This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Quintilian, fully Marcus Fabius Quintilianus, also Quintillian and Quinctilian NULL
We give to necessity the praise of virtue.
Rainer Maria Rilke, full name René Karl Wilhelm Johann Josef Maria Rilke
And these things that keep alive on departure know that you praise them; transient, they look to us, the most transient, to be their rescue. They want us to change them completely, in our invisible hearts, into -- O endlessly -- us! Whoever, finally, we may be.
Ye holy angels bright, Who wait at God's right hand, Or through the realms of light Fly at your Lord's command, Assist our song; For else the theme Too high doth seem For mortal tongue. Ye blessed souls at rest, Who ran this earthly race, And now, from sin released, Behold the Saviour's face, God's praises sound, As in his sight, With sweet delight, Ye do abound. Ye saints, who toil below, Adore your heavenly King. And onward as ye go Some joyful anthem sing; Take what he gives And praise him still, Through good or ill, Who ever lives! My soul, bear thou thy part, Triumph in God above: And with a well-tuned heart Sing thou the songs of love! Let all thy days Till life shall end, Whate'er he send, Be filled with praise.
Angels | God | Good | Heart | Life | Life | Light | Mortal | Praise | Right | Sin | God | Blessed |
In heaven I yearn for knowledge, account all else inanity; on earth I confess an itch for the praise of fools, that's vanity.
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 Child My Choice - Let folly praise that fancy loves, I praise and love that Child Whose heart no thought, whose tongue no word, whose hand no deed defiled. I praise Him most, I love Him best, all praise and love is His; While Him I love, in Him I live, and cannot live amiss. Love's sweetest mark, laud's highest theme, man's most desired light, To love Him life, to leave Him death, to live in Him delight. He mine by gift, I His by debt, thus each to other due; First friend He was, best friend He is, all times will try Him true. Though young, yet wise; though small, yet strong; though man, yet God He is: As wise, He knows; as strong, He can; as God, He loves to bless. His knowledge rules, His strength defends, His love doth cherish all; His birth our joy, His life our light, His death our end of thrall. Alas! He weeps, He sighs, He pants, yet do His angels sing; Out of His tears, His sighs and throbs, doth bud a joyful spring. Almighty Babe, whose tender arms can force all foes to fly, Correct my faults, protect my life, direct me when I die!
Angels | Birth | Choice | Death | Folly | Force | Friend | God | Heart | Knowledge | Life | Life | Love | Praise | Strength | Will | God | Child |
Robert Service, fully Robert William Service
If you had a friend strong, simple, true, Who knew your faults and who understood; Who believed in the very best of you, And who cared for you as a father would; Who would stick by you to the very end, Who would smile however the world might frown: I'm sure you would try to please your friend, You never would think to throw him down. And supposing your friend was high and great, And he lived in a palace rich and tall, And sat like a King in shining state, And his praise was loud on the lips of all; Well then, when he turned to you alone, And he singled you out from all the crowd, And he called you up to his golden throne, Oh, wouldn't you just be jolly proud? If you had a friend like this, I say, So sweet and tender, so strong and true, You'd try to please him in every way, You'd live at your bravest -- now, wouldn't you? His worth would shine in the words you penned; You'd shout his praises . . . yet now it's odd! You tell me you haven't got such a friend; You haven't? I wonder . . . What of God?
Father | Friend | Praise | Smile | Wonder | Words | World | Worth | Think |
So when at times the mob is swayed To carry praise or blame too far, We may choose something like a star To stay our minds on and be staid.
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 seeker of good shall acceptance find From the God whose glory is boundless, If he turn unto Him with repentant mind, And sackcloth on both of his shoulders bind By way of memorial. So come and return to our God on high Who fashioned the uttermost heavens, Let your songs of praise to His footstool fly And thank Him to-night in a choral cry By way of memorial. O King of the Kingdom that hails Thy name Since first to the void Thou spakest, Evoking the light that from darkness came, Accept this plea to expunge my shame As rite of memorial. Prepare, O Israel, to meet Thy God, Let every man seek to find ransom, Remove the evil at which ye nod, Cleanse ye and wash ye or dread His rod This day of memorial.
Earth | God | Lord | Nations | People | Praise | Unity | God |
Salomon ibn Gabirol, aka Solomon ben Judah or Avicebron
My soul shall declare to Thee Thou art her former And shall Thee as her maker, O God, testify, At Thy word 'Be, O Soul' did she take on existence, And from naught didst Thou draw her as light from the eye. Of Thee she shall own and affirm, hand uplifted, ’Twas Thou that didst breathe her in me, and as due For that work she shall pour out her thanks and bear witness That to me she was given Thy bidding to do. She serves Thee as handmaid while yet in the body, And the day she returns to the land whence she came, In Thee will she dwell, for in Thee is her being, Doth she rise, doth she sit, Thou art with her the same. She was Thine when unborn ere the day of her breathing, With wisdom and knowledge by Thee she was fed, And to Thee for her ordinance looks, and subsistence, Indebted to Thee for her water and bread. Her gaze is to Thee, and in Thee is her hoping When like novice in child-birth she cries in affright. O take her torn heart as a sacrifice offered, And her ribs lacerated for fiery rite. To Thee let her pour out her tears as drink-off’ring, Let the breath of her sighing as incense-cloud be, At her gate and her doorway she watches with prayer, She is burning like flame with her passion for Thee. She must ever approach Thee as servant his master, Or as handmaiden looks to her mistress’s eye, She must spread out her palms in request and petition And turn herself humbly to Thee in her cry. For call Thee she must, nor endure to be silent, Like a bird in the net her one hope is in flight, In the depth of the night she must rise and keep vigil, For her work is Thy works to declare and recite. For Thee she must pine and of Thee make entreaty, Her hand must be clean and as stainless her thought. Her breach do Thou heal, be her hope and her helper, When she draws nigh redeem her, her sin count as naught. Behold her affliction, and hark to her weeping, In the sphere of the soul she with Thee is alone, Repay and restore her, attend to her anguish, When her sobs and her tears her backslidings bemoan. Bemock, O Almighty, the foes that bemock her, Avenge with due vengeance her insults and shame, In her stress be a rock of support ‘gainst her foeman, Nor yield up the child Thou to manhood didst frame. No enemy came, whose reproach could be borne with, No cruel one hunted her down in her track, ’Twas the friends of her household betrayed her—her passions— ’Twas her comrade who bloodily stabbed in the back. I ever am seeking my body’s best welfare, Yet it in return would my spirit undo. Ah, truly the fruit of the tree in its root is, The proverb "Like mother, like daughter" is true.
Dawn | Good | Greatness | Little | Praise | Service | Spirit | Will |
Salomon ibn Gabirol, aka Solomon ben Judah or Avicebron
God dwelleth high above man’s dwelling-place, Ye multitudes, come praise and honour Him, Huzzah before the King whose name is God, Sound joyous flourishes upon the trumpet. His creatures fear His glory more than man When awful deeds are wrought, for dread is He. The day shall be when at the sound of trumpet Thy people to the Mount of Olives flock, And they, according to Thy word, shall go With shouting and with tumult and perceive The thunders, lightnings, and the trumpet’s sound. Regard the people nestling in Thy shadow, And trustfully proclaiming that perchance Again the Lord of hosts will gracious be And marvels once again be wrought in thunder And lightning and thick cloud upon the Mount And pealing of the Shofar. Consecrate Yourselves again to-day unto His service, And should again your glad redemption dawn, Uplift yourselves sublime above all else, And mark the banner flown upon the mountains What time the horn resounds. O Lord, whose dread Sets all the world’s inhabitants a-tremble, Be herald of good tidings to the people, So staunch beneath the adversary’s yoke. Thus when the ram’s horn poureth forth its note And ye shall hear the Shofar’s long-drawn peal, Thanksgiving offer up to God and song, And tell His mighty deeds and chant His praise According to the measure of His greatness. O praise Him with the sounding of the trumpet, So shall the Merciful show graciousness To you who cry, and as of old restore Your captives, yea the Lord of hosts o’er you Shall keep His watch, with trumpet-blasts for warning.
Acceptance | Darkness | Day | Dread | Evil | Glory | God | Good | Light | Man | Praise | God |
Salomon ibn Gabirol, aka Solomon ben Judah or Avicebron
Send forth Thy messenger, Thy interpreter, And let him do wonders with signs and happenings, To cleanse us this night from scandal and defamation! Great God, boundless and unsearchable, Thy righteousness is like mighty mountains, Thy judgments are like the great deep. Bare to Thee and spied out is the heart’s imagination and secret, Lo, shaped in iniquity, how shall man justify the evil of his work? Can the grains of his dust justify it that were accounted vanity even while he was still in being? How then after he has perished and every element passed back to its source, When he is driven like chaff before the wind and like smoke from the lattice? Who shall stand up for Thy people, and who set them free? If for decision Thou shouldst draw nigh them, and if for judgment Thou shouldst take them, Then judge them, I pray Thee, by Thy righteousness, And reprove them not according to Thy wrath. For what is the weak that he should contend with the mighty, And how can dry stubble stand in the flame? Lo, as the flower fadeth and the wind flitteth by like a shadow, So flesh from spirit is rent asunder; If then Thou wilt stir up chastisement, There is no way of deliverance shouldst Thou press hard; For the worker is sluggish, And the day short and the work abundant.
Day | Deeds | Dread | Fear | Glory | God | Good | Lord | People | Praise | Redemption | Sound | Time | Will | Deeds | God | Old |