Our Mother Tongue
When the
English tongue we speak
Why is break not rhymed with
beak?
Will you tell me why it's true
We say sew but
likewise few?
And the maker of a verse
Cannot rhyme his
horse with worse,
Beard sounds not the same as heard,
Lord
is different from word.
Cow is like bow and low like
bow,
Shoe is never rhymed with foe.
Think of hose and
close and lose
And of goose, but yet of choose,
Think of
comb and tomb and bomb,
Doll and roll and home and
some.
Then there's bough and cough and dough,
Thought
and laugh, broach and bow.
And since pay is rhymed with
say,
Why not paid with said, I pray?
We have blood and
food and good,
Mould is not pronounced like
could.
Wherefore done, but gone and lone?
Is there any
reason known?
And in short it seems to me
Sounds and
letters just don't agree!
I take it you already
know
Of tough and bough and cough and dough"
Others
may stumble, but not you,
At hiccough, thorough, laugh and
through?
Well done: And now you wish, perhaps
To learn of
less familiar traps?
Beware of heard, a dreadful word
That
looks like beard and sounds like bird,
And dead: it's
said like bed not bead-
For goodness sake don't call it
deed.
Watch out for meat and great and threat
They rhyme
with suite and straight and debt.
A moth is not a moth in
mother
Nor both in bother, broth in brother,
And here is
not a match for there,
Nor dear and fear for bear and
pear,
And then there's dose and rose and lose -
Just
look them up - and goose and choose,
And cork and work and
card and ward,
And front and font and word and sword,
And
do and go and thwart and cart -
Come, come I've hardly
made a start!
A dreadful language? Man alive
And yet
I'd mastered it by five!
Anon
from
Kahlil Gibran
Here I am, beautiful Death.
Receive my
spirit, reality of my dreams
and substance of my
hopes.
Embrace me, beloved of my soul, for you
are
merciful and will not abandon me.
You are the messenger of
the gods.
You are the right hand of truth.
Leave me
not.
How long have I sought you without finding,
and
called upon you, and you hearkened not!
But now you have
heard me, therefore
do not meet my love with
shunning.
Embrace my soul, my beloved Death.
For
Rudolf Steiner
Christian Morgenstern
translated by
M.H.
Just as a man, on a dreary day, may forget the
sun,
though ceaselessly it shines and radiates,
so may we
on a dreary day be forgetful of you,
until again, and even
yet again,
sheltered and blinded we must rediscover
how
inexhaustibly and on, and on, and on
your solar spirit
on
us, dark wanderers, shines.
Celtic Rune
anon
King
of the Elements, Love Father of Bliss
In my pilgrimage from
airt to airt
May each evil be a good to me
May each sorrow
be a joy to me
And may thy son my foster brother be
And
may thy son my foster brother be.
Holy Spirit of light
I a
pilgrim throughout the night
Lave my heart pure as the
stars
Lave my heart pure as the stars
Nor fear I then the
spells of evil
The spells of evil.
Jesu, Son of the Virgin
pure
Be thou my pilgrim's staff throughout the
lands
Throughout the lands
Thy love in all my
thoughts
They likeness in my face
May my heart warm to
others
And thy heart warm to me
For the love of the love
of Thee
For the love of the love of Thee.
Standing
Before a Gentian Flower
Robert Hammerling
I found the
fairest gentian flower
Blooming alone deep down in a cool
ravine.
Oh, how its rich blue blossoms shimmered
Up
through the dense pine scrub.
Along the well worn path I
come
Day by day in my wanderings
Climbing down the
ravine
To gaze into the heart of that fair
flower...
Beautiful blossom, why do you tremble
So shyly,
so in fear before me
In the motionless air?
Is, then, the
human eye not worthy
To gaze into a flower face?
Or is the
human breath so rank
That it must dim the holy peace
In
which you breathe?
Ah, mortal breast is evermore
oppressed
By guilt and nagging self reproach, while you, oh
blossom,
You rock your petalled crown in heavenly
innocence
But do not look upon me with too much
reproach!
See, I have this advantage over you:
I have
lived,
I have struggled,
I have wept,
I have loved, I
have hated,
I have hoped, I have shuddered,
The thorny
pricks of agony, of ecstasy
Have burrowed in my flesh.
And
all the terrors of Life and of Death
Have flooded through my
senses.
I have played with choiring angels
And I have
wrestled with demons.
You rest in peace, a dreaming
child,
At the hem of God's vast mantle, but I,
I have
battled my way to his heart,
I have torn at his veils,
I
have called him by his name,
I have climbed up
On a ladder
of sighs
And I have shouted in his ear: h a v e m e r c
y!
Oh flower, you are hallowed,
Blessed and pure,
But
does not the shattering stroke of fate
Hallow and bless by
its touch?
Oh do not look upon me with too much
reproach,
You quiet dreamer:
I have lived, I have
suffered!
