jy100

A Highland Woman

Wed, 04 Jul 2007 22:44:58 GMT

(from the Gaelic of Sorley Maclean)

And hast Thou seen her, Thou great Jew
we call the Only Son of God?
Didst Thou, wayfaring, see her too,
striving in vineyards far abroad?

Burden of fruit upon her spine,
on cheek and brow a bitter sweat;
the earthen vessel sore behind
her poor, bent, miserable head.

Thou hast not seen her, joiner’s Chiel
(as King of Glory now confessed),
perspiring 'neath her victual-creel
along these rugged shores to west.

This spring, and spring gone by, and all
the scores of springs that came and went,
her lot from clammy wrack to haul
her children’s food and castle’s rent.

And with each twenty autumns past,
she lost the gold bloom summers yield;
black travail ploughed the furrow fast
across her forehead’s fair white field.

Thy kindly Church pronouncement made
on wretched soul it failed to save,
till unrelenting labour laid
her corpse to sombre rest in grave.

Her time is gone like foul black sludge
through a mean hovel’s thatch that seeps:
she enjoyed the harsh black toil of drudge,
and grey tonight the sleep she sleeps.

© 2007

Photo post - Lichfield

Mon, 07 Aug 2006 11:00:31 GMT

Ektachrome, November afternoon sunlight

Christening potsherds

Sat, 29 Apr 2006 09:21:08 GMT

Wing high, o Word; wax in profundity
To stamp your sense on base and summit both,
Whatever times you can – in dreams I see
The thing cry out in mental darkness gross.
Yet do not sever from me, to appear
(I beg you) at that blissful gathering
Alone, without my body warmth to cheer
(Or at the least my memory); but be
Plain daylight, not a vacant shade ... The thing
And its soul? Or my part in its suffering?

Translated from the Italian of Mario Luzi ("Vola alta, parola" – lower right section of the page)

Definition of Railway of the German Reich of 17.3.1880

Tue, 31 Jan 2006 12:49:54 GMT

"An enterprise, directed toward repeated progressive movement of persons or things over not quite insignificant distances on a metallic basis, which is certain by its consistency, construction and smoothness to enable the feeding of large masses or the achievement of a relatively meaningful speed of the transport motion, and by this characteristic in connection with natural forces used additionally to the production of the transport motion (like steam, electricity, animals, human muscle activity etc.) to produce operations of the enterprise on the same with a relatively enormous effect."

— source unknown

Botched hymn texts (on those who "improve" upon J.M. Neale)

Mon, 05 Dec 2005 11:24:01 GMT

New English Hymnal 96

There ascribed to “J.M. Neale and Editors”

Did you so rudely hew, old Mason John,

This roughcast verse, neglecting concord due?

O thou who … trod? God! How can we construe

Such doggerel, such syntax woebegone?

Nay, Neale! Who then, to fit rat-rhyming, durst

Inflexion wreck, crushed on Procrustes’ bed?

Are we to blame hymnographers long dead?

Not yours that shame, not at Wenceslas-worst!

Shall, then, seven gents, clever and reverend, seek

(Surely some schooled in grammar them among)

To flaunt rules good in English, Latin, Greek,

Tweak accidence, wreak havoc? When we’ve sung

Their hacked, botched lines, such bloody butchers reek.

Pernicious meddlers - oh, to have them hung!