“Soulflingers”

(Friends: Well, it's that time again.  It's been nearly two years since I sent to you my favorite poem, "The Darkling Thrush," by Thomas Hardy.   This time, you'll find something extra, something you might call a poetic response.  This one is for Jay and Randy, and for all who "fling their souls upon the growing gloom."  Glen)

"Soulflingers"

"The Darkling Thrush"

Thomas Hardy

I leant upon a coppice gate

when Frost was specter-grey,

and Winter's dregs made desolate

the weakening eye of day.

The tangled bine-stems scored the sky

 like strings of broken lyres,

and all mankind that haunted nigh

had sought their household fires.

The land's sharp features seemed to be

the Century's corpse outleant,

his crypt the cloudy canopy,

the wind his death-lament.

The ancient pulse of germ and birth

was shrunken hard and dry,

and every spirit upon earth

seemed fervorless as I.

At once, a voice arose among

the bleak twigs overhead,

in a full-hearted evensong

of joy illimited.

An aged thrush, frail, gaunt, and small,

in blast-beruffled plume,

had chosen thus to fling his soul

upon the growing gloom.

So little cause for carolings

of such ecstatic sound,

was written on terrestrial things

afar or nigh around,

That I could think there trembled through

his happy good-night air

some blessed Hope, whereof he knew,

and I was unaware.

(December 31, 1900)

"To Fling Our Souls"

Like the thrush of long ago,

who seemed to have no cause

for raising battered heart and soul

to sound a joyful voice,

The song of the redeemed

rings through a darkened realm.

Its bells of worship sing,

It's truth sublimely tells

The glory of a Savior

worthy of all praise,

the story of redemption,

the wonder of His grace.

How can we sing?  How can we not

in the light of His dear face?

For like the thrush of long ago,

a blessed Hope conveys

The Light that shines in darkness,

the splendor of His ways.

We join the thrush to fling our souls 

 in joy and grateful praise.

"An aged thrush, frail, gaunt, and small…"

(November 27, 2017)

"And the multitude rose up together against them: and the magistrates rent off their clothes, and commanded to beat them. And when they had laid many stripes upon them, they cast them into prison, charging the jailor to keep them safely: who, having received such a charge, thrust them into the inner prison, and made their feet fast in the stocks. And at midnight Paul and Silas prayed, and sang praises unto God: and the prisoners heard them."

(Acts 16:22-25)

Weekly Memory Verse

    Now unto the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise God, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen.

(I Timothy 1:17)