From fairest creatures we desire increase, That thereby beauty's rose might never die, But as the riper should by time decease, His tender heir might bear his memory: But thou contracted to thine own bright eyes, Feed'st thy light's flame with self-substantial fuel, Making a famine where abundance lies, Thy self thy foe, to thy … Continue reading Shakespeare: Sonnet no.1
Beowulf (Opening Lines)
Hwæt! We Gar-Dena in gear-dagum þeod-cyninga, þrym gefrunon, hu ða æþelingas ellen fremedon! Oft Scyld Scefing sceaþena þreatum monegum mægþum meodo-setla ofteah; egsode eorl[as] syððan ærest wearð feasceaft funden; he þæs frofre gebad, weox under wolcnum, weorð-myndum þah, oðæt him æghwylc þara ymb-sittendra ofer hron-rade hyran scolde, gomban gyldan. Þæt wæs god cyning! And now, for you who cannot read old English… What were we War-Danes … Continue reading Beowulf (Opening Lines)
Chesterton: The Rolling English Road
Before the Roman came to Rye or out to Severn strode, The rolling English drunkard made the rolling English road. A reeling road, a rolling road, that rambles round the shire, And after him the parson ran, the sexton and the squire; A merry road, a mazy road, and such as we did tread The … Continue reading Chesterton: The Rolling English Road
Lewis: Prelude to Space
An Epithaliamium So Man, grown vigorous now, Holds himself ripe to breed, Daily devises how To ejaculate his seed And boldly fertilize The black womb of the unconsenting skies. Some now alive expect (I am told) to see the large, Steel member grow erect, Turgid with the fierce charge Of our whole planet's skill, Courage, … Continue reading Lewis: Prelude to Space
Tolkien: The Drinking Song
Ho! Ho! Ho! To the bottle I go To heal my heart and drown my woe. Rain may fall and wind may blow, And many miles be still to go But under a tall tree I will lie, And let the clouds go sailing by.
The World Wearied West
I. Today marks the anniversary of Father Jacques Hamel horrific yet glorious martyrdom when, while conducting Mass in his parish in Saint Etienne-du-Rouvry when two ISIS brutes rushed into the chapel and killed the elderly priest at the altar. Shortly after, the Italian paper Il Foglio interviewed French philosopher Pierre Manent about the attack, and … Continue reading The World Wearied West
W.B. Yeats: To Ireland in the Coming Times
Know, that I would accounted be True brother of a company That sang, to sweeten Ireland's wrong, Ballad and story, rann and song; Nor be I any less of them, Because the red-rose-bordered hem Of her, whose history began Before God made the angelic clan, Trails all about the written page. When Time began … Continue reading W.B. Yeats: To Ireland in the Coming Times
