Tag Archives: Poetry

Republic of Letters

Rush: Between the Wheels

To live between a rock and a hard place
In between time
Cruising in primetime
Soaking up the cathode rays
To live between the wars in our time
Living in real time
Holding the good time
Holding on to yesterdays

You know how that rabbit feels
Going under your speeding wheels
Bright images flashing by
Like windshields towards a fly
Frozen in the fatal climb
But the wheels of time
Just pass you by

Wheels can take you around
Wheels can cut you down
We can go from boom to bust
From dreams to a bowl of dust
We can fall from rockets’ red glare
Down to “Brother, can you spare…”
Another war, another wasteland
And another lost generation

It slips between your hands like water
This living in real time
A dizzying lifetime
Reeling by on celluloid
Struck between the eyes by the big-time world
Walking uneasy street
Hiding beneath the sheets, got to try and fill the void

You know how that rabbit feels
Going under your speeding wheels
Bright images flashing by
Like windshields towards a fly
Frozen in that fatal climb
But the wheels of time
Just pass you by

We can go from boom to bust
From dreams to a bowl of dust
We can fall from rockets’ red glare
Down to “Brother, can you spare…”
Another war, another wasteland
And another lost generation

Wheels can take you around
Wheels can cut you down
Fall from rockets’ red glare
Down to “Brother, can you spare…”
Another war, another wasteland
Another lost generation

Source: Musixmatch

Songwriters: Geddy Lee / Alex Lifeson / Neil Peart

Between the Wheels lyrics © Ole Core Music Publishing, Anthem Core Music Publishing

Republic of Letters

World Party: Is It Too Late?

Talk about biting the hand that feeds
Sitting there watching as it bleeds
Try your best in the winter light
When it really should be summer night

Is it too late, baby? Too late now
Too late, baby? Too late now
Too late for you to realize
Everything could have been alright

Is it been to long? Yeah
Is it too long now
Is it too long for you to make the change?
Gotta love yourself to make a better day

I hate the way you don’t want to move
What’s the matter?
Money rules the groove now
What we’re doing here today
Won’t make the bad life go away

You gotta grow the beard
Find the doubt
And maybe you’ll work
Something out, hey

Is it too long baby? Too long now yeah
Too long for you to make the change
You got to love yourself
To make a better day, better day

Look out

And recognize your soul
And everything’s alright
You gotta see the whole
And everything’s alright

Come on give yourself a break
Everything’s alright
We’ll be breathing deep
And everything’s alright

Well, come on come on come on
Everything’s alright

In a dream I was crossing African plains
And elephant’s graveyard, a bone dry place
And I was wondering why there was no more rain
And in a pile of bones, I saw your face

Is it too late baby?
Is it too late now? Yeah

It’s aright
It’s alright
It’s alright

Source: Musixmatch

Songwriters: Karl Edmond De Vere Wallinger

Is It Too Late lyrics © Polygram Music Publishing Ltd. Gb

Poetry

Sunday

I’m not a particularly good poet. In fact, I’ve very rarely dabbled in writing poetry. But a couple years ago as a way of processing some difficult emotions, I found poetry flowing from my pencil, rhyme and all. I shared it with a friend (and Twitter) a couple months ago, and that friend asked if he could publish it on the Conciliar Post. Since I was about to move from St. Louis to Bowling Green, Kentucky, I had to delay that since it was handwritten. When I got a chance to transcribe it, I found it needed more melancholy at the beginning to balance out the joy of the Sabbath. And some of the rhyming needed help. A very recent breakup inspired some new melancholy, too. Anyways here’s the beginning stanzas, with the rest at the link: https://conciliarpost.com/the-arts/poetry/sunday/

The rolling emptiness of a Sunday afternoon,
The deafening silence of a vacant room,
The brutal roar of a mind gone mad,
After years of loneliness leave a soul unclad.

Reaching a loved one in search of a friend,
An unforeseen blow reveals this is the end.
A vacuous pang sucking life from my eyes,
But after all else this should have been no surprise.

Disjointed and pondering, unsteady and shamed,
Bloodcurdling abuse tearing a heart that’s been maimed,
Crying and tearing the sheets on the bed,
Pained by a future that only fills me with dread.

Suffering drowned by years of neglect,
A soul grown numb longing to connect,
When out of the silence a trumpet rings clear
Letting me know my Messiah is near.

Republic of Letters

LOVELY SWISS-ITALIAN SONG

A. Filipello: Quattro cavai che trottano – Schweizer Jugendchor 2015

Lovely Swiss-Italian song. My father would call this an Italian Lollipop. I first heard this sung my KENNETH MCKELLAR about 1970. McKellar made many recordings of Italian songs as well as operatic arias though he was best known for songs of Burns, Scottish songs and Irish songs. He made a wonderful recording of the MESSIAH (see below)

Quattro cavai che trottano

Quattro cavai che trottano

sotto la timonella,

vuoi tu venir mia bella,

vuoi tu venir mia bella?

Quattro cavai che trottano

sotto la timonella,

vuoi tu venir mia bella

in su la riva del mar?

        Che bella notte che fa,

        in barchetta si va

        a far l’amore con te.

        Che bella notte che fa,

        in barchetta si va

        a far l’amore con te.

In riva al mar si pescano,

si pescano le sardelle,

sono lucenti e belle,

sono lucenti e belle…

In riva al mar si pescano,

si pescano le sardelle,

sono lucenti e belle

come i tuoi occhi per me.

        Che bella notte che fa,

        in barchetta si va

        a far l’amore con te.

        Che bella notte che fa,

        in barchetta si va

        a far l’amore con te.

Vieni alla tua finestra,

bruna, o mia bella bruna

che al chiaro della luna,

che al chiaro della luna…

Vieni alIa tua finestra,

bruna, o mia bella bruna

che al chiaro della luna

andremo a fare l’amor.

        Che bella notte che fa,

        in barchetta si va

        a far l’amore con te.

        Che bella notte che fa,

        in barchetta si va

        a far l’amore con te.

Four trotting horses

which draw the carriage

do you want to come with me, my dear?

do you want to come with me, my dear?

Four trotting horses

which draw the carriage

do you want to come with me, my dear?

Do you want to come to the seaside?

What a beautiful night,

by boat we go

to do love with you.

What a beautiful night,

by boat we go

to do love with you.

On the seaside we can fish

we can fish the sardines

they are shiny and beautiful

they are shiny and beautiful.

On the seaside we can fish

we can fish the sardines

they are shiny and beautiful

like your eyes for me.

What a beautiful night,

by boat we go

to do love with you.

What a beautiful night,

by boat we go

to do love with you.

Look out the window,

my dark-haired darling,

because at the moonlight

because at the moonlight…

Look out the window,

my dark-haired darling,

because at the moonlight

we’ll go to do love.

What a beautiful night,

by boat we go

to do love with you.

What a beautiful night,

by boat we go

to do love with you.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qI6kbhjqFG4&t=1939s
Republic of Letters

Shakespeare sonnet 130

Commentary by Richard K Munro

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45108/sonnet-130-my-mistress-eyes-are-nothing-like-the-sun

Damasked means DEEP PINK interesting contrast of PERFUME with REEKS. Once again a good way to study word contrasts is by synonyms.

Pejorative (negative)NeutralPositive
reekodorFragrance
stinkAromascent
stench aroma
Smell  

IT is interesting that Shakespeare uses PERFUME and REEK as contrasts.

I suppose the lady’s breath smells of garlic or beer. This usage certainly seems humorous today though it may not have been as pejorative in Shakespeare’s time. Of course in Scots English it merely means “smoke”“ ”as the soldier turned to peer through the reek” Before Edinburgh was being lauded as the ‘Athens of the North,’ it was given the nickname The Auld Reekie, which means Old Smokey

SONNET 130

My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun;

Coral is far more red than her lips’ red;

If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;

If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.

I have seen roses damasked, red and white,

But no such roses see I in her cheeks;

And in some perfumes is there more delight

Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.

I love to hear her speak, yet well I know

That music hath a far more pleasing sound;

I grant I never saw a goddess go;

My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground.

   And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare

   As any she belied with false compare.

Republic of Letters

POEM: LOCH NA GARR

Lord Byron (1788–1824).  Poetry of Byron.  1881.
 
I. Personal, Lyric, and Elegiac
Loch Na Garr essentially about childhood, what the Gael calls ancestry (dualchas), heritage (dualchas) sense of place (duthchas).
Byron contrasts the green landscaped civilized fields of southern England, with the wild, windswept craggy East Highlands
Byron himself wrote:
“I allude here to my maternal ancestors, “the Gordons,” many of whom fought for the unfortunate Prince Charles, better known by the name of the Pretender. This branch was nearly allied by blood, as well as attachment, to the Stuarts. George, the second Earl of Huntley, married the Princess Annabella Stuart, daughter of James I. of Scotland. By her he left four sons: the third, Sir William Gordon, I have the honour to claim as one of my progenitors.”
Byron also referred to  Lochnagar in The Island:

The infant rapture still survivied the boy,
And Loch-na-gar with Ida looked o’er Troy.[7]
— The Island: Canto II, stanza XII, lines 290-291

As the Penguin Book of Scottish Verse says:
“There are few major English poets who can be heard sung in peasant bothies among the more native fare, but Byron’s Lachin A Gair is a popular favourite, and those sophisticated critics who sneer at the poem but don’t know the tune should hear it sung by a farm-labourer’s ‘tenore robusto. “

Or I daresay David Solley or Kenneth McKellar
 AWAY, ye gay landscapes, ye gardens of roses!  
In you let the minions of luxury rove;
Restore me the rocks, where the snow-flake reposes,  
Though still they are sacred to freedom and love:
Yet, Caledonia, beloved are thy mountains,       
 5  Round their white summits though elements war;
Though cataracts foam ’stead of smooth-flowing fountains, 
 I sigh for the valley of dark Loch na Garr. 

Ah! there my young footsteps in infancy wander’d;  
My cap was the bonnet, my cloak was the plaid;       
 10On chieftains long perish’d my memory ponder’d, 
 As daily I strode through the pine-cover’d glade:I
sought not my home till the day’s dying glory 
 Gave place to the rays of the bright polar star
;For fancy was cheer’d by traditional story,        
15  Disclosed by the natives of dark Loch na Garr.

 “Shades of the dead! have I not heard your voices  
Rise on the night-rolling breath of the gale?”
Surely the soul of the hero rejoices,  
And rides on the wind o’er his own Highland vale.        
20Round Loch na Garr while the stormy mist gathers, 
 Winter presides in his cold icy car:
Clouds there encircle the forms of my fathers;  
They dwell in the tempests of dark Loch na Garr. 

“Illstarr’d, though brave, did no visions foreboding        
25  Tell you that fate had forsaken your cause?”
Ah! were you destined to die at Culloden,  
Victory crown’d not your fall with applause:
Still were you happy in death’s earthy slumber,  
You rest with your clan in the caves of Braemar;      
  30The pibroch resounds, to the piper’s loud number, 
 Your deeds on the echoes of dark Loch na Garr. 

Years have roll’d on, Loch na Garr, since I left you,  Years must elapse ere I tread you again:
Nature of verdure and flow’rs has bereft you,       
 35  Yet still are you dearer than Albion’s plain.
England! thy beauties are tame and domestic  
To one who has roved on the mountains afar:
Oh for the crags that are wild and majestic!  
The steep frowning glories of dark Loch na Garr!        40 
Poetry

St. Cecilia’s Day

St. Cecilia’s Day

Annals of the ages
preserve no evidence,
not a trace esconced
in the walls of titular tombs.

‘Twas her spirit that guided
the hand of history
to the bones of her testament

in her name,
carved in stone
of a sepluchre in the catacomb.

she lives,
enlivened by the virginal joy
not given over
to earthly ecstacy.

Hers, the empassioned embrace
of the sacrificial body.

Hers, the voice
ringing out the sweet sounds
of certainty.

A life, emboldened to stand
firm in the face of gallows,
flourishes,
runs free
into welcoming elysian fields.

The haunting gaze of conviction
urges us to run abreast,
yet fixed souls stand in awe
of such simple,
wondrous,
radiance.

This, the heart of the saint.
This, the incantation of eternal love,
a wordless aria
soaring to heaven.

And so she is here,
as present as you and I
as we, in unearthly voices,
sound the passing knell

to cast the thundering waves
of joy—the light engaged
to cast aside the trappings
that sustain the worldly
mammon and the madness

Faith and light and trembling
hope—the voice
sung out to angels,
the censorial sonance to the cold
hand of the rex legem

Condemned now,
the responding smile
opens the heart
to the flowing blood of truth.

There, the bejeweled
backdrop of gilded stones,
reveals the maiden betrothed,
not defiled.

Eyes cast aloft,
her soul ascends
through winds divine

and just below,
the angelic gaze,
a perfect alabaster nape
which twice and again
the henchman cleaved
but could not sever.

A final sign
of love revealed,
of three in one—
her love now sealed.

Kevin McCormick
22 November, 2018

Art, Biography, Faith, Film, History, Music, Poetry, Politics

Music and the Arts Over Partisan Politics

Named for St. Cecilia, patroness of music and the arts, this blog, Spirit of Cecilia, highlights music, art, poetry, fiction, history, biography, and film. These fields of enjoyment and expression are creative and interactive, requiring both a transmitter and a recipient to achieve their fullest potential and profoundest effects.

It’s my hope that these fields, which we might usefully and with slight reservation label the humanities, can accomplish far more than partisan politics to expand the frontiers of knowledge and deepen our understanding of ourselves as human beings created by an awesome God.  Anger is not a constructive starting point for connecting with strangers or political opponents if the goal is mutual understanding. Hard logic puts strangers and political opponents on the defensive, causing them to question the logician’s motives and work through whatever problems and challenges the logician has presented.  But aesthetics: they provide pleasure and the kind of sensory experience in which people of diverse backgrounds and beliefs share and delight. This is not a grand claim about the universality of standards of beauty but rather a plain statement about the obvious draw of humans to phenomena that stir in them strange and wonderful emotions, that cause them to think about the timeless questions that the greatest minds over the centuries have contemplated with differing degrees of gravity and intensity. The fact that we have music, art, poetry, fiction, history, biography, and film at all suggests a certain commonality among human likes and desires across places and cultures.

I am an administrator in a law school, a recovering lawyer you might say, who happens to have earned a doctorate in English.  I am grateful to Dr. Bradley Birzer for including me as a contributor to the Spirit of Cecilia and have high hopes for what it can achieve. Life is difficult for everyone at some time or another.  Wouldn’t it be great if this site were a forum where friendships are built, ideas are exchanged civilly and in good faith, and a profound awareness of our shared humanity served as the predicate for our interpretations and communications?  I look forward to writing in this space. May it flourish.

–Allen Mendenhall