"Spring and Fall," by G. M. Hopkins

Today we continue a series of poems begun earlier this year, in an effort to bring more poetry into our lives.  My first real introduction to Gerard Manley Hopkins came at my wife's suggestion, by way of Ron Hansen's historical novel, Exiles.  A Catholic convert - received into the Church by none other than John Henry Newman - and a Jesuit priest, Hopkins was also one of the great poets of his day, though his fame was mostly posthumous.  One of the reasons I value this poem, and think it worth sharing here, is that it comes more alive - in sound and in meaning - with repeated readings.  (Out loud is really best; for a while it sat above our kitchen sink, where I would quietly recite it while doing dishes.)


Spring and Fall

to a young child

Márgarét, áre you gríeving
Over Goldengrove unleaving?
Leáves like the things of man, you
With your fresh thoughts care for, can you?
Ah! ás the heart grows older
It will come to such sights colder
By and by, nor spare a sigh
Though worlds of wanwood leafmeal lie;
And yet you wíll weep and know why.
Now no matter, child, the name:
Sórrow’s spríngs áre the same.
Nor mouth had, no nor mind, expressed
What heart heard of, ghost guessed:
It ís the blight man was born for,
It is Margaret you mourn for.

Happy Solemnity of Joseph, Husband of Mary!

God, our Father,

You willed that St. Joseph,

Spouse of the Virgin Mother of God,

should adore his Redeemer

in a humble stable and

rescue the Child Jesus from deadly peril.

Following his example

and by his intercession,

may Your Church cling

to the Virgin Mary in love

and constantly watch over the unfolding

of the mysteries of human salvation,

whose beginnings You entrusted

to his faithful care.

We ask this through Christ our Lord.

Amen.

Today's image is Gerrit van Honthorst's Childhood of Christ.

St. Patrick's Day

On St. Patrick's Day this year we mourn the death, and pray for the soul, of Liam O'Flynn, a great piper who died on March 14. O'Flynn came from a musical family--his father played the fiddle, and his mother piano--and from an early age he learned to play the uillean pipes under the tutelage of Leo Rowsome and Seamus Ennis, two pipers who had kept the Irish piping tradition alive in the early 1900's.



O'Flynn became well known through his work with the band Planxty. O'Flynn gave Planxty credibility as a traditional music group--his fellow band members came more from the ballad and folk singing traditions--but at the same time he learned to adopt the pipes to accompany some of the non-Irish songs Planxty performed. O'Flynn also stood out in Planxty for being far more soft-spoken and far less emotional than his bandmates; he was always seated in the middle of the stage and only occasionally swayed a little to his music or cracked a smile. In the following video, though, O'Flynn demonstrates his skill on two slip jigs and ending with a classic piping jig (starting at 3:50), "The Yellow Wattle":



Later in his career, O'Flynn continued to show how flexible a musician was, becoming the first piper to record with an orchestra while working on several pieces with Shaun Davey. He also collaborated with poet Seamus Heaney in setting poetry to music; he later played a lament at Heaney's funeral.



But, in the end, O'Flynn will be remembered as a great piper and, by all accounts, a kind and gentle man.