Tabb Centenary Year LIX
Five poems by Rev. John B. Tabb.
Transfiguration
The cloud unto its parent stream
That rushes to the sea
Reveals a far-reflected dream
Of heaven’s tranquillity;
And unto faith’s adoring sight
A mystery appears—
A cloud transfigured of the light
In every tide of tears.
April 1896 (p. 223, Religion: Doctrine)
Charity
If but the world would give to love
The crumbs that from its table fall,
’Twere bounty large enough for all
The famishing to feed thereof.
And love, that still the laurel wins
Of sacrifice, would lovelier grow,
And round the world a mantle throw
To hide its multitude of sins.
November 1892 (p. 220, Religion: Doctrine)
Beatitude
And is it well with thee?
Aye, past all dreaming, well!
For here we dwell
Where none may weep,
And Paradise is ours again to keep,
The tree of knowledge in the midst thereof.
Time-ripened love—
The leaves no more for healing, but for food
Of life renewed,
Fresh with the dew, from vanished faith distilled,
Of hope fulfilled.
All round us angels be
To guard the gateways, not with sword of flame,
But fragrant breathings of the holy Name,
That never more an after-thought of sin
May enter in.
December 1903 (p. 224, Religion: Doctrine)
Better
Better for sin to dwell from heaven apart
In foulest night,
Than on its lidless eyeballs feel the dart
Of torturing Light.
Better to pine in floods of sulphurous fire,
Than far above
Behold the bliss of satisfied desire,
Nor taste thereof.
Yea, love is lord, e’en where the powers of pain
Undying dwell:
Defiled, in spotless glory to remain
Were deeper hell.
September 1892 (p. 233, Religion: Miscellaneous)
Time’s Legacy
The night so long to grief,
The day to joy so brief,
What shall eternity
To each, unaltered, be!
1897 (p. 365, Quatrains: Miscellaneous)
[Today, Nov. 1, is All Saints’ Day; tomorrow, Nov. 2, is All Souls’ Day. “Beatitude”: the fifth and sixth lines allude to the Old Testament story of the Garden of Eden, Genesis 2; lines 7 through 11 allude to 1 Corinthians 13.]
Lane Core Jr. CIW P Sun. 11/01/09 10:13:47 AM
Categorized as Father Tabb Centenary Year & Literary.
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