The Rooster's Rhyme: An Anonymous Nursery Rhyme

"Angus lost a shoe not far from the folly. Alethea vanished from a picnic. Albert left for Peru." So wrote Edward Gorey in The Helpless Doorknob: A Shuffled Story (1989), a pack of twenty cards featuring his finely detailed, enigmatic art and text. I based my selection and arrangement of the three sentences by Edward Gorey that I quoted above on the following anonymous nursery rhyme:


Cock-a-doodle-doo!
My dame has lost her shoe,
My master's lost his fiddlestick,
And knows not what to do.

Cock-a-doodle-doo!
What is my dame to do?
Till master finds his fiddlestick,
She'll dance without her shoe.

Cock-a-doodle-doo!
My dame has found her shoe,
My master's found his fiddlestick.
Sing doodle-doodle-doo!

Cock-a-doodle-doo!
My dame will dance with you,
While master fiddles his fiddlestick
For dame and doodle-doo.

"I Never Knew You": A Poem of Jesus Christ

David the psalmist wrote, "Depart from me, all ye workers of iniquity; for the Lord hath heard the voice of my weeping" (Psalm 6:8, King James Version).


I NEVER KNEW YOU
A Poem of Jesus Christ
from the Bible: Matthew 7:21-23 (King James Version)

Not every one that saith unto me, "Lord, Lord,"
Shall enter into the kingdom of heaven;
But he that doeth the will of my Father
Which is in heaven.
Many will say to me in that day, "Lord, Lord,
Have we not prophesied in thy name?
And in thy name have cast out devils?
And in thy name done many wonderful works?"
And then will I profess unto them,
"I never knew you:
Depart from me, ye that work iniquity."

An Observation by Henry David Thoreau on 2 February 1854

On this day (Groundhog Day) in 1854, Henry David Thoreau wrote the following observation in his journal:

Already we begin to anticipate spring, and this is an important difference between this time and a month ago. We begin to say that the day is springlike.
     Is not January the hardest month to get through? When you have weathered that, you get into the gulf stream of winter, nearer the shores of spring.

Source: Daily Observations: Thoreau on the Days of the Year (2005), edited by Steve Grant

Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862)

An Observation by Henry David Thoreau on 28 October 1853

On this day in 1853, Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862) wrote the following observation in his journal:

For a year or two past, my publisher, falsely so called, has been writing from time to time to ask what disposition should be made of the copies of "A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers" still on hand, and at last suggesting that he had use for the room they occupied in his cellar. So I had them all sent to me here, and they have arrived to-day by express, filling the man's wagon, -- 706 copies out of an edition of 1000. . . . I have now a library of nearly nine hundred volumes, over seven hundred of which I wrote myself. Is it not well that the author should behold the fruits of his labor?

Source: Daily Observations: Thoreau on the Days of the Year (2005), edited by Steve Grant

Henry David Thoreau

An Anonymous Thought from the Mountains: A Bit of Poetry

Well, early in autumn, at first winter-warning,
When the stag had to break with his foot, of a morning,
A drinking-hole out of the fresh tender ice
That covered the pond till the sun, in a trice,
Loosening it, let out a ripple of gold,
And another and another, and faster and faster . . .

Source: Thoughts from the Mountains (Heartland Samplers, Inc., 1992)

Prayer of Columbus

On this day in 1492 (according to the Old Style Calendar), Christopher Columbus's expedition arrived in the present-day Bahamas. Here is the poem that Walt Whitman wrote, in the first person, about Christopher Columbus. To read an article about this poem, click here.


PRAYER OF COLUMBUS
from Leaves of Grass (1892)
by Walt Whitman

A batter'd, wreck'd old man,
Thrown on this savage shore, far, far from home,
Pent by the sea and dark rebellious brows, twelve dreary months,
Sore, stiff with many toils, sicken'd and nigh to death,
I take my way along the island's edge,
Venting a heavy heart.

I am too full of woe!
Haply I may not live another day;
I cannot rest O God, I cannot eat or drink or sleep,
Till I put forth myself, my prayer, once more to Thee,
Breathe, bathe myself once more in Thee, commune with Thee,
Report myself once more to Thee.

Thou knowest my years entire, my life,
My long and crowded life of active work, not adoration merely;
Thou knowest the prayers and vigils of my youth,
Thou knowest my manhood's solemn and visionary meditations,
Thou knowest how before I commenced I devoted all to come to Thee,
Thou knowest I have in age ratified all those vows and strictly kept them,
Thou knowest I have not once lost nor faith nor ecstasy in Thee,
In shackles, prison'd, in disgrace, repining not,
Accepting all from Thee, as duly come from Thee.

All my emprises have been fill'd with Thee,
My speculations, plans, begun and carried on in thoughts of Thee,
Sailing the deep or journeying the land for Thee;
Intentions, purports, aspirations mine, leaving results to Thee.

O I am sure they really came from Thee,
The urge, the ardor, the unconquerable will,
The potent, felt, interior command, stronger than words,
A message from the Heavens whispering to me even in sleep,
These sped me on.

By me and these the work so far accomplish'd,
By me earth's elder cloy'd and stifled lands uncloy'd, unloos'd,
By me the hemispheres rounded and tied, the unknown to the known.

The end I know not, it is all in Thee,
Or small or great I know not -- haply what broad fields, what lands,
Haply the brutish measureless human undergrowth I know,
Transplanted there may rise to stature, knowledge worthy Thee,
Haply the swords I know may there indeed be turn'd to reaping-tools,
Haply the lifeless cross I know, Europe's dead cross, may bud and blossom there.

One effort more, my altar this bleak sand;
That Thou O God my life hast lighted,
With ray of light, steady, ineffable, vouchsafed of Thee,
Light rare untellable, lighting the very light,
Beyond all signs, descriptions, languages;
For that O God, be it my latest word, here on my knees,
Old, poor, and paralyzed, I thank Thee.

My terminus near,
The clouds already closing in upon me,
The voyage balk'd the course disputed, lost,
I yield my ships to Thee.

My hands, my limbs grow nerveless,
My brain feels rack'd, bewilder'd,
Let the old timbers part, I will not part,
I will cling fast to Thee, O God, though the waves buffet me,
Thee, Thee at least I know.

Is it the prophet's thought I speak, or am I raving?
What do I know of life? what of myself?
I know not even my own work past or present,
Dim ever-shifting guesses of it spread before me,
Of newer better worlds, their mighty parturition,
Mocking, perplexing me.

And these things I see suddenly, what mean they?
As if some miracle, some hand divine unseal'd my eyes,
Shadowy vast shapes smile through the air and sky,
And on the distant waves sail countless ships,
And anthems in new tongues I hear saluting me.