April 16, 2021: Faith and Doubt

 Faith And Doubt

There remains in me a desire to know:
What is right? What is whole?
I know I’m a seed, and I just want to grow,
And make sense of what I feel in my soul!
 
I have no attachments, for nothing is mine,
My aim is to nurture my part of creation;
Seek myself in the meeting of fruit and vine;
Fulfillment from a broken relation!
 
Losing myself, I’ll be finding me,
As I persist in my journey from day to day.
I’ve seen that the only way to be free
Is to follow a wise and disciplined way.
 
So what could I possibly have to hide
As I flow from such feelings and reason?
Well, just that I may wait too long for a ride;
For mutations to find their season.

April 16, 2021: The Scholar by Robert Southey, in Harvard Classics, Vol. 42, page 734.

The Scholar

My days among the Dead are past;
Around me I behold,
Where'er these casual eyes are cast
The mighty minds of old:
My never-failing friends are they,
With whom I converse day by day.

With them I take delight in weal
And seek relief in woe;
And while I understand and feel
How much to them I owe,
My cheeks have often been bedew'd
With tears of thoughtful gratitude.

My thoughts are with the Dead; with them
I live in long-past years,
Their virtues love, their faults condemn,
Partake their hopes and fears,
And from their lessons seek and find
Instruction with an humble mind.

My hopes are with the Dead; anon
My place with them will be,
And I with them shall travel on
Through all Futurity;
Yet having here a name, I trust,
That will not perish in the dust.