I share Tennyson’s wonderful poem “Crossing the Bar” in memory of an old Navy friend who died this past week.
Tag Archives: Alfred Lord Tennyson
This Is the Golden Morning of Love
A wedding poem seems appropriate for June. Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s lovely “Marriage Morning” draws me, maybe because it captures some of the anxieties of the wedding day and not just the joys.
Dear Son, Far Off, My Lost Desire
I understand more with each passing year what Tennyson means when he says his love “is vaster passion now” and how Hallam is thoroughly mixed with God and nature. Tennyson goes on to say that the moral will of humankind—the “living will” that is the best part of ourselves as a people—can finding footing on this spiritual rock. And that the living water that springs from this rock will “flow through our deeds and make them pure.”
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged death of a child, Easter, In Memoriam, Julia Bates, Religion, Spirituality Comments closed
Rogers No Longer in Odysseus’ Shadow
Sports Saturday Something memorable occurred last Sunday in Dallas in addition to the Green Bay Packers bringing “Vince Lombardi home” in their Super Bowl victory over the Pittsburgh Steelers. Quarterback Aaron Rogers stepped out of the shadow of a legend. The literary equivalent that comes to mind is Homer’s Telemachus, but Rogers is Telemachus with […]
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Aaron Rogers, Brett Favre, Football Green Bay Packers, Homer, Odyssey, Sports, Ulysses Comments closed
Peyton Manning as Moby Dick?!
Sports Saturday In anticipation of football’s “Wild Card Weekend,” which begins today, I see that a sports writer has invoked Herman Melville’s masterpiece. Dan Graziano believes that Indianapolis Colt quarterback Peyton Manning has become Rex Ryan’s Moby Dick. He has beaten the New York Jets coach so many times that Ryan has become obsessed with […]
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged "Fuzzy-Wuzzy", East of Eden, Football, Herman Melville, John Steinbeck, Jungle Books, Moby Dick, Rudyard Kipling, Sports, Ulysses Comments closed
A Poem for Heroes and Mass Murderers
Since the World Cup is underway in South Africa, I watched Clint Eastwood’s Invictus last week, about the 1995 World Cup Rugby Tournament held in South Africa. Based on a true story, the film notes that, while in prison, Nelson Mandela, like many black South Africans, would root against the South African rugby team, beloved […]
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged "Invictus", Apartheid, Clint Eastwood, Faisal Shahzad, John Milton, Nelson Mandela, Paradise Lost, politics, Sports, Timothy McVeigh, Ulysses, William Ernest Henley Comments closed
