The Wayfaring Stranger

THE WAYFARING STRANGER

Anonymous

I am a poor wayfaring stranger,

While traveling through this world below;

There is no sickness, toil, nor danger

In that bright world to which I go.

I'm going there to meet my father,

I'm going there no more to roam;

I am just going over Jordan,

I am just going over home.

I know dark clouds will gather o'er me,

I know my pathway's rough and steep;

But golden fields lie out before me,

Where weary eyes no more shall weep.

I'm going there to see my mother,

She said she'd meet me when I come;

I am just going over Jordan,

I am just going over home.

I want to sing salvation's story

In concert with the blood-washed hand;

I want to wear a crown of glory,

When I get home to that good land.

I'm going there to see my classmates,

Who passed before me one by one;

I am just going over Jordan,

I am just going over home.

I'll soon be free from every trial,

This form will rest beneath the sod;

I'll drop the cross of self-denial,

And enter in my home with God.

I'm going there to see my Saviour,

Who shed for me His precious blood;

I am just going over Jordan,

I am just going over home.

Source: The Broadman Hymnal (Copyright 1940 Broadman Press)

Here is a music video of Angel City Chorale singing an arrangement of the American spiritual "The Wayfaring Stranger."

Bees Were Better

In 2017 in his introduction to Column 661 of American Life in Poetry, Ted Kooser, who served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006, wrote in part, "The University of Minnesota Press has published a fine collection of bee poems, If Bees Are Few. Here's one by one of my favorite poets, Naomi Shihab Nye, who lives in San Antonio. . . . "

"In college, people were always breaking up." So begins Naomi Shihab Nye's poem "Bees Were Better" (2008). To read that poem in its entirety, click here.

Image above by Neha Singh from Pixabay

Look

In "All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten" (1986), the essay of his that became a classic, Robert Fulghum wrote in part, "And then remember the Dick-and-Jane books and the first word you learned -- the biggest word of all -- LOOK." In his poem "The Starlight Night" (reprinted below) Gerard Manley Hopkins used the word look seven times.

THE STARLIGHT NIGHT

by Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844-1889)

Look at the stars! look, look up at the skies!

    O look at all the fire-folk sitting in the air!

    The bright boroughs, the circle-citadels there!

Down in dim woods the diamond delves! the elves'-eyes!

The grey lawns cold where gold, where quickgold lies!

    Wind-beat whitebeam! airy abeles set on a flare!

    Flake-doves sent floating forth at a farmyard scare! --

Ah well! it is all a purchase, all is a prize.

Buy then! bid then! -- What? -- Prayer, patience, alms, vows.

Look, look: a May-mess, like on orchard boughs!

    Look! March-bloom, like on mealed-with-yellow sallows!

These are indeed the barn; withindoors house

The shocks. This piece-bright paling shuts the spouse

    Christ home, Christ and his mother and all his hallows.

The First Dandelion

THE FIRST DANDELION

from Leaves of Grass (1892) by Walt Whitman

Simple and fresh and fair from winter's close emerging,

As if no artifice of fashion, business, politics, had ever been,

Forth from its sunny nook of shelter'd grass -- innocent, golden, calm as the dawn,

The spring's first dandelion shows its trustful face.

Image by Markus Koch from Pixabay

A Haiku for Leap Day

A lonely pond in age-old stillness sleeps . . .

    Apart, unstirred by sound or motion . . . till

Suddenly into it a lithe frog leaps.

    --Basho (1644-1694)

      (Translated, from the Japanese, by Curtis Hidden Page, 1923)

Portrait of Basho by Hokusai, late 18th century

A Chip on His Shoulder

A CHIP ON HIS SHOULDER

Author Unknown

He always has something to grumble about,

    Has the man with a chip on his shoulder;

The world to the dogs is going, no doubt,

    To the man with a chip on his shoulder;

The clouds are too dark, the sun is too bright.

No matter what happens, it is never right;

When peace is prevailing he is spoiling to fight,

    The man with a chip on his shoulder.

A portrait of R. (which could stand for rogue),

a man with a chip on his shoulder

(and "The Devil's Idiot")

Photo copyright 2005 Evelyn M. Gilmer