Friday, May 19, 2023

Orange Moon Friday, May 19, 2023 "Soulflingers"

The Special of the Day… From the Orange Moon Cafe…


(a repeat from 2017, which includes my longtime favorite poem, "The Darkling Thrush," by Thomas Hardy, and my response)



"Soulflingers       

    

"The Darkling Thrush"

Thomas Hardy

(December 31, 1900)

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.



"To Fling Our Souls"

(November 27, 2017)

As the thrush of long ago,
who seemed to have no cause
to fling his battered heart and soul,
to sound a joyful voice,

The song of the redeemed
rings through a darkened realm.
Its bells of joy 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 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 grateful thanks and praise.

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



"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
    If God be for us, who can be against us?
(Romans 8:31)

























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