Sunday Letter
J.S. Legg
there is no division

Not soon, as late as the approach of my ninetieth year,
I felt a door opening in me and I entered
the clarity of early morning.

One after another my former lives were departing,
like ships, together with their sorrow.

And the countries, cities, gardens, the bays of seas
assigned to my brush came closer,
ready now to be described better than they were before.

I was not separated from people,
grief and pity joined us.
We forget—I kept saying—that we are all children of the King.

For where we come from there is no division
into Yes and No, into is, was, and will be.

We were miserable, we used no more than a hundredth part
of the gift we received for our long journey.

Moments from yesterday and from centuries ago—
a sword blow, the painting of eyelashes before a mirror
of polished metal, a lethal musket shot, a caravel
staving its hull against a reef—they dwell in us,
waiting for a fulfillment.

I knew, always, that I would be a worker in the vineyard,
as are all men and women living at the same time,
whether they are aware of it or not.

— Czesław Miłosz, “Late Ripeness”

there is no division
Sunday Letter
J.S. Legg
the sharp axe of light

Out of the wood of thoughts that grows by night
To be cut down by the sharp axe of light,—
Out of the night, two cocks together crow,
Cleaving the darkness with a silver blow:
And bright before my eyes twin trumpeters stand,
Heralds of splendour, one at either hand,
Each facing each as in a coat of arms:
The milkers lace their boots up at the farms.

— Edward Thomas, “Cock-Crow”

the sharp axe of light
Sunday Letter
J.S. Legg
when soft voices die

Music, when soft voices die,
Vibrates in the memory;
Odours, when sweet violets sicken,
Live within the sense they quicken.

Rose leaves, when the rose is dead,
Are heap'd for the belovèd's bed;
And so thy thoughts, when thou art gone,
Love itself shall slumber on.  

— Percy Bysshe Shelley, “Music, when soft voices die”

when soft voices die
Sunday Letter
J.S. Legg
These are the days

These are the days when birds come back,
A very few, a bird or two,
To take a backward look. 

These are the days when skies put on
The old, old sophistries of June, –
A blue and gold mistake. 

Oh, fraud that cannot cheat the bee,
Almost thy plausibility
Induces my belief, 

Till ranks of seed their witness bear,
And softly through the altered air
Hurries a timid leaf!

Oh, sacrament of summer days,
Oh, last communion in the haze,
Permit a child to join, 

Thy sacred emblems to partake,
Thy consecrated bread to break,
Taste thine immortal wine! 

— Emily Dickinson, “Indian Summer”

These are the days
Sunday Letter, Sale
J.S. Legg
that last rosebud

In my Autumn garden I was fain
     To mourn among my scattered roses;
     Alas for that last rosebud which uncloses
To Autumn’s languid sun and rain
When all the world is on the wane!
     Which has not felt the sweet constraint of June,
     Nor heard the nightingale in tune.

Broad-faced asters by my garden walk,
     You are but coarse compared with roses:
     More choice, more dear that rosebud which uncloses,
Faint-scented, pinched, upon its stalk,
That least and last which cold winds balk;
     A rose it is though least and last of all,
     A rose to me though at the fall.

— Christina Rossetti, “October Garden”

that last rosebud

Sale

,

bid the violet live

,
bid the violet live

This is the treacherous month when autumn days
With summer’s voice come bearing summer’s gifts.
Beguiled, the pale down-trodden aster lifts
Her head and blooms again. The soft, warm haze
Makes moist once more the sere and dusty ways,
And, creeping through where dead leaves lie in drifts,
The violet returns. Snow noiseless sifts
Ere night, an icy shroud, which morning’s rays
Will idly shine upon and slowly melt,
Too late to bid the violet live again.
The treachery, at last, too late, is plain;
Bare are the places where the sweet flowers dwelt.
What joy sufficient hath November felt?
What profit from the violet’s day of pain?

—Helen Hunt Jackson, "November"

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