IN EXTREMIS

 John Updike 1932-2009

I saw my toes the other day.

I hadn't looked at them for months.

Indeed, they might have passed away.

And yet they were my best friends once.

When I was small, I knew them well.

I counted on them up to ten

And put them in my mouth to tell

The larger from the lesser. Then

I loved them better than my ears,

My elbows, adenoids, and heart.

But with the swelling of the years

We drifted, toes and I, apart.

Now, gnarled and pale, each said, j'accuse!

I hid them quickly in my shoes.

-o0o-

DO YOU HEAR THE CHILDREN WEEPING?

Elizabeth Barrett Browning 1806-61

Do you hear the children weeping, O my brothers,

Ere the sorrow comes with years?

They are leaning their young heads against their mothers,

And that cannot stop their tears.

The young lambs are bleating in the meadows,

The young birds are chirping in the nest,

The young fawns are playing with the shadows,

The young flowers are blowing toward the west:

But the young, young children, O my brothers,

They are weeping bitterly!

They are weeping in the playtime of the others,

In the country of the free.

“For oh,” say the children, “we are weary,

And we cannot run or leap;

If we cared for any meadows, it were merely

To drop down in them and sleep.

Our knees tremble sorely in the stooping,

We fall upon our faces, trying to go;

And, underneath our heavy eyelids drooping,

The reddest flower would look as pale as snow.

For, all day, we drag our burden tiring

Through the coal-dark, underground,

Or, all day, we drive the wheels of iron

In the factories, round and round.

They look up with their pale and sunken faces,

And their look is dread to see,

For they mind you of their angels in high places,

With eyes turned on Deity.

“How long,” they say, “how long, O cruel nation,

Will you stand, to move the world, on a child’s heart,—

Stifle down with a mailed heel its palpitation,

And tread onward to your throne amid the mart?

Our blood splashes upward, O gold-heaper,

And your purple shows your path!

But the child’s sob in the silence curses deeper

Than the strong man in his wrath.”

[The above is part of “The Cry of the Children” a poem of 13 verses. It was written at the time "when government investigations had exposed the exploitation of children employed in coal mines and factories."]

-o0o-

LUCY
William Wordsworth 1770-1850

She dwelt among the untrodden ways
Beside the springs of Dove,
A Maid whom there were none to praise
And very few to love:

A violet by a mossy stone
Half hidden from the eye!
Fair as a star, when only one
Is shining in the sky.

She lived unknown, and few could know
When Lucy ceased to be;
But she is in her grave, and, oh,
The difference to me!

-o0o-

"HOPE" IS THE THING WITH FEATHERS
Emily Dickinson 1830-86

“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.

-o0o-

THE LANDSCAPES OF THE HUDSON RIVER SCHOOL
The new blog begins tomorrow
http://thelandscapesofthehudsonriverschool.blogspot.com

-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-