Now Sleeps the Crimson Petal

 

Now sleeps the crimson petal, now the white;
Nor waves the cypress in the palace walk;
Nor winks the gold fin in the porphyry font;
The firefly wakens, waken thou with me.

Now droops the milk-white peacock like a ghost,
And like a ghost she glimmers on to me.

Now lies the Earth all Danae to the stars,
And all thy heart lies open unto me.

Now slides the silent meteor on, and leaves
A shining furrow, as thy thoughts, in me.

Now folds the lily all her sweetness up,
And slips into the bosom of the lake.
So fold thyself, my dearest, thou, and slip
Into my bosom and be lost in me.

Alfred Lord Tennyson

 

The Concordia Choir - Prayer - René Clausen

Help me.

Help me spread Your fragrance wherever I go.

Flood my soul with Your spirit and life.

Penetrate and possess my whole being so utterly

that my life may be only a radiance of Yours.

Shine through me and be so in me

that every soul will feel Your presence in my soul.

Let them look up and see,

see no longer me, but only You.

Homeward Bound

In the quiet misty morning
When the moon has gone to bed,
When the sparrows stop their singing
And the sky is clear and red,
When the summer's ceased its gleaming
When the corn is past its prime,
When adventure's lost its meaning -
I'll be homeward bound in time

Bind me not to the pasture
Chain me not to the plow
Set me free to find my calling
And I'll return to you somehow

If you find it's me you're missing
If you're hoping I'll return,
To your thoughts I'll soon be listening,
And in the road I'll stop and turn
Then the wind will set me racing
As my journey nears its end
And the path I'll be retracing
When I'm homeward bound again

Bind me not to the pasture
Chain me not to the plow
Set me free to find my calling
And I'll return to you somehow

In the quiet misty morning
When the moon has gone to bed,
When the sparrows stop their singing
I'll be homeward bound again.

Ode

We are the music makers,
And we are the dreamers of dreams,
Wandering by lone sea-breakers,
And sitting by desolate streams;—
World-losers and world-forsakers, 5
On whom the pale moon gleams:
Yet we are the movers and shakers
Of the world for ever, it seems.

With wonderful deathless ditties
We build up the world's great cities, 10
And out of a fabulous story
We fashion an empire's glory:
One man with a dream, at pleasure,
Shall go forth and conquer a crown;
And three with a new song's measure 15
Can trample a kingdom down.

We, in the ages lying
In the buried past of the earth,
Built Nineveh with our sighing,
And Babel itself in our mirth; 20
And o'erthrew them with prophesying
To the old of the new world's worth;
For each age is a dream that is dying,
Or one that is coming to birth.

A breath of our inspiration 25
Is the life of each generation;
A wondrous thing of our dreaming
Unearthly, impossible seeming—
The soldier, the king, and the peasant
Are working together in one, 30
Till our dream shall become their present,
And their work in the world be done.

They had no vision amazing
Of the goodly house they are raising;
They had no divine foreshowing 35
Of the land to which they are going:
But on one man's soul it hath broken,
A light that doth not depart;
And his look, or a word he hath spoken,
Wrought flame in another man's heart. 40

And therefore to-day is thrilling
With a past day's late fulfilling;
And the multitudes are enlisted
In the faith that their fathers resisted,
And, scorning the dream of to-morrow, 45
Are bringing to pass, as they may,
In the world, for its joy or its sorrow,
The dream that was scorned yesterday.

But we, with our dreaming and singing,
Ceaseless and sorrowless we! 50
The glory about us clinging
Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing:
O men! it must ever be
That we dwell, in our dreaming and singing, 55
A little apart from ye.

For we are afar with the dawning
And the suns that are not yet high,
And out of the infinite morning
Intrepid you hear us cry— 60
How, spite of your human scorning,
Once more God's future draws nigh,
And already goes forth the warning
That ye of the past must die.

Great hail! we cry to the comers 65
From the dazzling unknown shore;
Bring us hither your sun and your summers;
And renew our world as of yore;
You shall teach us your song's new numbers,
And things that we dreamed not before: 70
Yea, in spite of a dreamer who slumbers,
And a singer who sings no more.

Arthur O'Shaughnessy

Soneto de la noche

Pablo Neruda: When I die I want your hands on my eyes

When I die I want your hands on my eyes:
I want the light and the wheat of your beloved hands
to pass their freshness over me one more time
to feel the smoothness that changed my destiny.
I want you to live while I wait for you, asleep,
I want for your ears to go on hearing the wind,
for you to smell the sea that we loved together
and for you to go on walking the sand where we walked.
I want for what I love to go on living
and as for you I loved you and sang you above everything,
for that, go on flowering, flowery one,
so that you reach all that my love orders for you,
so that my shadow passes through your hair,
so that they know by this the reason for my song.

--Pablo Neruda, Veinte poemas de amor y una canción desesperada. Cien Sonetos de Amor. Plaza y Janés. Ave Fénix 205-2. Sexta edición, junio 1998.

LXXXIX

Cuando yo muera quiero tus manos en mis ojos:
quiero la luz y el trigo de tus manos amadas
pasar una vez más sobre mí su frescura:
sentir la suavidad que cambió mi destino.

Quiero que vivas mientras yo, dormido, te espero,
quiero que tus oídos sigan oyendo el viento,
que huelas el aroma del mar que amamos juntos
y que sigas pisando la arena que pisamos.

Quiero que lo que amo siga vivo
y a ti te amé y canté sobre todas las cosas,
por eso sigue tú floreciendo, florida,

para que alcances todo lo que mi amor te ordena,
para que se pasee mi sombra por tu pelo,
para que así conozcan la razón de mi canto.

Choral setting by Morten Lauridsen

The Old Chuch

The old church leans nearby a well-worn road
Upon a hill that has no grass or tree,
The winds from off the prairie now unload
The dust they bring around it fitfully.
The path that leads up to the open door
Is worn and grayed by many toiling feet
Of us who listen to the Bible lore
And once again the old-time hymns repeat.

And every Sabbath morning we are still
Returning to the altar waiting there.
A hush, a prayer, a pause, and voices fill
The Master's House with a triumphant air.

The old church leans awry and looks quite odd,
But it is beautiful to us, and God.

--"The Old Church" by Della B. Vik

Entreat me not to leave thee, or to return from following after thee: for whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge: thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God:
 Where thou diest, will I die, and there will I be buried: the Lord do so to me, and more also, if ought but death part thee and me.

-Ruth 1:16 - 17

 

 

The Long Road

I love you night and day
As a star in the distant sky.
And I mourn for this one thing alone
That to love, our lifetime was so short.

A long road to heaven’s shining meadow
And never could I reach its end.
But a longer road leads to your heart
Which to me seems distant as a star.

High above the arch of heaven bends
And light so clear is falling.
Like a flow’ring tree the world is blooming.
Overwhelmed, my heart both cries and laughs.

Paulina Barda
English: Elaine Singley Lloyd
Eriks Ešenvalds: Long Road - University of Louisville Cardinal Singers

I Want to be Where Your Barefoot Walks

I want to be where your barefoot walks:
Because, maybe before you step you'll look at the ground.
I want that blessing.

I open and fill with love,
I open and fill with love and all other objects evaporate.

All the learning in books stays hid on the shelf.
Poetry, the dear words and images of song,
comes down over me like water.

This is how I would die.  Into the love I have for you.
As pieces of cloud dissolve in sunlight.

                             - Rumi

Beautiful choral setting by David Childs

Twelfth Night

I Peters Jul fra 1866 står der i afsnit 10 (helligtrekongersaften):

Se, nu er da Julen strax forbi;

det er Helligtrekongers Aften.

Saa ender den rare Jul; men vi

er glade, at vi har haft den.

Tre Lys har vi tændte — tænk en Gang!-

for Kongerne, de, som bragte

Jesusbarnet en Julepresent;

vi ved det, for Faer har sagt det.

Her sidder vi ved vort lille Bord

og ser, hvordan Lysene brænde;

naar de er slukkede, siger Moer,

at saa er Julen til Ende.

In Peter's Christmas from 1866 states in section 10 (Twelfth):


See, now when Christmas is at once past,
 it's Twelfth Night.
So ends the nice Jul;
but we are happy that we have had it.
Three Candles, we have lit - think once!
For kings, those who brought
the baby Jesus a Christmas Present;
we know it, the finished've said it.
Here we sit at our little table
and see how the candles burn,
when they are off, says Moer
that so is Christmas to the end.