From "The Excellencies of God's Law" (Psalm 119:169-176)

FROM "THE EXCELLENCIES OF GOD'S LAW"
from the Bible: Psalm 119:169-176 (King James Version)

Let my cry come near before thee, O Lord:
Give me understanding according to thy word.
Let my supplication come before thee:
Deliver me according to thy word.
My lips shall utter praise,
When thou hast taught me thy statutes.
My tongue shall speak of thy word:
For all thy commandments are righteousness.
Let thine hand help me;
For I have chosen thy precepts.
I have longed for thy salvation, O Lord;
And thy law is my delight.
Let my soul live, and it shall praise thee;
And let thy judgments help me.
I have gone astray like a lost sheep:
Seek thy servant;
For I do not forget thy commandments.

From "The Excellencies of God's Law" (Psalm 119:161-168)

FROM "THE EXCELLENCIES OF GOD'S LAW"
from the Bible: Psalm 119:161-168 (King James Version
and New Revised Standard Version)

Princes have persecuted me without a cause:
But my heart standeth in awe of thy word.
I rejoice at thy word,
As one that findeth great spoil.
I hate and abhor lying:
But thy law do I love.
Seven times a day do I praise thee,
Because of thy righteous judgments.
Great peace have they which love thy law:
And nothing shall [make] them [stumble].
Lord, I have hoped for thy salvation,
And done thy commandments.
My soul hath kept thy testimonies;
And I love them exceedingly.
I have kept thy precepts and thy testimonies:
For all my ways are before thee.

A Haiku by Kobayashi Issa

Don't get alarmed,

you corner spiders.

I won't touch your webs.

-- Kobayashi Issa (1763-1827),
who kept house casually

(Translated, from the Japanese, by Max Bickerton)

Source: The Classic Tradition of Haiku: An Anthology (1996),

edited by Faubion Bowers

Sonnet 59 by William Shakespeare

Sonnet 59: "If there be nothing new, but that which is"
by William Shakespeare

If there be nothing new, but that which is
Hath been before, how are our brains beguiled,
Which, laboring for invention, bear amiss
The second burden of a former child!
Oh that record could with a backward look,
Even of five hundred courses of the sun,
Show me your image in some antique book,
Since mind at first in character was done:
That I might see what the old world could say
To this composed wonder of your frame;
Whether we are mended, or whe'er better they,
Or whether revolution be the same.
   Oh, sure I am the wits of former days
   To subjects worse have given admiring praise.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616)

English dramatist and poet

Poetry: Two Quotations about November

From NO!
by Thomas Hood

No warmth, no cheerfulness, no healthful ease,
   No comfortable feel in any member --
No shade, no shine, no butterflies, no bees,
   No fruits, no flowers, no leaves, no birds, --
      November!


From CALENDAR OF HAIKU*
by Jane Merchant

NOVEMBER

Gray day of no blooms
Save briefly, just before dark,
Chrysanthemum sun.

*Source: Together magazine, January 1972

"November Night" by Adelaide Crapsey

NOVEMBER NIGHT
A cinquain by Adelaide Crapsey (1878-1914)

Listen . . .
With faint dry sound,
Like steps of passing ghosts,
The leaves, frost-crisp'd, break from the trees
And fall.


Source: Verse (1915) by Adelaide Crapsey

Adelaide Crapsey

American poet