This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
I don't really care how time is reckoned so long as there is some agreement about it, but I object to being told that I am saving daylight when my reason tells me that I am doing nothing of the kind. I even object to the implication that I am wasting something valuable if I stay in bed after the sun has risen. As an admirer of moonlight I resent the bossy insistence of those who want to reduce my time for enjoying it. At the back of the Daylight Saving scheme I detect the bony, blue-fingered hand of Puritanism, eager to push people into bed earlier, and get them up earlier, to make them healthy, wealthy and wise in spite of themselves.
As the sun is best seen at his rising and setting, so men's native dispositions are clearest seen when they are children, and when they are dying.
Robert Bridges, fully Robert Seymour Bridges
The lonely season in lonely lands, when fled Are half the birds, and mists lie low, and the sun Is rarely seen, nor strayeth far from his bed; The short days pass unwelcomed one by one.
Robert Bridges, fully Robert Seymour Bridges
I will not let thee go. Had not the great sun seen, I might; Or were he reckoned slow To bring the false to light, Then might I let thee go.
Will |
It's wiser being good than bad; It's safer being meek than fierce: It's fitter being sane than mad. My own hope is, a sun will pierce The thickest cloud earth ever stretched; That, after Last, returns the First, Though a wide compass round be fetched; That what began best, can't end worst, Nor what God blessed once, prove accurst.
Robert Hass, aka The Bard of Berkeley
A Faint Music - Maybe you need to write a poem about grace. When everything broken is broken, and everything dead is dead, and the hero has looked into the mirror with complete contempt, and the heroine has studied her face and its defects remorselessly, and the pain they thought might, as a token of their earnestness, release them from themselves has lost its novelty and not released them, and they have begun to think, kindly and distantly, watching the others go about their days— likes and dislikes, reasons, habits, fears— that self-love is the one weedy stalk of every human blossoming, and understood, therefore, why they had been, all their lives, in such a fury to defend it, and that no one— except some almost inconceivable saint in his pool of poverty and silence—can escape this violent, automatic life’s companion ever, maybe then, ordinary light, faint music under things, a hovering like grace appears. As in the story a friend told once about the time he tried to kill himself. His girl had left him. Bees in the heart, then scorpions, maggots, and then ash. He climbed onto the jumping girder of the bridge, the bay side, a blue, lucid afternoon. And in the salt air he thought about the word “seafood,” that there was something faintly ridiculous about it. No one said “landfood.” He thought it was degrading to the rainbow perch he’d reeled in gleaming from the cliffs, the black rockbass, scales like polished carbon, in beds of kelp along the coast—and he realized that the reason for the word was crabs, or mussels, clams. Otherwise the restaurants could just put “fish” up on their signs, and when he woke—he’d slept for hours, curled up on the girder like a child—the sun was going down and he felt a little better, and afraid. He put on the jacket he’d used for a pillow, climbed over the railing carefully, and drove home to an empty house. There was a pair of her lemon yellow panties hanging on a doorknob. He studied them. Much-washed. A faint russet in the crotch that made him sick with rage and grief. He knew more or less where she was. A flat somewhere on Russian Hill. They’d have just finished making love. She’d have tears in her eyes and touch his jawbone gratefully. “God,” she’d say, “you are so good for me.” Winking lights, a foggy view downhill toward the harbor and the bay. “You’re sad,” he’d say. “Yes.” “Thinking about Nick?” “Yes,” she’d say and cry. “I tried so hard,” sobbing now, “I really tried so hard.” And then he’d hold her for a while— Guatemalan weavings from his fieldwork on the wall— and then they’d fuck again, and she would cry some more, and go to sleep. And he, he would play that scene once only, once and a half, and tell himself that he was going to carry it for a very long time and that there was nothing he could do but carry it. He went out onto the porch, and listened to the forest in the summer dark, madrone bark cracking and curling as the cold came up. It’s not the story though, not the friend leaning toward you, saying “And then I realized—,” which is the part of stories one never quite believes. I had the idea that the world’s so full of pain it must sometimes make a kind of singing. And that the sequence helps, as much as order helps— First an ego, and then pain, and then the singing.
Friend | Fury | Good | Grace | Hero | Kill | Little | Music | Need | Nothing | Novelty | Order | Pain | Play | Poverty | Rage | Reason | Self-love | Story | Thought | Novelty | Poem | Thought |
Roland B. Gittelsohn, fully Roland Bertram Gittelsohn
A Litany of Remembrance - In the rising of the sun and in its going down, We remember them. In the blowing of the wind and in the chill of winter, We remember them. In the opening of buds and in the rebirth of spring, We remember them. In the blueness of the sky and in the warmth of summer, We remember them. In the rustling of leaves and in the beauty of autumn, We remember them. In the beginning of the year and when it ends, We remember them. When we are weary and in need of strength, We remember them. When we are lost and sick at heart, We remember them. When we have joys we yearn to share, We remember them. So long as we live, they too will live, For they are a part of all who have known them. We remember them.
Robert Southwell, also Saint Robert Southwell
SCORN NOT THE LEAST - WHERE wards are weak and foes encount'ring strong, Where mightier do assault than do defend, The feebler part puts up enforcèd wrong, And silent sees that speech could not amend. Yet higher powers must think, though they repine, When sun is set, the little stars will shine. While pike doth range the seely tench doth fly, And crouch in privy creeks with smaller fish ; Yet pikes are caught when little fish go by, These fleet afloat while those do fill the dish. There is a time even for the worm to creep, And suck the dew while all her foes do sleep. The merlin cannot ever soar on high, Nor greedy greyhound still pursue the chase ; The tender lark will find a time to fly, And fearful hare to run a quiet race : He that high growth on cedars did bestow, Gave also lowly mushrumps leave to grow. In Aman's pomp poor Mardocheus wept, Yet God did turn his fate upon his foe ; The lazar pined while Dives' feast was kept, Yet he to heaven, to Hell did Dives go. We trample grass, and prize the flowers of May, Yet grass is green when flowers do fade away.
Fate | God | Growth | Hell | Little | Quiet | Race | Speech | Time | Will | Fate | God |
When the spent sun throws up its rays on cloud And goes down burning into the gulf below, No voice in nature is heard to cry aloud At what has happened. Birds, at least must know It is the change to darkness in the sky. Murmuring something quiet in her breast, One bird begins to close a faded eye; Or overtaken too far from his nest, Hurrying low above the grove, some waif Swoops just in time to his remembered tree. At most he thinks or twitters softly, 'Safe! Now let the night be dark for all of me. Let the night be too dark for me to see Into the future. Let what will be, be.
Robert Southwell, also Saint Robert Southwell
Behold the father is his daughter's son, The bird that built the nest is hatched therein, The old of years an hour hath not outrun, Eternal life to live doth now begin, The Word is dumb, the mirth of heaven doth weep, Might feeble is, and force doth faintly creep. O dying souls, behold your living spring; O dazzled eyes, behold your sun of grace; Dull ears, attend what word this Word doth bring; Up, heavy hearts, with joy your joy embrace. From death, from dark, from deafness, from despairs This life, this light, this Word, this joy repairs. Gift better than himself God doth not know; Gift better than his God no man can see. This gift doth here the giver given bestow; Gift to this gift let each receiver be. God is my gift, himself he freely gave me; God's gift am I, and none but God shall have me. Man altered was by sin from man to beast; Beast's food is hay, hay is all mortal flesh. Now God is flesh and lies in manger pressed As hay, the brutest sinner to refresh. O happy field wherein that fodder grew, Whose taste doth us from beasts to men renew.
Better | Father | Force | God | Happy | Heaven | Joy | Life | Life | Man | Men | Mirth | Mortal | Sin | Taste | God | Old |
Our life runs down in sending up the clock. The brook runs down in sending up our life. The sun runs down in sending up the brook. And there is something sending up the sun. It is this backward motion toward the source, Against the stream, that most we see ourselves in, The tribute of the current to the source. It is from this in nature we are from. It is most us.
Robert Southwell, also Saint Robert Southwell
O dying souls, behold your living spring; O dazzled eyes, behold your sun of grace; Dull ears, attend what word this Word doth bring; Up, heavy hearts, with joy your joy embrace. From death, from dark, from deafness, from despair: This life, this light, this Word, this joy repairs.
Joy |
Robert Southwell, also Saint Robert Southwell
Repentant eyes are the cellars of angels, and penitent tears their sweetest wines, which the savor of life perfumeth, the taste of grace sweeteneth, and the purest colors of returning innocency highly beautifieth. This dew of devotion never falleth, but the sun of justice draweth it up, and upon what face soever it droppeth it maketh it amiable in God's eye.... No, no, the angels must still bathe themselves in the pure streams of thy eyes, and thy face shall still be set with this liquid pearl, that as out of thy tears were stroken the first sparks of thy Lord's love, so thy tears may be the oil, to nourish and feed his flame. Till death dam up the springs, they shall never cease running: and then shall thy soul be ferried in them to the harbor of life, that as by them it was first passed from sin to grace, so in them it may be wafted from grace to glory.
Angels | Death | Devotion | Grace | Justice | Life | Life | Sin | Soul | Taste | Tears |
Salomon ibn Gabirol, aka Solomon ben Judah or Avicebron
To the glorious one, girdled by praise, Great in deeds and tremendous in ways, Who filleth with wonders our days, Blow ye at New Moon the trumpet. To the Lord whose decrees never fail, Who spreadeth the clouds like a veil, And maketh the dust hard as mail, Blow ye at New Moon the trumpet. To the Builder whose measures none knows, By whom the high heavens arose, And beauty like lightning that glows, Blow ye at New Moon the trumpet. To the Judge who His servants will spare, For the souls of His faithful will care, And will make their inheritance fair, Blow ye at New Moon the trumpet. To the Chief on whose breast Right is borne, Who is served by the seed to Him sworn, Who gathereth lilies from thorn, Blow ye at New Moon the trumpet. To the Washer who whiteneth sin, Whose cloud blotteth evil within, Whose forgiveness repentance can win, Blow ye at New Moon the trumpet. To the Alchemist turning his gold To the diamond’s perfection, clear, cold, Like the streams that Damascus enfold, Blow ye at New Moon the trumpet. To the Lord who His scattered will keep, To whom cries of the lowly that weep Are dearer than bullocks or sheep, Blow ye at New Moon the trumpet.
Earth | Glory | Lord | Man | Mercy | Order | Praise | Soul | Will | Wisdom |
Salomon ibn Gabirol, aka Solomon ben Judah or Avicebron
Who shall tell Thy praises? For Thou madest the Moon the chief source whereby to calculate Appointed times and seasons, And cycles and signs for the days and the years. Her rule is in the night, Until the coming of the fixed hour When her brightness shall be darkened And she shall clothe herself with the mantle of gloom. For from the light of the Sun is her light, And should it hap on the night of the fourteenth that both of them stand On the line of the Dragon, So that it cometh between them, Then the Moon shall not convey her light, And her illumination shall be extinguished, To the end that all the peoples of the earth shall know That they are the creatures of the Most High, And however splendid they be There is a Judge above them to humble and exalt. Nathless she shall live again after her fall And shall be resplendent again after her darkness, And when she is in conjunction with the Sun at the end of the month, If the Dragon shall be between them, And both shall stand upon one line, Then the Moon shall stand before the Sun like a projecting blackness And shall hide the light thereof from the sight of all beholders, In order that all who behold may know That the sovereignty is not with the hosts and legions of heaven But that there is a Master over them, Obscuring and irradiating, For height behind height He keepeth, yea, and the heights beyond them, And they that imagine the Sun is their god At such time shall be ashamed of their imaginings, For their words are then tested, And they shall know ’tis the hand of the Lord hath done this And that the Sun hath no power And His alone is the rule who can darken its light, Sending to it a slave of its slaves, A beneficiary of its own kindly glow, To becloud its radiance, To cut off the abominable idolising thereof, "And let the Sun be removed from sovereignty."
Samuel ha-Nagid, born Samuel ibn Naghrela or Naghrillah
Spirit splits in its asking, and soul in its wanted is balked; and the body, fattened, is vital and full— its precious being uneasy . . . But the modest man walks on the earth with his thought drawn toward sky. What good is the pulse of man’s flesh and its favors when the mind is in pain?
Earth | Fear | God | Good | Light | Man | Men | Mind | Sense | Soul | Thinking | Will | Friendship | God | Friends |
Salomon ibn Gabirol, aka Solomon ben Judah or Avicebron
Who shall declare Thy righteousness? For Thou hast compassed the firmament of the moon with a second sphere Without deviation or infraction, And within it is a star called Mercury, And its measure to the earth is like one to twenty-two thousand. And it completeth its turbulent course in ten months And is the stirrer up in the world of strifes and contentions And enmities and cries of complaint, And it giveth the force to obtain power and to heap up wealth, To gather riches and to lay up abundance, According to the command of Him who created it to be His minister As a servant before a master. And it is the star of prudence and wisdom, "Giving subtlety to the simple And to the young man knowledge and discretion."
Earth | Heaven | Light | Lord | Order | Rule | Time | Words |
Salomon ibn Gabirol, aka Solomon ben Judah or Avicebron
Who can grasp Thy wonders? For Thou hast appointed him to furnish light to the stars Of high or low degree, And to the Moon, "If that white bright spot stays in its place" And according as she moves away to stand opposite the Sun, She receiveth his shining Until his light is at the full when she stands before him, And it irradiates her whole face. And when that she draws nigh in the latter half of the month, And declineth from him And is far from standing opposite him And proceedeth to the side of him, In that degree waneth her splendour, Till the end of her month and her circuit, And she declineth to her extreme rim. And when she is in conjunction with him She is hid in secret places For a day and half an hour And some numbered moments, And after that she is renewed and returneth to her prior self And "issueth forth as a bridegroom from his chamber."