Tabb Centenary Year XXXIX

Five lyrics by Rev. John B. Tabb.

The Lake

I am a lonely woodland lake:
   The trees that round me grow,
The glimpse of heaven above me, make
   The sum of all I know.

The mirror of their dreams to be
   Alike in shade and shine,
To clasp in love’s captivity,
   And keep them one—is mine.

November 1892 (p. 97, Nature: Miscellaneous)

The Marsh

The woods have voices, and the sea,
Her choral-song and threnody;
But thou alike to sun and rain
Dost mute and motionless remain.
As pilgrims to the shrine of Sleep,
Through all thy solemn spaces creep
The tides—a moment on thy breast
To pause in sacramental rest;
Then, flooded with the mystery,
To sink reluctant to the sea,
In landward loneliness to yearn
Till to thy bosom they return.

January 1896 (p. 67, Nature: The Sea)

Lone-Land

Around us lies a world invisible,
With isles of dreams, and many a continent
Of thought, and isthmus fancy, where we dwell
   Each as a lonely wanderer intent
Upon his vision, finding each his fears
And hopes encompassed by the tide of tears.

June 1895 (p. 114, Life, Death and Similar Themes: Life)

Isolation

Far off a solitary Peak
   The restless Waves behold.
“Thou hast attained the heaven we seek;
   O teach us, self-controlled,
Thy constancy!” Alas, how bleak
   The mountain top and cold!

1902 (p. 152, Life, Death and Similar Themes: Sympathy)

At the Ebb-Tide

O marshes that remain
   In anguish dumb
Till over you again
   The waters come!

So must thy life abide
   In silent pain,
Till Love, the truant tide,
   Come back again.

February 1905 (p. 140, Life, Death and Similar Themes: Love)

[“The Marsh”: a threnody is a song of mourning. “Lone-Land”: an isthmus is a narrow strip of land connecting two larger land areas. “At the Ebb-Tide”: the sea-level lowers or falls during the ebb tide.]

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. 07/05/09 02:32:05 PM
Categorized as Father Tabb Centenary Year & Literary.