Psalm 144

The Bible is the greatest piece of literature and the ultimate story, because it is a living Word.  It applies to every aspect of our complicated lives.  Psalm 144 is one of my favorite passages of Scripture, and so I thought that I would share it with you.  Lately, I have been looking up Scripture in Strong's Concordance and reading the Word in different translations so as to get the full meaning of the words.  One thing that I have been doing with this is writing down my own version of the verses in my journal.  Through this, I have really begun to be able to understand the deeper meanings behind the words and it has been very interesting to me.  I am posting Psalm 144 in the Amplified Version, but I would encourage you to look it up in several different editions and also on Strong's Concordance, here is the link 

http://www.blueletterbible.org/Bible.cfm?b=Psa&c=144&v=1&t=KJV#1

[A Psalm] of David.

 ¹BLESSED BE the Lord, my Rock and my keen and firm Strength, Who teaches my hands to war and my fingers to fight--

    ²My Steadfast Love and my Fortress, my High Tower and my Deliverer, my Shield and He in Whom I trust and take refuge, Who subdues my people under me.

    ³Lord, what is man that You take notice of him? Or [the] son of man that You take account of him?^(A)

    ⁴Man is like vanity and a breath; his days are as a shadow that passes away.

    ⁵Bow Your heavens, O Lord, and come down; touch the mountains, and they shall smoke.

    ⁶Cast forth lightning and scatter [my enemies]; send out Your arrows and embarrass and frustrate them.

    ⁷Stretch forth Your hand from above; rescue me and deliver me out of great waters, from the hands of hostile aliens (tribes around us)

    ⁸Whose mouths speak deceit and whose right hands are right hands [raised in taking] fraudulent oaths.

    ⁹I will sing a new song to You, O God; upon a harp, an instrument of ten strings, will I offer praises to You.

    ¹⁰You are He Who gives salvation to kings, Who rescues David His servant from the hurtful sword [of evil].

    ¹¹Rescue me and deliver me out of the power of [hostile] alien [tribes] whose mouths speak deceit and whose right hands are right hands [raised in taking] fraudulent oaths.

    ¹²When our sons shall be as plants grown large in their youth and our daughters as sculptured corner pillars hewn like those of a palace;

    ¹³When our garners are full, affording all manner of store, and our sheep bring forth thousands and ten thousands in our pastures;

    ¹⁴When our oxen are well loaded; when there is no invasion [of hostile armies] and no going forth [against besiegers--when there is no murder or manslaughter] and no outcry in our streets;

    ¹⁵Happy and blessed are the people who are in such a case; yes, happy (blessed, fortunate, prosperous, to be envied) are the people whose God is the Lord!

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow: A Psalm of Life

It has been such a long time since I have posted anything!
I was flipping through my Longfellow book and came across this poem that I really enjoyed.

A Psalm of Life

TELL me not, in mournful numbers,
        Life is but an empty dream ! —
    For the soul is dead that slumbers,
        And things are not what they seem.
    Life is real !   Life is earnest!
        And the grave is not its goal ;
    Dust thou art, to dust returnest,
        Was not spoken of the soul.
    Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,
        Is our destined end or way ;
    But to act, that each to-morrow
        Find us farther than to-day.
    Art is long, and Time is fleeting,
        And our hearts, though stout and brave,
    Still, like muffled drums, are beating
        Funeral marches to the grave.
    In the world's broad field of battle,
        In the bivouac of Life,
    Be not like dumb, driven cattle !
        Be a hero in the strife !
    Trust no Future, howe'er pleasant !
        Let the dead Past bury its dead !
    Act,— act in the living Present !
        Heart within, and God o'erhead !
    Lives of great men all remind us
        We can make our lives sublime,
    And, departing, leave behind us
        Footprints on the sands of time ;
    Footprints, that perhaps another,
        Sailing o'er life's solemn main,
    A forlorn and shipwrecked brother,
        Seeing, shall take heart again.
    Let us, then, be up and doing,
        With a heart for any fate ;
    Still achieving, still pursuing,
        Learn to labor and to wait.

The Scarlet Pimpernel: Emmuska Orczy

This is a book that I read several years ago, and just decided to pick it up again this summer.  Emmuska Orczy does an excellent job of giving vivid description while leaving details out for the readers imagine.  I would highly recommend this book because of its redeeming qualities and self-sacrifice that are an essential part of the story.
Here is a brief summary of the story to get you interested: This story occurs during the French revolution, when the people rose up to throw off the restraint of the French Aristocracy.  The British are sympathetic towards the French "arito's," and one Englishman in particular has sworn to save all that he can from the guillotine.  He forms "the league of the scarlet pimpernel," the name of a common English flower.  This book is about his daring adventures to save a family of French aristocrats while his enemies are plotting to discover his identity.

Here is a brief excerpt from the book, when Sir Percy (the Scarlet Pimpernel) and his wife just parted from each other.

"Had she but turned back then, and looked out once more on to the rose-lit garden, she would have seen that which would have made her own sufferings seem but light and easy to bear--a strong man, overwhelmed with his own passion and despair. Pride had given way at last, obstinacy was gone: the will was powerless. He was but a man madly, blindly, passionately in love and as soon as her light footstep had died away within the house, he knelt down upon the terrace steps, and in the very madness of his love he kissed one by one the places where her small foot had trodden, and the stone balustrade, where her tiny hand had rested last." 

The Count of Monte Cristo

This is one of my all-time favorite books! I just picked it up again this summer and was reading through it again, so i thought that I would share some lines.

"Life is a storm, my young friend. You will bask in the sunlight one moment, be shattered on the rocks the next. What makes you a man is what you do when that storm comes. You must look into that storm and shout as you did in Rome. Do your worst, for I will do mine! " [Edmond giving advice to Albert]


"Hatred is blind; rage carries you away; and he who pours out vengeance runs the risk of tasting a bitter draught." 


"Fool that I am," said he,"that I did not tear out my heart the day I resolved to revenge myself"


"There is neither happiness nor unhappiness in this world; there is only the comparison of one state with another. Only a man who has felt ultimate despair is capable of feeling ultimate bliss. It is necessary to have wished for death in order to know how good it is to live.....the sum of all human wisdom will be contained in these two words: Wait and Hope" [I would add...in God]


If you find yourself bored this summer, I would recommend reading this book, and others by Alexandre Dumas that I have read and enjoyed, namely, The Three Musketeers, the Man in the Iron Mask, and The Black Tulip. 

Independence Day

In honor of the Fourth of July I wanted to post one of my all-time favorite poems, Paul Revere's Ride.


Listen, my children, and you shall hear
Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere,
On the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-five;
Hardly a man is now alive
Who remembers that famous day and year.
He said to his friend, ‘If the British march
By land or sea from the town to-night,
Hang a lantern aloft in the belfry arch
Of the North Church tower as a signal light,—
One, if by land, and two, if by sea;
And I on the opposite shore will be,
Ready to ride and spread the alarm
Through every Middlesex village and farm,
For the country folk to be up and to arm.’

Then he said, ‘Good-night!’ and with muffled oar
Silently rowed to the Charlestown shore,
Just as the moon rose over the bay,
Where swinging wide at her moorings lay
The Somerset, British man-of-war;
A phantom ship, with each mast and spar
Across the moon like a prison bar,
And a huge black hulk, that was magnified
By its own reflection in the tide.

Meanwhile, his friend, through alley and street,
Wanders and watches with eager ears,
Till in the silence around him he hears
The muster of men at the barrack door,
The sound of arms, and the tramp of feet,
And the measured tread of the grenadiers,
Marching down to their boats on the shore.

Then he climbed the tower of the Old North Church,
By the wooden stairs, with stealthy tread,
To the belfry-chamber overhead,
And startled the pigeons from their perch
On the sombre rafters, that round him made
Masses and moving shapes of shade,—
By the trembling ladder, steep and tall,
To the highest window in the wall,
Where he paused to listen and look down
A moment on the roofs of the town,
And the moonlight flowing over all.

Beneath, in the churchyard, lay the dead,
In their night-encampment on the hill,
Wrapped in silence so deep and still
That he could hear, like a sentinel’s tread,
The watchful night-wind, as it went
Creeping along from tent to tent,
And seeming to whisper, ‘All is well!’
A moment only he feels the spell
Of the place and the hour, and the secret dread
Of the lonely belfry and the dead;
For suddenly all his thoughts are bent
On a shadowy something far away,
Where the river widens to meet the bay,—
A line of black that bends and floats
On the rising tide, like a bridge of boats.

Meanwhile, impatient to mount and ride,
Booted and spurred, with a heavy stride
On the opposite shore walked Paul Revere.
Now he patted his horse’s side,
Now gazed at the landscape far and near,
Then, impetuous, stamped the earth,
And turned and tightened his saddle-girth;
But mostly he watched with eager search
The belfry-tower of the Old North Church,
As it rose above the graves on the hill,
Lonely and spectral and sombre and still.
And lo! as he looks, on the belfry’s height
A glimmer, and then a gleam of light!
He springs to the saddle, the bridle he turns,
But lingers and gazes, till full on his sight
A second lamp in the belfry burns!

A hurry of hoofs in a village street,
A shape in the moonlight, a bulk in the dark,
And beneath, from the pebbles, in passing, a spark
Struck out by a steed flying fearless and fleet;
That was all! And yet, through the gloom and the light,
The fate of a nation was riding that night;
And the spark struck out by that steed, in his flight,
Kindled the land into flame with its heat.

He has left the village and mounted the steep,
And beneath him, tranquil and broad and deep,
Is the Mystic, meeting the ocean tides;
And under the alders that skirt its edge,
Now soft on the sand, now loud on the ledge,
Is heard the tramp of his steed as he rides.
It was twelve by the village clock,
When he crossed the bridge into Medford town.
He heard the crowing of the cock,
And the barking of the farmer’s dog,
And felt the damp of the river fog,
That rises after the sun goes down.

It was one by the village clock,
When he galloped into Lexington.
He saw the gilded weathercock
Swim in the moonlight as he passed,
And the meeting-house windows, blank and bare,
Gaze at him with a spectral glare,
As if they already stood aghast
At the bloody work they would look upon.

It was two by the village clock,
When he came to the bridge in Concord town.
He heard the bleating of the flock,
And the twitter of birds among the trees,
And felt the breath of the morning breeze
Blowing over the meadows brown.
And one was safe and asleep in his bed.
Who at the bridge would be first to fall,
Who that day would be lying dead,
Pierced by a British musket-ball.

You know the rest. In the books you have read,
How the British Regulars fired and fled,—
How the farmers gave them ball for ball,
From behind each fence and farm-yard wall,
Chasing the red-coats down the lane,
Then crossing the fields to emerge again
Under the trees at the turn of the road,
And only pausing to fire and load.

So through the night rode Paul Revere;
And so through the night went his cry of alarm
To every Middlesex village and farm,—
A cry of defiance and not of fear,
A voice in the darkness, a knock at the door
And a word that shall echo forevermore!
For, borne on the night-wind of the Past,
Through all our history, to the last,
In the hour of darkness and peril and need,
The people will waken and listen to hear
The hurrying hoof-beats of that steed,
And the midnight message of Paul Revere.

http://libcom.org/files/images/history/American-revolution.jpg

Robert Frost: The Road Not Taken

TWO roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;        5 


Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,        10 


And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.        15


I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.        20 

Sidney Lanier: The Dying Words of Jackson

"Order A. P. Hill to prepare for battle." "Tell Major Hawks to advance the Commissary train." "Let us cross the river and rest in the shade." The stars of Night contain the glittering Day And rain his glory down with sweeter grace Upon the dark World's grand, enchanted face -- All loth to turn away. And so the Day, about to yield his breath, Utters the stars unto the listening Night, To stand for burning fare-thee-wells of light Said on the verge of death. O hero-life that lit us like the sun! O hero-words that glittered like the stars And stood and shone above the gloomy wars When the hero-life was done! The phantoms of a battle came to dwell I' the fitful vision of his dying eyes -- Yet even in battle-dreams, he sends supplies To those he loved so well. His army stands in battle-line arrayed: His couriers fly: all's done: now God decide! -- And not till then saw he the Other Side Or would accept the shade. Thou Land whose sun is gone, thy stars remain! Still shine the words that miniature his deeds. O thrice-beloved, where'er thy great heart bleeds, Solace hast thou for pain! I love the line of this poem that shows Jackson's belief that God knew the time that he would die, so he "lived his life to the fullest." He was not afraid of risks because he knew that he was in the hands of God.

Emily Dickinson: Success

This is another one of Dickinson's poems that I really like because of how thought provoking it is and how she paints pictures in my mind with so few words.  
Though none of her original poems were titled, the editor called this one "Success."


Success is counted sweetest 
By those who ne'er succeed. 
To comprehend a nectar 
Requires sorest need.

Not one of all the purple host
Who took the flag to-day
Can tell the definition,
So clear, of victory!

As he, defeated, dying,
On whose forbidden ear
The distant strains of triumph
Burst agonized and clear!

What she is saying in this poem is so true.  It is the person that was so close to success and victory and yet ended the day defeated that knows the true definition of success rather than the victorious one.  

Emily Dickinson: Hope

This is one of my favorite poems by one of my favorite poets.  Emily Dickinson is very unique in her poetry because she mostly wrote from her imagination.  She was VERY shy her entire life, and lived in seclusion, and has a very interesting outlook on life because of this seclusion.  I love how she describes hope in this poem.  

Hope is the thing with feathers 

That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune--without the words,
And never stops at all,

And sweetest in the gale is heard;
And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little bird
That kept so many warm.

I've heard it in the chillest land,
And on the strangest sea;
Yet, never, in extremity,
It asked a crumb of me.

Emily Dickinson is definitely one that I would love to write like some day, though never live like her.  I believe that God designed us to live in community.  

Charles Dickens

Finally, I have found the time to sit down and write again.  I am so sorry that it has been so long since I have updated, but I have been really busy :)
A friend told me that I should write on Charles Dickens, so here he is!
Here are a couple excerpts from some of his most famous books...

 A Tale of Two Cities:
"It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known."
"For you, and for any dear to you, I would do anything. If my career were of that better kind that there was any opportunity or capacity of sacrifice in it, I would embrace any sacrifice for you and for those dear to you. Try to hold me in your mind, at some quiet times, as ardent and sincere in this one thing. The time will come, the time will not be long in coming, when new ties will be formed about you--ties that will bind you yet more tenderly and strongly to the home you so adorn--the dearest ties that will ever grace and gladden you. O Miss Manette, when the little picture of a happy father's face looks up in yours, when you see your own bright beauty springing up anew at your feet, think now and then that there is a man who would give his life, to keep a life you love beside you!"
"I see a beautiful city and a brilliant people rising from this abyss, and, in their struggles to be truly free, in their triumphs and defeats, through long years to come, I see the evil of this time and of the previous time of which this is the natural birth, gradually making expiation for itself and wearing out..."
"Think now and then that there is a man who would give his life, to keep a life you love beside you."


A Christmas Carol
"There is nothing in the world so irresistibly contagious as laughter and good humor."
"For it is good to be children sometimes, and never better than at Christmas, when its mighty Founder was a child himself"
"No space of regret can make amends for one life's opportunity misused"


Great Expectations
"suffering has been stronger than all other teaching, and has taught me to understand what your heart used to be. I have been bent and broken, but - I hope - into a better shape"
"That was a memorable day to me, for it made great changes in me. But it is the same with any life. Imagine one selected day struck out of it, and think how different its course would have been. Pause you who read this, and think for a moment of the long chain of iron or gold, of thorns or flowers, that would never have bound you, but for the formation of the first link on one memorable day."

David Copperfield
"My meaning simply is, that whatever I have tried to do in life, I have tried with all my heart to do well; that whatever I have devoted myself to, I have devoted myself to completely; that in great aims and in small, I have always been thoroughly in earnest."
"The most important thing in life is to stop saying 'I wish' and start saying 'I will.' Consider nothing impossible, then treat possiblities as probabilities."


Nichlas Nickleby
"Happiness is a gift and the trick is not to expect it,
but to delight in it when it comes"
"The pain of parting is nothing to the joy of meeting again."
"Dreams are the bright creatures of poem and legend, who sport on earth in the night season, and melt away in the first beam of the sun, which lights grim care and stern reality on their daily pilgrimage through the world."

Okay, I think I got a little carried away, but there are only a few of the many quotes from his books that I really like!
I thought that I would do a little research on his life, so here is a very condensed version...
Charles Dickens was born in England, February 7, 1812, the son of John and Elizabeth Dickens.  When he was only 12 years old, his father was put in prison for debts, and so Charles was forced to work at Warren's Blacking Factory in order to pay back the debt. His experience at the factory would emerge most prominently in David Copperfield and Great Expectations. After this, he went to school and then found a job as a free-lance reporter. In 1836 he published Sketches by Boz.  The he began to write The Pickwick Papers, which to every one's surprise became and enormous success. After this, he started a career as a novelist. His career took off and he toured Italy, Switzerland, and France, and wrote furiously.  He died in London in 1870 after suffering from a stroke after working on The Mystery of Edwin Drood for a whole day.  The work was never finished, but it was published that September after his death. 
If you want to read more on Dickens, go to: http://www.victorianweb.org/authors/dickens/dickensbio1.html

The Bells

This is one of our favorite poems, and I know that Kayla wanted to post it, but she is really busy (more than me!) so she said that I could :)

I

Hear the sledges with the bells -
Silver bells!
What a world of merriment their melody foretells!
How they tinkle, tinkle, tinkle,
In the icy air of night!
While the stars that oversprinkle
All the heavens seem to twinkle
With a crystalline delight;
Keeping time, time, time,
In a sort of Runic rhyme,
To the tintinnabulation that so musically wells
From the bells, bells, bells, bells,
Bells, bells, bells -
From the jingling and the tinkling of the bells.

II

Hear the mellow wedding bells -
Golden bells!
What a world of happiness their harmony foretells!
Through the balmy air of night
How they ring out their delight!
From the molten-golden notes,
And all in tune,
What a liquid ditty floats
To the turtle-dove that listens, while she gloats
On the moon!
Oh, from out the sounding cells
What a gush of euphony voluminously wells!
How it swells!
How it dwells
On the Future! -how it tells
Of the rapture that impels
To the swinging and the ringing
Of the bells, bells, bells,
Of the bells, bells, bells, bells,
Bells, bells, bells -
To the rhyming and the chiming of the bells!

III

Hear the loud alarum bells -
Brazen bells!
What a tale of terror, now, their turbulency tells!
In the startled ear of night
How they scream out their affright!
Too much horrified to speak,
They can only shriek, shriek,
Out of tune,
In a clamorous appealing to the mercy of the fire,
In a mad expostulation with the deaf and frantic fire,
Leaping higher, higher, higher,
With a desperate desire,
And a resolute endeavor
Now -now to sit or never,
By the side of the pale-faced moon.
Oh, the bells, bells, bells!
What a tale their terror tells
Of despair!
How they clang, and clash, and roar!
What a horror they outpour
On the bosom of the palpitating air!
Yet the ear it fully knows,
By the twanging
And the clanging,
How the danger ebbs and flows;
Yet the ear distinctly tells,
In the jangling
And the wrangling,
How the danger sinks and swells,
By the sinking or the swelling in the anger of the bells -
Of the bells,
Of the bells, bells, bells, bells,
Bells, bells, bells -
In the clamor and the clangor of the bells!

IV

Hear the tolling of the bells -
Iron bells!
What a world of solemn thought their monody compels!
In the silence of the night,
How we shiver with affright
At the melancholy menace of their tone!
For every sound that floats
From the rust within their throats
Is a groan.
And the people -ah, the people -
They that dwell up in the steeple,
All alone,
And who tolling, tolling, tolling,
In that muffled monotone,
Feel a glory in so rolling
On the human heart a stone -
They are neither man nor woman -
They are neither brute nor human -
They are Ghouls:
And their king it is who tolls;
And he rolls, rolls, rolls,
Rolls
A paean from the bells!
And his merry bosom swells
With the paean of the bells!
And he dances, and he yells;
Keeping time, time, time,
In a sort of Runic rhyme,
To the paean of the bells,
Of the bells -
Keeping time, time, time,
In a sort of Runic rhyme,
To the throbbing of the bells,
Of the bells, bells, bells -
To the sobbing of the bells;
Keeping time, time, time,
As he knells, knells, knells,
In a happy Runic rhyme,
To the rolling of the bells,
Of the bells, bells, bells -
To the tolling of the bells,
Of the bells, bells, bells, bells,
Bells, bells, bells -
To the moaning and the groaning of the bells.

I love this poem by Edgar Allan Poe for his word choice and how when you read it out loud the sound of bells comes through in the tempo and rhyme scheme. I like the first two because they are happy, but the last two are cool because you can really picture it.  Poe does a great job in all of his works at painting a picture in your mind.  Though many of his stories are rather haunting, there are a few like this one that are truly inspirational to me.  I want to write like that some day!

Love of Country Poems

I was flipping through a book that we have on poetry, Read Aloud Poems for Young People, and I found a section called Love of Country.  The first one you may be familiar with entitled The Battle Hymn of the Republic by Julia Ward Howe.

Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord:
He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored;
He hath loosed the fateful lightning of His terrible swift sword:
His truth is marching on.

I have seen Him in the watch-fires of a hundred circling camps,
They have builded Him an altar in the evening dews and damps;
I can read His righteous sentence by the dim and flaring lamps:
His day is marching on.

I have read a fiery gospel writ in burnished rows of steel:
"As ye deal with my contemners, so with you my grace shall deal;
Let the Hero, born of woman, crush the serpent with his heel,
Since God is marching on."

He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call retreat;
He is sifting out the hearts of men before His judgment-seat:
Oh, be swift, my soul, to answer Him! be jubilant, my feet!
Our God is marching on.

In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea,
With a glory in his bosom that transfigures you and me:
As he died to make men holy, let us die to make men free,
While God is marching on.

This was written as a poem and then put to music for the Union Army to sing, and today it is the one of the best known Civil War songs and one of our country's most famous anthems. 
This next poem was written by Walt Whitman, perhaps one of the most radical transcendentalists during the Romantic era of writing, and though I do not agree with his beliefs, this poem, O Captain! My Captain! is very moving.  He wrote this in honor of Abraham Lincoln.  In this poem, he likens the country to a ship and the president to the captain.

O Captain! my Captain! our fearful trip is done;The ship has weathered every rack, the prize we sought is won;The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting,While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring:

But O heart! heart! heart!

O the bleeding drops of red,

Where on the deck my Captain lies,

Fallen cold and dead.

O Captain! my Captain! rise up and hear the bells;Rise up—for you the flag is flung—for you the bugle trills;For you bouquets and ribboned wreaths—for you the shores a-crowding;For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning;

Here Captain! dear father!

This arm beneath your head;

It is some dream that on the deck,

You’ve fallen cold and dead.

My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still;My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will;The ship is anchored safe and sound, its voyage closed and done;From fearful trip, the victor ship, comes in with object won;

Exult, O shores, and ring, O bells!

But I, with mournful tread,

Walk the deck my Captain lies,

Fallen cold and dead.

This final poem was written by John Greenleaf Whittier, also on the Civil War.  This is based off of a true story.


Up from the meadows rich with corn,
Clear in the cool September morn,

The clustered spires of Frederick stand
Green-walled by the hills of Maryland.

Round about them orchards sweep,
Apple and peach tree fruited deep,

Fair as the garden of the Lord
To the eyes of the famished rebel horde,

On that pleasant morn of the early fall
When Lee marched over the mountain-wall;

Over the mountains winding down,
Horse and foot, into Frederick town.

Forty flags with their silver stars,
Forty flags with their crimson bars,

Flapped in the morning wind: the sun
Of noon looked down, and saw not one.

Up rose old Barbara Frietchie then,
Bowed with her fourscore years and ten;

Bravest of all in Frederick town,
She took up the flag the men hauled down;

In her attic window the staff she set,
To show that one heart was loyal yet,

Up the street came the rebel tread,
Stonewall Jackson riding ahead.

Under his slouched hat left and right
He glanced; the old flag met his sight.

'Halt!' - the dust-brown ranks stood fast.
'Fire!' - out blazed the rifle-blast.

It shivered the window, pane and sash;
It rent the banner with seam and gash.

Quick, as it fell, from the broken staff
Dame Barbara snatched the silken scarf.

She leaned far out on the window-sill,
And shook it forth with a royal will.

'Shoot, if you must, this old gray head,
But spare your country's flag,' she said.

A shade of sadness, a blush of shame,
Over the face of the leader came;

The nobler nature within him stirred
To life at that woman's deed and word;

'Who touches a hair of yon gray head
Dies like a dog! March on! he said.

All day long through Frederick street
Sounded the tread of marching feet:

All day long that free flag tost
Over the heads of the rebel host.

Ever its torn folds rose and fell
On the loyal winds that loved it well;

And through the hill-gaps sunset light
Shone over it with a warm good-night.

Barbara Frietchie's work is o'er,
And the Rebel rides on his raids nor more.

Honor to her! and let a tear
Fall, for her sake, on Stonewalls' bier.

Over Barbara Frietchie's grave,
Flag of Freedom and Union, wave!

Peace and order and beauty draw
Round they symbol of light and law;

And ever the stars above look down
On thy stars below in Frederick town!

A Hope to the Hopeless

Today, I decided to post a poem that I wrote for a contest called a "Bully Slam." Several schools competed in poetry, essay, fiction, song, dance, and videography all against bullying in our schools.  The winners read or performed their pieces for parents and teachers (there were probably about 200 people there).  I was really excited to find out that I placed first in High School poetry.  So, here it is :)

I am surrounded by a prison of fear.

Rejection and intimidation reign supreme.

All I want to do is disappear,

Hide in my cave, do nothing but scream.

Nothing is certain; everything is pain,

I think today is the day to wake up from the dream,

I can keep hidden no more, I cannot be contained.

And yet, all I can do is I hide in my cave and do nothing but scream.

If only someone would see me in my pain,

Someone to go against the flow;

Someone to notice and break the chain,

That holds me thus in the status quo.

It took only a word of encouragement,

An understanding glance

To realize that this was something more than utter abandonment,

Something more than living stagnant.

A burst of sunlight shines through the iron grate,

There is a life beyond my prison and cave,

A time to do more than leave it up to fate,

Finally, now is the time to be brave.

This new life, how can I explain?

My prison is demolished, my soul is set free.

There is no reason to go back to the pain,

To go back to the time when all I wanted was to flee.

All I can do now is live in utter joy,

For there is Someone who is willing to save me.

And life I am finally free to enjoy.

This way is much better, and I think you would agree.

One last word to add in closing,

Is you can be that hope to the hopeless.

You can be the sun that is rising.

The question is, will you choose to be all this on your campus?

Happy Birthday Dr. Seuss!

"The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that your learn, the more places you'll go."

-I Can Read With My Eyes Shut

Thank you, Dr. Seuss, for helping me love reading. You opened my imagination at such a young age to wonderful characters and fantastical lands. I can't wait to write classics like yours someday.

:)

Kayla's Thoughts :)

Perhaps you have noticed that every post thus far has been by my incredibly talented sister...

You are correct in your assumption that I have been too busy to write. (Yes, a terrible excuse because she is extremely busy as well.)

So, here I am...about to contribute to this blog about sisters who love literature. :)

I have selected a few poems that I absolutely love, by poets whom I would love to emulate in writing, but never in life.

The first is Emily Dickinson's poem describing a book:

"There is no Frigate like a book

To take us Lands away,

Nor any Coursers like a Page

Of prancing Poetry..."

I absolutely love this poem's word choice. The pictures it paints in my mind is extraordinary and it has stuck with me ever since I heard it my Sophmore year of high school. Books and poems take me on such adventures, and this description is perfect. However, Emily Dickinson's life was one of isolation, and I don't think I could ever live like she did. She only dreamed of places beyond her own house and wrote about it...and if she could create such beauty this way, how much more could I write as I experience different places around the world. What a thought!

I will have to tell you about Edgar Allan Poe's "The Bells" another time. It is one of the most unique and beautiful poems I have ever read (and it is especially fun when read out loud.)

J.R.R. Tolkien- The Lord of the Rings

When Kayla and I were a little older, my dad would read us the Lord of the Rings stories, mostly The Hobbit. The following are excerpts from the series. 
"All that is gold does not glitter,
Not all those who wander are lost;
The old that is strong does not wither,
Deep roots are not reached by the frost.

From the ashes a fire shall be woken,
A light from the shadows shall spring;
Renewed shall be blade that was broken,
The crownless again shall be king."

"Faithless is he that says farewell when the road darkens."

"War must be, while we defend our lives against a destroyer who would devour all; but I do not love the bright sword for its sharpness, nor the arrow for its swiftness, nor the warrior for his glory. I love only that which they defend."

"Living by faith includes the call to something greater than cowardly self-preservation."

"Even the smallest person can change the course of the future."

"It's like in the Great Stories, the ones that really matterd. Full of darkness and danger they were, and sometimes you didn't want to know the end, because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened?

But in the end, it's only a passing thing, this shadow. Even darkness must pass. A new day will come, and when the sun shines, it will shine out the clearer. Those are the stories that stayed with you, that meant something even if you were too young to understand why. But I think I know now. Folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back, only they didn't. They kept going because they were holding on to something-that there's some good in the world, and it's worth fighting for!"

Brief Biography on Tolkien:
He was orphaned as a child but was taken in by a priest.  He was educated at Oxford around 1915, but then was drafted to the army.  Prior to being drafted he joined a club called the TCBS (Tea Club Barrovian Society), and during the war all but Tolkien and one other died. After the war, he returned and became a professor at Oxford college. While a professor, he started a sort of club called the "Inklings" with several of his friends, one of them being C.S. Lewis, who was at least partly responsible for Tolkien's return to Christianity. After this, he continued to write and came out with the Hobbit and then with The Lord of the Rings.  He got so much attention from fans that soon he had to change his address and phone number and eventually moved into the house that he died in in 1973.
(If you want to read the complete biography, a great site is http://www.tolkiensociety.org/)

Victor Hugo- Les Miserables

Les Miserables is by far my favorite book that I have read in school thus far.  I could say a lot about this book, but all that I will say is, READ IT! Well, read the abridged version (becuase it focuses more on the redemption side of the story, and it is more uplifting) unless you like really, really long books :)
Ultimately, this story is one of redemption and sacrifice.  Of one man paying for his sins and then living a changed life where he soon discovers the responsibility of caring for another.
Also, if you want to, the broadway musical is fun to listen to, though there are several songs that are inappropriate, just to warn you!

"An invasion of armies can be resisted, but not an idea whose time has come."

"The quantity of civilization is measured by the quality of imagination."

This is my all time favorite song from the musical called "Empty Chairs at Empty Tables"

MARIUS
There's a grief that can't be spoken.
There's a pain goes on and on.
Empty chairs at empty tables
Now my friends are dead and gone.

Here they talked of revolution.
Here it was they lit the flame.
Here they sang about `tomorrow'
And tomorrow never came.

From the table in the corner
They could see a world reborn
And they rose with voices ringing
I can hear them now!
The very words that they had sung
Became their last communion
On the lonely barricade at dawn.

Oh my friends, my friends forgive me

(The ghosts of those who died on the barricade appear)

That I live and you are gone.
There's a grief that can't be spoken.
There's a pain goes on and on.

Phantom faces at the window.
Phantom shadows on the floor.
Empty chairs at empty tables
Where my friends will meet no more.

(The ghosts fade away)

Oh my friends, my friends, don't ask me
What your sacrifice was for
Empty chairs at empty tables
Where my friends will sing no more.

 

 

George Macdonald

George MacDonald has been one of my favorite authors since about the fourth grade when I read At the Back of the North Wind for a reading contest.  Since then I have read The Princess and Curdie, The Princess and the Goblin, The Day Boy and the Night Girl, and the Light Princess.
The Princess and the Goblin was probably one of my favorite books, so here are a couple excerpts from it.
"Seeing is not believing - it is only seeing."
"Here I should like to remark, for the sake of princes and princesses in general, that it is a low and contemptible thing to refuse to confess a fault, or even an error. If a true princess has done wrong, she is always uneasy until she has had an opportunity of throwing the wrongness away from her by saying: 'I did it; and I wish I had not; and I am sorry for having done it."
"It is when people do wrong things wilfully that they are the more likely to do them again."
"It was foolish indeed - thus to run farther and farther from all who could help her, as if she had been seeking a fit spot for the goblin creature to eat her in at his leisure; but that is the way fear serves us: it always sides with the thing we are afraid of."
I was very interested to find out that George MacDonald was one of CS Lewis' inspirations for writing.  No wonder I like them both!

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Longfellow has been one of my favorite poets since 6th grade when my class had to memorize the Midnight Ride of Paul Revere and then present it. Even though he was a Unitarian and had some odd beliefs, some of his poems bring happiness.  This poem is called The Children's Hour...


Between the dark and the daylight,
When the night is beginning to lower,
Comes a pause in the day's occupations,
That is known as the Children's Hour.

I hear in the chamber above me
The patter of little feet,
The sound of a door that is opened,
And voices soft and sweet.

From my study I see in the lamplight,
Descending the broad hall stair,
Grave Alice, and laughing Allegra,
And Edith with golden hair.

A whisper, and then a silence:
Yet I know by their merry eyes
They are plotting and planning together
To take me by surprise.

A sudden rush from the stairway,
A sudden raid from the hall!
By three doors left unguarded
They enter my castle wall!

They climb up into my turret
O'er the arms and back of my chair;
If I try to escape, they surround me;
They seem to be everywhere.

They almost devour me with kisses,
Their arms about me entwine,
Till I think of the Bishop of Bingen
In his Mouse-Tower on the Rhine!

Do you think, o blue-eyed banditti,
Because you have scaled the wall,
Such an old mustache as I am
Is not a match for you all!

I have you fast in my fortress,
And will not let you depart,
But put you down into the dungeon
In the round-tower of my heart.

And there will I keep you forever,
Yes, forever and a day,
Till the walls shall crumble to ruin,
And moulder in dust away!

C.S. Lewis

It seemed appropriate to start with and excerpt from C.S.Lewis...this is the last paragraph from the book The Last Battle.
"And as He spoke He no longer looked to them like a lion; but the things that began to happen after that were so great and beautiful that I cannot write them.  And for us this is the end of all the stories, and we can most truly say that they all lived happily ever after.  But for them it was only the beginning of the real story. All their life in this world and all their adventures in Narnia had only been the cover and the title page: now at last they were beginning Chapter One of the Great Story which no one on earth has read: which goes on forever: in which every chapter is better than the one before."

This one is from Mere Christianity...

"Imagine yourself as a living house. God comes in to rebuild that house. At first, perhaps, you can understand what He is doing. He is getting the drains right and stopping the leaks in the roof and so on; you knew that those jobs needed doing and so you are not surprised. But presently He starts knocking the house about in a way that hurts abominably and does not seem to make any sense. What on earth is He up to? The explanation is that He is building quite a different house from the one you thought of - throwing out a new wing here, putting on an extra floor there, running up towers, making courtyards. You thought you were being made into a decent little cottage: but He is building a palace. He intends to come and live in it Himself." 

C.S. Lewis has always been one of my favorite writers.  His stories, like the Narnia series, are written for children, yet they have a deeper meaning that often times children would miss.  He has a unique way of appealing to children as well as adults through his writing.

Behind our Title

Words create.  God spoke the words, "Let there be light" and there was light.  He spoke the earth into being.  We believe that our words have power too.  The power to speak life or death.  This quote by Emily Dickenson is so true in this regard.
Our goal is to always speak life-giving words, and that is what you will find on our blog. 

Beginning

Ever since we were little girls, listening to our Dad read the Narnia series, we have always loved reading.  When we were a little older, we would read to each other, and now, we wish to bring you, our audience, into our love of reading. From Edgar Allan Poe to J.R.R. Tolkien, from poetry to prose, our goal is to make you as passionate about literature as we are. We seek to do more than to entertain; we seek to find our inspiration from the Creator.