Tabb Centenary Year XVI

Five poems by Rev. John B. Tabb.

Anticipation

The master scans the woven score
Of subtle harmonies, before
   A note is stirred;
And Nature now is pondering
The tidal symphony of Spring,
   As yet unheard.

March 1896 (p. 87, Nature: The Seasons)

The Snowdrop

Behold, from winter’s sleeping side,
   The sacramental power
Of Nature fashioneth a bride
   As fair as Eden’s flower.

October 1892 (p. 325, Quatrains: Flowers)

Triumph

Despite the north wind’s boast,
   Despite the muffled host
      Of hushing snow,
   There cometh from below
Out of the darkness wakened, one by one
   The dreamers of the sun—
   Not in the bleak array
Of winter, but with fragrant banners gay
   Leaping the barriers strong
   Of ice, and loosing song,
   The prisoner, and letting go
Long-fettered laughter, as the shadowy foe
   Shrinks from the echoing cry
      Of “life and victory!”

April 1905 (p. 91, Nature: The Seasons)

New and Old

New blossoms from the selfsame earth,
   Beneath the selfsame skies;
New hope with dawn’s perennial birth,
   The selfsame heaven supplies.

May 1896 (p. 326, Quatrains: Flowers)

Sap

Strong as the sea and silent as the grave,
   It ebbs and flows unseen;
Flooding the earth—a fragrant tidal wave—
   With mist of deepening green.

1894 (p. 360, Quatrains: Miscellaneous)

[Today is the first day of Spring in the Northern Hemisphere this year. “The Snowdrop”: the snowdrop is a flower that blooms in earliest Spring.]

The references (page number and section) are to The Poetry of Father Tabb, ed. Francis A. Litz, Ph.D. (New York: Dodd, Mead & Company, 1928). All of Tabb's poems published here in the Father Tabb Centenary Year were originally published before 1923.

Biblical references link to the New Advent Bible comprising Bishop Challoner's edition of the Douay-Rheims Bible (English) and the Sixto-Clementine edition of the Vulgate (Latin), since they are the versions which Father Tabb would have used as a Catholic.

The year 2009 is the centenary of the death of Rev. John Banister Tabb, November 19, 1909.

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Fri. 03/20/09 07:11:32 AM
Categorized as Father Tabb Centenary Year & Literary.