Public Posts

Alexander Pope - (1688 – 1744) was an English poet, translator, essayist and satirist of the Enlightenment era and an exponent of Augustan literature. He is considered one of the most prominent English poets of the early 18th century. Pope is best known for his satirical and discursive poetry including The Rape of the Lock, The Dunciad, and An Essay on Criticism, and for his translations of Homer. More

                Easter

Let all the flowers wake to life;
Let all the songsters sing;
Let everything that lives on earth
Become a joyous thing.

Wake up, thou pansy, purple-eyed,
And greet the dewy spring;
Swell out, ye buds, and o’er the earth
Thy sweetest fragrance fling.

Why dost thou sleep, sweet violet?
The earth has need of thee;
Wake up and catch the melody
That sounds from sea to sea.

Ye stars, that dwell in noonday skies,
Shine on, though all unseen;
The great White Throne lies just beyond,
The stars are all between.

Ring out, ye bells, sweet Easter bells,
And ring the glory in;
Ring out the sorrow, born of earth—
Ring out the stains of sin.

O banners wide, that sweep the sky,
Unfurl ye to the sun;
And gently wave about the graves
Of those whose lives are done.

Let peace be in the hearts that mourn—
Let “Rest” be in the grave;
The Hand that swept these lives away
Hath power alone to save.

Ring out, ye bells, sweet Easter bells,
And ring the glory in;
Ring out the sorrow, born of earth—
Ring out the stains of sin.

Fannie Isabelle Sherrick Wardell -  American poet, essayist, and columnist, whose work flourished in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Not much is known about her early life, but her poetry was well-regarded and she became known for her romantic verses. She published 46 romantic and philosophical poetry in several volumes. She was Influenced by her contemporary of Ella Wheeler Wilcox. She was a native of St. Louis and worked as a teacher. She was a descendant of Moses Cleaveland the founder and namesake of Cleveland, Ohio.

“When you hate, you generate a reciprocal hate. When individuals hate each other, the harm is finite; but when great groups of nations hate each other, the harm may be infinite and absolute. Do not fall back upon the thought that those whom you hate deserve to be hated. I do not know whether anybody deserves to be hated, but I do know that hatred of those whom we believe to be evil is not what will redeem mankind.”

Source: Bertrand Russell, Human Society in Ethics and Politics, Part I. Ethics, Ch. VI: Scientific Technique and the Future, p. 271

Robert W. Service (1874 – 1958) was a Scottish-Canadian poet and writer, often called “The Poet of the Yukon" and "The Canadian Kipling". A bank clerk by trade, his bank sent him to the Yukon, where he was inspired by tales of the Klondike Gold Rush, and wrote two poems, "The Shooting of Dan McGrew" and "The Cremation of Sam McGee", which  enjoyed immediate popularity. He quickly wrote more poems on the same theme, followed by his next popular collection, "Ballads of a Cheechako". His successes allowed him to travel widely and live a leisurely life, basing himself in Paris and the French Riviera. More

"Pastel-colored apparitions of tenderness, magnolias are titans of resilience. They have been consecrating Earth with their beauty since the time dinosaurs roamed it, long before bees evolved to give our planet its colors, pioneering the exquisitely orchestrated pollination strategies by which perfect flowers survive". Read more at the Marginalian

BUT WE HAD MUSIC

Right this minute
across time zones and opinions
people are
making plans
making meals
making promises and poems

while

at the center of our galaxy
a black hole with the mass of
four billion suns
screams its open-mouth kiss
of oblivion.

Someday it will swallow
Euclid’s postulates and the Goldberg Variations,
swallow calculus and Leaves of Grass.

I know this.

And still
when the constellation of starlings
flickers across the evening sky,
it is enough

to stand here
for an irrevocable minute
agape with wonder.

It is eternity.

By Maria Popova Read more at the Marginalian

Booker T. Washington (1856 – 1915) was an American educator, author, and orator. He was the primary leader in the African-American community and of the contemporary Black elite between 1890 and 1915, playing a dominant role in black politics, winning wide support in the black community of the South and among more liberal whites. Washington was born into slavery in Hale's Ford, Virginia. He was freed when U.S. troops reached the area during the Civil War. In 1881, he was named as the first leader of the new Tuskegee Institute in Alabama, an institute for black higher education. He expanded the college and enlisted students in construction of buildings. He attained national prominence for his Atlanta Exposition Address of 1895, which attracted the attention of politicians and the public. In 1901, Washington's published his autobiography, "Up from Slavery". Also in 1901, he became  the first black person publicly meeting the president on equal terms when he dined with Theodore Roosevelt at the White House. 

Quote source: Up from Slavery: An Autobiography

                Spring
With a difference —Hamlet.

Again the bloom, the northward flight,
The fount freed at its silver height,
And down the deep woods to the lowest,
The fragrant shadows scarred with light.

O inescapable joy of spring!
For thee the world shall leap and sing;
But by her darkened door thou goest
Forever as a spectral thing.

Louise Imogen Guiney (1861–1920) - American poet, essayist, editor, literary critic and biographer. Born in Roxbury, Massachusetts. She was a contributor to The Atlantic Monthly, Scribner's Magazine, McClure's, Blackwood's Magazine, Dublin Review, The Catholic World, and the Catholic Encyclopedia. There are twenty books published of her poetry and prose, including   Letters (1926, letters) and Recusant Poets, (1939, ed., with Geoffrey Bliss) which were published posthumously.

This poem is in the public domain

Carl Edward Sagan (1934 – 1996) ~ American astronomer, planetary scientist and science communicator. He was one of the most well-known scientist of the 1970's and 1980's . He was controversial in scientific, political, and religious circles for his views on extraterrestrial intelligence, nuclear weapons, and religion. His best known scientific contribution is his research on the possibility of extraterrestrial life. He was an advocate for nuclear disarmament and co-wrote and hosted 'Cosmos: A Personal Voyage.'  He was widely regarded as a freethinker and one of his most famous quotations, in Cosmos, was, "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.  He died at the age of 62 from complications of Myelodysplastic Syndrome (MDS). More
 
Quote source: From the book "Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark" by Carl Sagan (1995) 

Albert Einstein (March 14, 1879, - April 18, 1955)

Carl Edward Sagan (1934 – 1996) ~ American astronomer, planetary scientist and science communicator. He was one of the most well-known scientist of the 1970's and 1980's . He was controversial in scientific, political, and religious circles for his views on extraterrestrial intelligence, nuclear weapons, and religion. His best known scientific contribution is his research on the possibility of extraterrestrial life. He was an advocate for nuclear disarmament and co-wrote and hosted 'Cosmos: A Personal Voyage.'  He was widely regarded as a freethinker and one of his most famous quotations, in Cosmos, was, "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. 

John Updike (1932 - 2009),  Prolific American writer born in Reading, Pennsylvania. His work included 22 novels, many short stories, poetry and literary criticism. He was known for his careful craftsmanship and "realistic but subtle depiction of American, Protestant, small-town, middle-class” life. Updike's most famous work is his Rabbit series (Rabbit, Run; Rabbit Redux; Rabbit Is Rich; Rabbit At Rest; and Rabbit Remembered. More 

Source: John Updike, My Father's Tears and Other Stories.