Tabb Centenary Year XXXVI

Five poems by Rev. John B. Tabb.

A Query

Was it the dawn that waked the bird
   With yonder spark?
Or had the sleeping darkness stirred
   Before the Lark?

For either rival to declare
   The winds are loth;
And blossoms, nodding everywhere,
   Affirm for both.

April 1893 (p. 73, Nature: Day and Night)

The Duet

A little yellow bird above,
A little yellow flower below;
The little bird can sing the love
That bird and blossom know;
The blossom has no song nor wing,
But breathes the love he cannot sing.

1899 (p. 45, Nature: Birds)

God

I see Thee in the distant blue;
But in the violet’s dell of dew,
Behold, I breathe and touch Thee too.

March 1895 (p. 218, Religion: Doctrine)

The Bluebird

When God had made a host of them,
One little flower still lacked a stem
   To hold its blossom blue;
So into it He breathed a song,
And suddenly, with petals strong
   As wings, away it flew.

1899 (p. 46, Nature: Birds)

Discrepancy

One dream the bird and blossom dreamed
   Of love the whole night long;
Yet twain its revelation seemed,
   In fragrance and in song.

April 1893 (p. 359, Quatrains: Miscellaneous)

[“A Query”: larks are songbirds; only one, the Horned Lark, lives in North America. “God”: violets are widely distributed flowering plants; this was the first poem of Father Tabb’s that I ever read. “The Bluebird”: bluebirds are songbirds belonging to the Thrush family; one species, the Eastern Bluebird, lives year-round in Virginia, where Father Tabb resided.]

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 — Sun. 06/14/09 06:19:48 PM
Categorized as Father Tabb Centenary Year & Literary.