Tabb Centenary Year XXIV

Five poems by Rev. John B. Tabb.

Dawn

Love told a Star the vision that beguiled
His slumber; and the Darkness, hearing, smiled.

November 1898 (p. 71, Nature: Day and Night)

The Recompense

She brake the box, and all the house was filled
   With waftures from the fragrant store thereof,
While at His feet a costlier vase distilled
   The bruised balm of penitential love.

And, lo, as if in recompense of her,
   Bewildered in the lingering shades of night,
He breaks anon the sealed sepulchre,
   And fills the world with rapture and with light.

March 1891 (p. 229, Religion: Lent and Easter)

Evolution

Out of the dusk a shadow,
   Then, a spark;
Out of the cloud a silence,
   Then, a lark;

Out of the heart a rapture,
   Then, a pain;
Out of the dead, cold ashes,
   Life again.

1894 (p. 157, Life, Death, and Similar Themes: The World)

Easter Morning

Behold, the night of sorrow gone,
Like Magdalen the tearful dawn
Goes forth with love’s anointing sweet,
To kiss again the Master’s feet!

1897 (p. 340, Religion: Lent and Easter)

Resurrection

All that springeth from the sod
Tendeth upwards unto God;
All that cometh from the skies
Urging it anon to rise.

Winter’s life-delaying breath
Leaveneth the lump of death,
Till the frailest fettered bloom
Moves the earth, and bursts the tomb.

Welcome, then, time’s threshing-pain
And the furrows where each grain,
Like a Samson, blossom-shorn,
Waits the resurrection morn.

March 1894 (p. 159, Life, Death, and Similar Themes: The World)

[Today is Easter Sunday, on which day Christians celebrate the Resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. “The Recompense”: the first stanza alludes to the Gospel story of the sinful woman washing the Lord’s feet with her hair, Luke 7:36-50. “Easter Morning”: the poem alludes to Matthew 28:8-10, wherein St. Mary Magdalen is one of the women greeted by the Risen Lord. “Resurrection”: the story of Samson is told in the Old Testament book of Judges; the specific occasion to which the last stanza alludes is recounted in Judges 16:15-21.]

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Sun. 04/12/09 11:21:33 AM
Categorized as Father Tabb Centenary Year & Literary.