"Autobiographies of great nations are written in three manuscripts – a book of deeds, a book of words, and a book of art. Of the three, I would choose the latter as truest testimony." - Sir Kenneth Smith, Great Civilisations

"I must write each day without fail, not so much for the success of the work, as in order not to get out of my routine." - Leo Tolstoy

I have never believed that one should wait until one is inspired because I think the pleasures of not writing are so great that if you ever start indulging them you will never write again. - John Updike

"The life of every man is a diary in which he means to write one story, and writes another; and his humblest hour is when he compares the volume as it is with what he vowed to make it." - J.M. Barrie, Peter Pan

Poetry is the shadow cast by our streetlight imaginations." - Lawrence Ferlinghetti


[Note - If any article requires updating or correction please notate this in the comment section. Thank you. - res]


Tuesday, May 6, 2014

R.E. Slater - Whispers in a Dream (a poem)


Whispers in a Dream


Gabriel's Oboe



Susanne Beer playing "Gabriel's Oboe" by Ennio Morricone,
from her Divine Art album "Cello Diverse" - dda 25068.


Whispers in a Dream
by R.E. Slater

*sung to Gabriel's Oboe (Nella Fantasia)
(film link: "The Mission: Love, Penance, Forgiveness, Restoration")


Whispers in a dream,
Oh come, whilst they may last,
Oh list my heavy heart,
Oh list its desperate prayers,
Prayers that wouldst bind,
My anguished fears restrained,
Oh hear my weary soul, lost
Thy tenderest cares divine.

Peace, peace, be now thy guide,
Dream, what dreams may be,
And there contend to find,
Courage for the coming day,
Safe'd within the tempest's sway,
Till waning dawn breaks to stay,
The beating breast its cares away,
The broken soul I used to be.

Be still, be still, my beating heart,
Awaiting heaven's deepest darks,
Plummeted passion's pride,
Swelled its discontents,
Harmed its thoughtless cares,
Oh bless, my brokenness,
There find a lonesome rest,
Come an unwont day.

Behold, day's rising star,
Shrouded penances' mists,
Swells forgiveness' peace,
Across lost hills and seas,
Across the deepest darks,
Comes a swelling uplifting ,
Breaking defeated hearts,
Upon wellsprings blessed.

Come, come, eternal peace,
Wash all, all, all
My heavy tears away,
As whispers on the wind,
As whispers in fair dream,
May heaven's mercies bless,
A fleshly altar's brokenness,
Bathed heaven's mighty streams,
No longer fled redeeming love's patient faithfulness.


- R.E. Slater
May 7, 2014
revised, June 22, 2014
Small revision, March 31, 2023

@copyright R.E. Slater Publications
all rights reserved



Gabriels Oboe (Whispers In A Dream)
Hayley Westenra (Royal Variety Performance 2011)



Hayley Westenra singing Gabriels Oboe (Whispers In A Dream) from "A Celebration
of the Movies" with Rolando Villazon, at the 2011 Royal Variety Performance in the
presence of HRH Princess Anne (The Princess Royal).

The original performance was at The Lowry Theatre in Salford, Greater Manchester,
on 5 December 2011, and it was first broadcast  by ITV1 on 14 December 2011.


Lyrics

Whispers in a dream
The world is quiet and waiting
And all around the air is still
And sings the angels.

When all is come to pass
The storm has breathed it's last
And the rain
Has washed our fears away
Love will find.

Whispers in the wind
The clouds part to let the light in
And all around the people sigh
As birds take to the sky.

When all is come to pass
The storm has breathed it's last
And the rain
Has washed our fears away
Love will fall on us all
The world will smile again.

Whispers in a dream
The world is quiet and waiting
And all around the air is still
Then sings the angels.

When all is come to pass
The storm has breathed it's last
And the rain
Has washed our fears away
Love will fall on us all
And we can smile again.



Sarah Brightman - Nella Fantasia (One Night in Eden)
Eden Album performed in Johannesburg, South Africa


"One Night in Eden" is a live concert recording by Sarah Brightman,
inspired by her Eden album. The premiere concert held in
Johannesburg, South Africa was recorded in 1999.


Italian:

Nella fantasia io vedo un mondo giusto,
Li tutti vivono in pace e in onestà.
Io sogno d'anime che sono sempre libere,
Come le nuvole che volano,
Pien' d'umanità in fondo all'anima.

Nella fantasia io vedo un mondo chiaro,
Li anche la notte è meno oscura.
Io sogno d'anime che sono sempre libere,
Come le nuvole che volano.
Pien' d'umanità in fondo all'anima.

Nella fantasia esiste un vento caldo,
Che soffia sulle città, come amico.
Io sogno d'anime che sono sempre libere,
Come le nuvole che volano,
Pien' d'umanità in fondo all'anima.


English:

In my fantasy I see a fair world,
Everyone lives in peace and honesty.
I dream of souls that are always free,
Like a cloud that floats,
Pien 'd'humanity in the depths.

In my fantasy I see a bright world
Night there is less darkness.
I dream of souls that are always free,
Like a cloud that floats.
Pien 'd'humanity in the depths.

In my fantasy exists a warm wind,
That breathes into the city, as a friend.
I dream of souls that are always free,
Like a cloud that floats,
Pien 'd'humanity in the depths.





Monday, April 28, 2014

Poems of Prayer, Hope, and Renewal

Meet me along the primose'd paths...

A Prayer
by R.E. Slater

Meet me along the primrose'd paths
And there abide till days long passed
Be Thou my heart and will's own muse
Forgiven amongst the morning dews.

Stay'd by prayer tho' dark night enclose

Entwine'd by grace we together arose
O'er misty lands of earthy delights
Or outer isles of nethering dawns.

Where ’ere is sung Thy abiding love

Bowed grave upon thorny hillock brakes -
“O Lord, Thou art our need and thrall”
“In giving Thyself hast Thou given all.”

May we do no less each Paschal day

Giving all to Thee our help and stay.

- R.E. Slater

March 28, 2012



More Poems of Prayer -

Prayer
by Robert Louis Stevenson

I ASK good things that I detest,
With speeches fair;
Heed not, I pray Thee, Lord, my breast,
But hear my prayer.

I say ill things I would not say -

Things unaware:
Regard my breast, Lord, in Thy day,
And not my prayer.

My heart is evil in Thy sight:

My good thoughts flee:
O Lord, I cannot wish aright -
Wish Thou for me.

O bend my words and acts to Thee,

However ill,
That I, whate'er I say or be,
May serve Thee still.

O let my thoughts abide in Thee

Lest I should fall:
Show me Thyself in all I see,
Thou Lord of all.


Our Prayer of Thanks
by Carl Sandburg

For the gladness here where the sun is shining at
evening on the weeds at the river,
Our prayer of thanks.
For the laughter of children who tumble barefooted and
bareheaded in the summer grass,
Our prayer of thanks.

For the sunset and the stars, the women and the white
arms that hold us,
Our prayer of thanks.

God,
If you are deaf and blind, if this is all lost to you,
God, if the dead in their coffins amid the silver handles
on the edge of town, or the reckless dead of war
days thrown unknown in pits, if these dead are
forever deaf and blind and lost,
Our prayer of thanks.

God,
The game is all your way, the secrets and the signals and
the system; and so for the break of the game and
the first play and the last.
Our prayer of thanks.




Prayer XXIII
by Khalil Gibran

Then a priestess said, "Speak to us of Prayer."

And he answered, saying:


You pray in your distress and in your need; would that you might pray also in the fullness of your joy and in your days of abundance.


For what is prayer but the expansion of yourself into the living ether?


And if it is for your comfort to pour your darkness into space, it is also for your delight to pour forth the dawning of your heart.


And if you cannot but weep when your soul summons you to prayer, she should spur you again and yet again, though weeping, until you shall come laughing.


When you pray you rise to meet in the air those who are praying at that very hour, and whom save in prayer you may not meet.


Therefore let your visit to that temple invisible be for naught but ecstasy and sweet communion.


For if you should enter the temple for no other purpose than asking you shall not receive.


And if you should enter into it to humble yourself you shall not be lifted:


Or even if you should enter into it to beg for the good of others you shall not be heard.


It is enough that you enter the temple invisible.


I cannot teach you how to pray in words.


God listens not to your words save when He Himself utters them through your lips.


And I cannot teach you the prayer of the seas and the forests and the mountains.


But you who are born of the mountains and the forests and the seas can find their prayer in your heart,


And if you but listen in the stillness of the night you shall hear them saying in silence,


"Our God, who art our winged self, it is thy will in us that willeth.


It is thy desire in us that desireth.


It is thy urge in us that would turn our nights, which are thine, into days which are thine also.


We cannot ask thee for aught, for thou knowest our needs before they are born in us:


Thou art our need; and in giving us more of thyself thou givest us all."






Sunday, April 13, 2014

R.E. Slater - Awakening (a poem)




Awakening
by R.E. Slater


Not all at once,
perhaps slowly,
sleepily,
spring awakened
upon an early April's
rhapsodic graces,
heavy with night's
waning fragrances
of cleansing rains,
that wouldst free
bound earth
of dreary winter's
retreating embraces,
and there lie,
quietly alone,
in subduing lights,
remembering
days past bourne
of deeper stirrings,
more ancient callings.

Listening intently,
the haunting verve
of faraway geese
honking in muted,
cacophonous chorus,
its eager flocks
circumscribing
dawn's grey lights
on tireless wing,
carving cold airs
plundering forward
in diminishing echo,
till lost at last,
as quickly as heard,
upon receding memories
of an earlier dawn's
distant birth,
and nevering lands,
beckoning home,
both wont and will.

Remembering
more ancient stirrings,
of youth's lost keeps,
fled on a dawn's
dying echoes sounding
its tympanous chorus
to the burgeoning day,
cleaving its leas,
its forlorn streams,
its desperate byways,
upon a stubborn heart's
resolute dreams
that northward lay
its eternal abodes,
its minstrel lays,
its nethering dawns,
in the early waking lights,
of a new day's arising,
beheld of stout heart,
and faithful Maker.

In whose hands
no charge so deep,
nor call so hard,
is miskept,
nor distant dies,
on a morning's call,
and sounding charge,
affecting wing and heart,
mind and keep,
the eternal flyways
of the beating breast,
pressing wing and voice,
man and beast,
its steady rhythms
of renewing dawns
tissued in membranes
of rebirth, of
time and space,
unto filioqued lands
of more primal decree.


- R.E. Slater
April 12-13, 2014

@copyright R.E. Slater Publications

all rights reserved