The End of Education

Getting ready for my Poetic Knowledge post  I found this poem by John Senior. It was contained in this very thoughtful paper by Dr Stephen McInerney called “The End of Education”: John Senior and the Idea of the University (it's a PDF).   There is some commentary on the poem in the paper.

The Other Window

Two letters in the morning post
dressed in blue and white.
Who can tell which smiles most
envelopes the day or night?

“Dear Alum: The College needs etc.”
and then the fiscal operative clause.
This Dean sees, looking out his front fenetre,
“Fighters for the Christian cause!”

Brave young leaders of tomorrow
in business, medicine and law.”
Conquistadors of sorrow
building all that golden prophecies foresaw.

…just a note that said,
“So sad, I hesitate to bother,
but Margaret, my fiancée, is dead
and I shall not recover.

I don’t expect your consolation.
All I want is that you know how hard
it is to live without sensation,
crawling towards my broken God.”

What is the end of education?
What really is the seed we teachers sow?
A crop of leaders for the Church and Nation,
or the one outside the back window?

Through Googling that poem, I found a blog called Life, Books and Education.   There is a great list of best books on education, on the sidebar.   And a blog post Covering Ground or Contemplation that seems to relate directly to some of our Poetic Knowledge discussion.    Don't you love finding a great blog by googling some obscure topic or quote?

Rosa Mystica

By Denis Aloysius McCarthy

O Mystic Rose, in God's fair garden growing,

O Mystic Rose, in Heaven's high courtyard blowing—

Make sweet, make sweet the pathway I am going,

O Mystic Rose!
The darkling, deathward way that I am going,

O Mystic Rose!

O Rose, more white than snow-wreath in December!
O Rose, more red than sunset's dying ember,
My sins forget, my penitence remember,

O Mystic Rose!
Though all should fail, I pray that thou remember,

O Mystic Rose!

O Mystic Rose, the moments fly with fleetness;
To judgment I, with all my incompleteness—
But thou, make intercession by thy sweetness,

O Mystic Rose!
Be near to soothe and save me by the sweetness,

O Mystic Rose!

To St Joseph

By Charles L. O'Donnell

St. Joseph, when the day was done

And all your work put by,
You saw the stars come one by one
Out in the violet sky.

You did not know the stars by name,
But there sat at your knee
One who had made the light and flame
And all things bright that be.

You heard with Him birds in the tree
Twitter "Good-night" o'erhead,—
The Maker of the world must see
His little ones to bed.

Then when the darkness settled round,
To Him your prayers were said;
No wonder that your sleep was ground
The angels loved to tread.

Aubade: The Annunciation

By Thomas Merton, 1946

When the dim light, at Lauds, comes strike her window,
Bellsong falls out of Heaven with a sound of glass.

Prayers fly in the mind like larks,
Thoughts hide in the height like hawks:
And while the country churches tell their blessings to the
distance,
Her slow words move
(Like summer winds the wheat) her innocent love:
Desires glitter in her mind
Like morning stars:

Until her name is suddenly spoken
Like a meteor falling.

She can no longer hear shrill day
Sing in the east,
Nor see the lovely woods begin to toss their manes.
The rivers have begun to sing.
The little clouds shine in the sky like girls:
She has no eyes to see their faces.

Speech of an angel shines in the waters of her thought
like diamonds,
Rides like a sunburst on the hillsides of her heart.

And is brought home like harvests,
Hid in her house, and stored
Like the sweet summer's riches in our peaceful barns.

But in the world of March outside her dwelling,
The farmers and the planters
Fear to begin their sowing, and its lengthy labor,
Where, on the brown, bare furrows,
The winter wind still croons as dumb as pain.

The Newer Vainglory

by Alice Meynell

Two men went up to pray; and one gave thanks,
Not with himself -- aloud;
With proclamation, calling on the ranks
Of an attentive crowd.

"Thank God, I clap not my own humble breast,
But other ruffians' backs;
Imputing crime -- such is my tolerant haste --
To any man that lacks.

"For I am tolerant, generous, keep no rules,
And the age honors me,
Thank God, I am not as these rigid fools,
Even as this Pharisee."

Charity

By George Parsons Lathrop

Unarmed she goeth, yet her hands
Strike deeper awe than steel-caparisoned bands.
No fatal hurt of foe she fears,—
Veiled, as with marl, in mist of gentle tears.

'Gainst her thou canst not bar the door;
Like air she enters; where none dared before.
Even to the rich she can forgive
Their regal selfishness,—and let them live!

After a Retreat

Msr Hugh Robert Benson

What hast thou learnt to-day?
Hast thou sounded awful mysteries,
Hast pierced the veilèd skies,
Climbed to the feet of God,
Trodden where saints have trod,
Fathomed the heights above?
Nay,
This only have I learnt, that God is love.

What hast thou heard to-day?
Hast heard the Angel-trumpets cry,
And rippling harps reply;
Heard from the Throne of flame
Whence God incarnate came
Some thund'rous message roll?
Nay,
This have I heard, His voice within my soul.

What hast thou felt to-day?
The pinions of the Angel-guide
That standeth at thy side
In rapturous ardours beat,
Glowing, from head to feet,
In ecstasy divine?
Nay,
This only have I felt, Christ's hand in mine.

Sickroom

--by Francis D Clare

Yes, all your dutiful goodness I remember;
The grave inquiries, necessary thought,
Let some broad credits mark your careful kindness
Down on some page, but it escapes my heart
That holds, instead, your sweet, impractical presence,
The theoretic sympathy of eyes,
The quite unsterile warmth of sudden smiling,
Unantiseptic pressure of your hand.
The bones sag on, in prophylactic goodness;
But oh! what brave strength surges to the heart
In ex officio moments love devises;
The slim cornflowers springing from your hand!

Cadgwith

by Lionel Johnson

My windows open to the autumn night,
In vain I watched for sleep to visit me:
How should sleep dull mine ears, and dim my sight,
Who saw the stars, and listened to the sea?
Ah, how the City of our God is fair!
If, without sea and starless though it be,
For joy of the majestic beauty there,
Men shall not miss the stars, nor mourn the sea.

At the Leap of the Waters

By Edward F. Garesche, SJ.

How the swift river runs bright to its doom,
Placid and shining and smooth-flowing by,
Blue with the gleam of the heavenly room,
Smiling and calm with the smile of the sky!

Ah, but the plunge! and the shock and the roar,
The spray of vast waters that hurl to the deep,
The churn of its foam, as the measureless pour
Of that wide-brimming torrent leaps sheer from the steep!

Look ye; it reaches small fingers of spray
To clutch at the brink, as unwilling to go
Through the perilous air, and be fretted away
In the tumult of vapor that boileth below.

List ye! the voice of the huge undertone
That murmurs in pain from the cataract's breast,
Where the bruised, shattered waters perpetual moan
And wander and toss in a weary unrest.

Feel ye the breath of the cool-spraying mist,
Cloudy and gray from the depths of its pain;
Not as when sunbeams the waters have kissed,
Rising in vapor to gather in rain,

But fiercely and madly flung forth on the air,
A shroud for this river that leaps to its death,
A veil o'er the throes of the cataract there,
And rolling and rent with its agonized breath!

Wild torrent! God put thee to thunder His name!
With the roar of thy waters to call to the sky Of His might,
Who hath set thee forever the same,
To topple in foam to the gulfs from on high.

Loud hymn of the lake-lands! from shore unto shore,
Still clamor His praises Who called thee to be,
Till the eats of the nations are tuned to thy roar,
And they hear the vast message He trusted to thee.

Faith's Difficulty

By Theodore Maynard

NOT these appal
The soul tip-toeing to belief:
The ribald call,
The last black anguish of the thief;

The fellowship
Of publican and Pharisee,

The harlot's lip
Passionate with humility;

Or the feet kissed
By her who was the Magdalen—

The sensualist
Is one among a world of men!

Oh, I can look
Upon another's drama; read

As in a book
Things unrelated to my need;

Give faith's assent
To that abysmal love outpoured—

But why was rent
Thy seamless coat for me, dear Lord?

Why didst Thou bow
Thy bleeding brows for my heart's good?

How shall I now
Reach to the mystic hardihood

Where I can take
For personal treasure all Thy loss,

When for my sake,
My sake, Thou didst endure the cross?

For my soul's worth
Was "It is finished!" loudly cried?

For me the birth,
The sorrows of the Crucified?

Mater Dolorosa

By John Fitzpatrick, O.M.I.

She stands, within the shadow, at the foot
Of the high tree she planted: thirty-three
Full years have sped, and such has grown to be

The stem that burgeoned forth from Jesse's root.

Spring swiftly passed and panted in pursuit
The eager summer; now she stands to see
The only fruit-time of her only tree:

And all the world is waiting for the Fruit.

Now is faith's sad fruition: this one hour
Of gathered expectation wears the crown

Of the long grief with which the years were rife; As in her lap—a sudden autumn shower—

The earthquake with his trembling hand shakes down

The red, ripe Fruitage of the Tree of Life.

Sorrow

By Helen Parry Eden

Of Sorrow, 'tis as Saints have said--
That his ill-savoured lamp shall shed
A light to Heaven, when, blown about
By the world's vain and windy rout,
The candles of delight burn out.

Then usher Sorrow to thy board,
Give him such fare as may afford
Thy single habitation--best
To meet him half-way in his quest,
The importunate and sad-eyed guest.

Yet somewhat should he give who took
My hospitality, for look,
His is no random vagrancy;
Beneath his rags what hints there be
Of a celestial livery.

Sweet Sorrow, play a grateful part,
Break me the marble of my heart
And of its fragments pave a street
Where, to my bliss, myself may meet
One hastening with pierced feet.

Te Martyrum Candidatus

by Lionel Johnson

Ah, see the fair chivalry come, the companions of Christ!
White Horsemen, who ride on white horses, the Knights of God!
They, for their Lord and their Lover who sacrificed
All, save the sweetness of treading, where He first trod!

These through the darkness of death, the dominion of night,
Swept, and they woke in white places at morning tide:
They saw with their eyes, and sang for joy of the sight,
They saw with their eyes the Eyes of the Crucified.

Now, whithersoever He goeth, with Him they go:
White Horsemen, who ride on white horses, oh fair to see!
They ride, where the Rivers of Paradise flash and flow,
White Horsemen, with Christ their Captain: forever He!

Gethsemane

by Edmund Leamy

Breathes there a man who claimeth not
One lonely spot
His own Gethsemane,
Whither with his inmost pain
He fain
Would weary plod,
Find the surcease that is known
In wind a-moan
And sobbing sea,
Cry his sorrow hid of men,
And then —
Touch hands with God.

A Sea Story

Emily Henrietta Hickey (b. 1845)

SILENCE. A while ago
Shrieks went up piercingly;
But now is the ship gone down;
Good ship, well manned, was she.
There ’s a raft that ’s a chance of life for one,
This day upon the sea.

A chance for one of two;
Young, strong, are he and he,
Just in the manhood prime,
The comelier, verily,
For the wrestle with wind and weather and wave,
In the life upon the sea.

One of them has a wife
And little children three;
Two that can toddle and lisp,
And a suckling on the knee:
Naked they ’ll go, and hunger sore,
If he be lost at sea.

One has a dream of home,
A dream that well may be:
He never has breathed it yet;
She never has known it, she.
But some one will be sick at heart
If he be lost at sea.

“Wife and kids at home!—
Wife, kids, nor home has he!—
Give us a chance, Bill!” Then,
“All right, Jem!” Quietly
A man gives up his life for a man,
This day upon the sea.

Extreme Unction

by Ernest Dowson

Upon the eyes, the lips, the feet,
On all the passages of sense,
The atoning oil is spread with sweet
Renewal of lost innocence.

The feet, that lately ran so fast
To meet desire, are soothly sealed;
The eyes, that were so often cast
On vanity, are touched and healed.

From troublous sights and sounds set free;
In such a twilight hour of breath,
Shall one retrace his life, or see,
Through shadows, the true face of death?

Vials of mercy! Sacring oils!
I know not where nor when I come,
Nor through what wanderings and toils,
To crave of you Viaticum.

Yet, when the walls of flesh grow weak,
In such an hour, it well may be,
Through mist and darkness, light will break,
And each anointed sense will see.

A Song of Colours

By Theodore Maynard

Gold for the crown of Mary,
Blue for the sea and sky,
Green for the woods and the meadows
Where small white daisies lie,
And red for the colour of Christ's blood
When He came to the cross to die.

These things the high God gave us
And left in the world He made—
Gold for the hilt's enrichment,
And blue for the sword's good blade,
And red for the roses a youth may set
On the white brows of a maid.

Green for the cool, sweet gardens
Which stretch about the house,
And the delicate new frondage
The winds of spring arouse,
And red for the wine which a man may drink
With his fellows in carouse.

Blue and green for the comfort
Of tired hearts and eyes,
And red for that sudden hour which comes
With danger and great surprise,
And white for the honour of God's throne
When the dead shall all arise.

Gold for the cope and chalice,
For kingly pomp and pride,
And red for the feathers men wear in their caps
When they win a war or a bride,
And red for the robe which they dressed God in
On the bitter day He died.

The Gift

by Li Young Lee

To pull the metal splinter from my palm
my father recited a story in a low voice.
I watched his lovely face and not the blade.
Before the story ended, he'd removed
the iron sliver I thought I'd die from.

I can't remember the tale,
but hear his voice still, a well
of dark water, a prayer.
And I recall his hands,
two measures of tenderness
he laid against my face,
the flames of discipline
he raised above my head.

Had you entered that afternoon
you would have thought you saw a man
planting something in a boy's palm,
a silver tear, a tiny flame.
Had you followed that boy
you would have arrived here,
where I bend over my wife's right hand.

Look how I shave her thumbnail down
so carefully she feels no pain.
Watch as I lift the splinter out.
I was seven when my father
took my hand like this,
and I did not hold that shard
between my fingers and think,
Metal that will bury me,
christen it Little Assassin,
Ore Going Deep for My Heart.
And I did not lift up my wound and cry,
Death visited here!
I did what a child does
when he's given something to keep.
I kissed my father.

God's Granduer

--Gerard Hopkins, SJ

THE WORLD is charged with the grandeur of God.
It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;
It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil
Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod?
Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;
And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;
And wears man’s smudge and shares man’s smell: the soil
Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.

And for all this, nature is never spent;
There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;
And though the last lights off the black West went
Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs—
Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.