Thoughts of the Day
- To: i*@onelist.com
- Subject: Thoughts of the Day
- From: H*@aol.com
- Date: Fri, 31 Dec 1999 13:49:05 EST
From: HIPSource@aol.com
Greetings,
One feels, somehow, that thoughts should be placed into the record of our
forum to mark this remarkable time we are experiencing.
It would be trite to observe that this has been a century of astonishments
throughout the entire scope of human experience, but I may, I think, here in
this forum where we, a group of enormous diversity meet to share a common
rapture, suggest we pause, remember, and salute the wonders wrought within
these years by all those before us who were similarly enraptured: the
scientists, the scholars, the hybridizers, the visionaries, the connoisseurs,
the popularizers, and, always and forever, the dirt gardeners. Let the toast
be "To absent friends."
Very much moved by photographs of the first sunrise of the New Year breaking
and shimmering over the Pacific, I would like to share a nice iris poem.
IRIS: FLEUR DE LUCE
By W.H.W. Bliss
November, 1921
From AIS Bulletin Number 6, October 1922
Flower of light! who gave thee first that name
Saw clear thy flower soul through purple prism bars,
Lifting thy threefold standard to the stars,
Poised, perfect, still,--like an arrested flame,
A carven prayer all luminous, thou art
Part human flower and winged Archangel part.
Flower of light! Fair prism that disparts
But to remake the Sun's too sovereign light,
Tempering his blinding, incandescent white
In Iris colours to our human sight,
Filling with uncummunicable joys our hearts;--
As the arched splendours of God's rainbow, blent,
Make the white glory of His firmament.
Flower of light! Emblem of Hope, that calls,
With lifted arms to Heaven, but still lets down
The curved beauties of thy triple gown
To Earth: as we too, reaching to a crown
Hold fast to human love, so thy soft velvet falls,
Emblem of Faith and Hope and Charity
That, rooted still in Earth, still clasps Eternity.
Flower of light! In thine arched petals dwells
The curve that yet no painter ever drew,
The secret beauty of the Heart of things;
That Hogarth sought and Leonardo knew
Beyond their mortal reach;--like distant bells
Heard on awakening, dream imagings
Clasped at and gone, that ever must elude
Man's dear desire and mock his pencil crude.
Flower of light! Who knows if fables old
First gave Olympus' messenger thy name
Or gave thee hers;--but this I know--there came
Down the arch'd bow in multicoloured flame,
To star our Earth with purple and with gold
Thy beauty;--for a breath of Heaven yet clings
About they robes, and thy translucent stillness brings
Faint Seraph songs, half heard, and winnowings of wings.
With fond regards,
Anner
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