Well...

The beauty of a pure soul is not confined to the metaphysical realm, but can, I am sure, shape a person's face and eyes to manifest this uprightness.

"Could beauty, my lord, have better commerce than with honesty?" Ophelia (III.1.110-1)

Of a Truly Beautiful Woman

Brother Daniel

If thy face the truth doth tell

Then love and joy must in thee dwell:

Thine eye, so soft, with kindness keen

Doth calmly pierce, with glowing sheen,

All darkness by the Devil cast

To catch and kill men, first and last;

Which piercing light must lead these souls

To Him the cherub choir extols:

For by this Word, this Life, this Light

Are the windows to thy soul made bright.

If physiognomy speaks lies

Then mirth and cheer thou must despise,

But if thy face at all tells truth

Then purity protects thy youth.

Fairer than the flower white

Thy visage blesses earthly sight

And turns the mind to God on high

Whose Selfsame Son men’s souls did buy,

And thinking such our eyes do shine

With brightness more the match of thine.

Everlasting love joy and peace,

DJS the HBH, a pawn in the army of the LORD

Well...

An Orison

Brother Daniel

A chill, a dread, a fell and forceful hand

Doth grip the mind, and turns it to its will,

Away from Light to dour Darkness’ command –
To fetter thought and searching souls to still.

No phantom shadow this, but living gloom

That draws despair and quenches quiet fire

With piercing, soft and sleepy rain; the doom

Of foolish minds that forget the soul’s desire.

And gradually, and invisibly,

Light gives ground, avoided by the stare

Of eyes that, in darkness shut, have ceased to see

Hope’s horizon’s loving arms of care.

Yet Thou, whose hands have healed dread Death’s decay,

Renew the bent soul bowing down to pray.

Love Joy and Peace

Brother Daniel, a pawn in the army of the LORD

Well...

Exit Mama Riebs.

Goodbye (Conduit of Love)

Brother Daniel

In Memory of Mrs. Riebock

Conduit of Love – a stream unceasing

From the Lordly Heart of Love Himself –

Your flow reversed, feel our pulse increasing

Pressing our souls’ affectionate wealth

Into your deep heart.

Conduit of Love, your children weep your

Illness, the rotting mortal soul-bars

Of pain and life-like death.  Know that we pour

Our prayer at the feet once washed with tears

From the pleasing, pleading heart.

Conduit of Love, your sons are in distress

For mother-love, hid behind our false seeming,

Is lost.  God sent well of life, we press

Sweet memories to hide our eyes now streaming

At the loss of our first heart.

Conduit of Love, your daughters are in grief

For the ever-present, joyful, guiding gale

Is gone, their ships caught within the reef

And foundering waters: the calm that drowns the wail

From many broken hearts.

Conduit of Love, know that you are loved

By we who carry on your legacy.

Mother, we love you, we the hearts you wove,

Yet He who knit your soul has called to see

In High Heaven your full heart.

Love Joy and Peace,

DJS the HBH, a pawn in the army of the LORD

Well...

I spent the entire long weekend, somehow, without touching on the 5-8 page research paper that is due on Thursday.  How did that happen?  I guess I was too busy writing essays for college and other institutions.  The next two days are going to be some of the worst this year.  Oh, well, I guess it's my fault anyway.

Pray for me.

Love Joy and Peace

DJS the HBH, a pawn in the army of the LORD

Well...

Sometimes you come to the realization that there is no way that you can ever be the best.  100 men in a billion are the intellectual match for Chesterton, Lewis, Tolkien and Co., and I very much doubt if anyone I know, much less myself, is among the happy few.  But the proper course of action is not to bury the talent in the sand, but rather to make good with what we've got and be content.

Blast... I wanted to be a genius.

A Literary Legacy

Daniel S.

Founded on the uncorrupted rock

Stand tall guiding lighthouses,

Beacons of salvation sending

Light to aid a world that’s ending;

Its fire – expired by Darkness’ dousing –

They lit anew to lead the flock

Quaking in the coldness of despair

Who, led astray by supermen

Into night-sight nothingness,

Creep in doubt and unforgiveness.

These torches wield the iron pen

Of truth, casting written beams with care

To shrivel doubt’s decay away.

The, first fire of these lights was he

The terror of his foes, whose girth,

Though great, was less than his mirth,

Followed by his sons whose journey

Revisited the hollow wastelands grey.

The final piercing lights were they

Who chronicled space and England’s

History, preserving purity

For ages yet, a surety

To those who with their two bare hands

Lift up their light and God obey.

These rays have raised the bar of legacy

And left to all the Truth’s supremacy.

Love Joy and Peace,

DJS the HBH, a pawn in the army of the LORD