art | Body | Earth | Grace | Lord | Praise | Rest | Soul | Will | Art |
Salomon ibn Gabirol, aka Solomon ben Judah or Avicebron
THE DWELLERS IN CLAY - O habitants of homes of clay, Why lift ye such a swelling eye, Ye are but as the beasts that die, What do ye boast of more than they? It is for us the wiser part To know ourselves for worms whose doom Is in the clay to find a tomb, Nor, falsely proud, exalt our heart. What shall aught profit mortal man Whose latter end adjoins the grave? Here were no change, though Nature gave A thousand years to be his span. Should he as rebel walk, behold Earth opens hot to swallow up His ashes in her flaming cup And vain is all his might of gold. Unhappy man, with chastened soul, And opened eyes, true vision win, To see thy lowly origin And thy inevitable goal. To what may be compared thy lot? Thou art, O weak and wretched wight, The gourd that shot up in the night And in the morning it was not. To be unborn were better worth Than thus to reap distress and pain, For how essay great things to gain When struggling in this snare of earth? A fallen creature from the womb, Thou sinnest for a slice of bread, And in a moment’s wildered dread, Can live through every plague and gloom While spirit with thy body links, With living light shall glow thy flesh, But should the soul desert its mesh, To mire and sliminess it sinks. Behold no jot with thee will stay Of all the glory now so great, Strangers shall seize thy loved estate, And empty thou shalt go away. Thy soul thou gavest o’er to lust, Nor pondered on this bitter truth. But if thou sinnest in thy youth, What wilt thou do when thou art dust? O let the wicked turn aside, And take, O King, the path to Thee. Perchance the Rock will heed the plea, And from His wrath the sinner hide. O haughty-souled, come gather all, Remember and stand fast and raise Your heart and hands in common praise And thus to God in heaven call: "Woe to our souls, and wellaway For all the sins that we have sinned, Alas, we have pursued the wind And like to sheep have gone astray. "What favour can we ask or grace? The wave of sin has overflowed Our heads, and heavy is our load Of guilt, how dare we lift our face? "Draw up Thy people from the pit, Thou Ruler of the depth and height, Stiff-necked were we in Thy despite, Yet of Thy mercies bate no whit "But shed Thy sweet compassion o’er The people knocking at Thy gate, Thou art the Master of our fate, And unto Thee our eyes upsoar."
Salomon ibn Gabirol, aka Solomon ben Judah or Avicebron
Who can grasp Thy greatness? For Thou hast appointed the Sun for the computing Of days and of years, and appointed periods, And to make the fruit-tree to burgeon, And, under the sweet influence of the Pleiades and the bands of Orion, The green shoots luxuriant. Six months he journeyeth towards the north to warm the air, And the waters, the woods, and the rocks, And as he draweth nigh to the north, The days grow longer and the seasons wax, Till there is found a place where the day is so lengthened That it lasteth six months, According to confirmed indications, And six months he journeyeth towards the south In his appointed courses Till there is found a place where the night is so lengthened That it lasteth six months, According to the proof of searchers. And from this may be known a fringe of the ways of the Creator, A whisper of His mighty powers, Of His strength and His wondrous works. As from the greatness of servants May the greatness of the master be known By all men of understanding, So through the ministering Sun is revealed The grandeur and glory of the Lord, "For all the goods of his Master are delivered into his hands."
Body | Dawn | Day | Light | Power | War | Will | Understand |