Christmas Every Day

Maya Angelou is one of those poets whose charms are mainly lost on me. She’s a little too obvious in where she’s going, but since we are doing inspirational poetry this month, here is something about being undaunted.

Source: https://www.familyfriendpoems.com/poem/still-i-rise-by-maya-angelou

James Henry Leigh Hunt wrote this one. Abou Ben Adhem (or Ibrahim ibn Adham) was a medieval Sufi mystic who was famous for his asceticism and charity. According to legend he was a king in what is now Afghanistan who gave up his throne for a life of spirituality.

Abou Ben Adhem (may his tribe increase!)
Awoke one night from a deep dream of peace,
And saw, within the moonlight in his room,
Making it rich, and like a lily in bloom,
An angel writing in a book of gold:—
Exceeding peace had made Ben Adhem bold,
And to the Presence in the room he said
“What writest thou?”—The vision raised its head,
And with a look made of all sweet accord,
Answered “The names of those who love the Lord.”
“And is mine one?” said Abou. “Nay, not so,”
Replied the angel. Abou spoke more low,
But cheerly still, and said “I pray thee, then,
Write me as one that loves his fellow men.”

The angel wrote, and vanished. The next night
It came again with a great wakening light,
And showed the names whom love of God had blessed,
And lo! Ben Adhem’s name led all the rest.

I ran across this one in my mother’s old public school reader from the early 1930s. By Edward Roland Sill. It’s where I learned the word “craven”.

This I beheld, or dreamed it in a dream:
There spread a cloud of dust along a plain;
And underneath the cloud, or in it, raged
A furious battle, and men yelled, and swords
Shocked upon swords and shields. A prince’s banner
Wavered, then staggered backward, hemmed by foes.

A craven hung along the battle’s edge,
And thought, “Had I a sword of keener steel —
That blue blade that the king’s son bears — but this
Blunt thing—!” He snapped and flung it from his hand,
And lowering crept away and left the field.

Then came the king’s son, wounded, sore bestead,
And weaponless, and saw the broken sword,
Hilt-buried in the dry and trodden sand,
And ran and snatched it, and with battle-shout
Lifted afresh, he hewed his enemy down,
And saved a great cause that heroic day.

The most defiantly uplifting poem the Victorians ever produced. By William Ernest Henley

Out of the night that covers me,
      Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
      For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
      I have not winced nor cried aloud,
Under the bludgeonings of chance
      My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
      Looms but the horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
      Finds, and shall find me, unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
      How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
      I am the captain of my soul.

Philip Larkin on the human condition.

Another Victorian poem, urging us to seize the moment. Ernest Dowson wrote it, coining the phrase “the days of wine and roses”.

They are not long, the weeping and the laughter,
Love and desire and hate;
I think they have no portion in us after
We pass the gate.

They are not long, the days of wine and roses:
Out of a misty dream
Our path emerges for a while, then closes
Within a dream.

Vachel Lindsay (1879-1931) was a wandering poet-minstrel and a great chronicler of America in the late 19th and early 20th centuries:

This is a long one by Robert Browning. Hang in there.

He gazed and gazed and gazed and gazed,
Amazed, amazed, amazed, amazed.

The Victorians loved inspirational poetry and this one by Sir Henry Newbolt impressed me when I was a young lad. It took me decades to understand the first verse which describes a school cricket match. The hero is the last batsman and he needs to score ten runs despite the hard fast balls that will come off “a bumping pitch” and the light of the sinking sun in his eye. The sporting spirit which his school has instilled enables him as a young officer in the Sudan to rally the troops surrounded by hostile natives.

There’s a breathless hush in the Close to-night—

Ten to make and the match to win—

A bumping pitch and a blinding light,

An hour to play and the last man in.

And it’s not for the sake of a ribboned coat,

Or the selfish hope of a season’s fame,

But his captain’s hand on his shoulder smote

“Play up! play up! and play the game!”

The sand of the desert is sodden red,—

Red with the wreck of a square that broke;—

The Gatling’s jammed and the Colonel dead,

And the regiment blind with dust and smoke.

The river of death has brimmed his banks,

And England’s far, and Honour a name,

But the voice of a schoolboy rallies the ranks:

“Play up! play up! and play the game!”

This is the word that year by year,

While in her place the school is set,

Every one of her sons must hear,

And none that hears it dare forget.

This they all with a joyful mind

Bear through life like a torch in flame,

And falling fling to the host behind—

“Play up! play up! and play the game!”