Tolkien's rediscovered "Noel"

NOEL by J.R.R. Tolkien

Grim was the world and grey last night:
The moon and stars were fled,
The hall was dark without song or light,
The fires were fallen dead.
The wind in the trees was like to the sea,
And over the mountains' teeth
It whistled bitter-cold and free,
As a sword leapt from its sheath.


The lord of the snows upreared his head;
His mantle long and pale
Upon the bitter blast was spread
And hung o'er hill and dale.
The world was blind, the boughs were bent,
All ways and paths were wild:
Then the veil of cl oud apart was rent,
And here was born a Child.


The ancient dome of heaven sheer
Was pricked with distant light;
A star dame shining white and clear
Alone above the night.
In the dale of dark in that hour of birth
One voice on a sudden sang:
Then all the bells in Heaven and Earth
Together at midnight rang.


Mary sang in this world below:
They heard her song arise
O'er mist and over mountain snow
To the walls of Paradise, 
And the tongue of many bells was stirred
in Heaven's towers to ring
When t he voice of mortal maid was heard,
That was mother of Heaven's King.


Glad is the world and fair this night
With stars about its head,
And the hall is filled with laughter and light,
And fires are burning red.
The bells of Paradise now ring
With bells of Christendom,
And Gloria, Gloria we will sing
That God on earth is come.


Originally published in the 1936 Annual of Our Lady's School, Abingdon, Tolkien's "Noel" was unknown and unrecorded until scholars Wayne G. Hammond and Christina Scull discovered it while searching for another poem in June 2013.  In May 2015, Our Lady's School, Abingdon, discovered their copy of the Annual and in Feb 2016, news of the discovery was widely reported.

- from the Yahoo Group Spareoom

Paladino Clerhiew

Carl Paladino
perhaps had too much vino.
But even intoxication can't
excuse his offensive First Couple rant.

(Context: Buffalo School Board member and former GOP NY gubernatorial candidate Carl Paladino, in a survey by Artvoice newspaper in which people were asked what they wished for in 2017, said, "Obama catches mad cow disease after being caught having relations with a Herford. He dies before his trial and is buried in a cow pasture next to [senior White House advisor] Valerie [Jarrett], who died weeks prior, after being convicted of sedition and treason, when a Jihady cell mate mistook her for being a nice person and decapitated her. "
.
And asked what he would most like to see go in 2017, he said, "Michelle Obama. I'd like her to return to being a male and let loose in the outback of Zimbabwe where she lives comfortably in a cave with Maxie, the gorilla."

He refused to apologize. The Trump transition team - Paladino had been one of the honorary chairmen of Trump's NY presidential campaign - condemned Paladino's comments.)

Gilbert clerihew blackballing continues?

Another issue of Gilbert arrived.

None of my clerihews got in.

Again.

It used to be Gilbert regularly published some of my clerihews.

That stopped five and a half years ago.

I've sent a number in over the last few years, but they seemingly disappeared into a black hole.

I resent some in case they got lost.

Still missing in action.

I've even mentioned this to Dale a couple of times at Chesterton gatherings. He said he has seen some of mine floating about, and expressed surprise and doubt that it has been that long since any got published.

But it has been that long.

I'm not sure why they are not getting in. Some are decent enough, and certainly of comparable quality to some that have gotten in from others.

Maybe they just keep getting bumped as newer writers submit? Maybe they just keep getting misplaced? Maybe my occasional on-line sparring with the editor-in-chief has put me on some kind of blacklist?

So it goes.

As I told Dale, I've given up submitting. Seems to be little point. And writing this will likely not help.

Still, maybe some of the old ones will finally break through.

But as for new ones, I'll keep posting them here. At least then Chesterton and clerihew fans might see them.

Chesterton gets Clerihewed

G. K. Chesterton
would sometimes sit in the sun.
His wife appreciated the cool glade
his shadow made.

A prophetic clerihew

Ezekiel
was full of prophetic zeal.
He was only wrong when it came to bets
on the Browns and the Mets.

An alternative this election year - The American Solidarity Party

This is a tough year for us politically when it comes to the Presidential campaign. Many of us find the candidates of the major political parties objectionable, and so I hear a lot of people saying they will likely vote for the lesser of two evils, once they determine which is less evil. (I often rejoin, "Voting for the lesser of two evils means you are still voting for evil!)

The truth is, though, for most of us how we vote really doesn't matter.

You see, the election will be decided by the electoral college vote, not the popular vote, and for most states you can pretty much predict right now which party's candidate will carry the state and get the electoral votes. In New York, for example, the Democratic candidate has won the state every election since 1988, and only once in those 7 elections has the Democratic margin of victory fallen below a million votes. This year is likely to be no different. Unless the Democratic candidate does eventually get indicted!

There are a few (5-7) swing states that really decide the election - that's why the pundits and pollsters obsess about such states as Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania.

So for voters in New York, and in most states, it's safe to vote third party.

This year, there is an alternative that might be of interest to Chestertonians. The American Solidarity Party's platform is very much based on Catholic Social teachings, with elements of Distributism.

The party has for the first time nominated its own candidates for president and vice president,  Mike Maturen and Juan Munoz. (Chesterton might appreciate that Maturen is also a magician!)

Go to the website to find out more about them and the party's platform.

The party has Facebook and Twitter accounts as well.

Just imagine, voting, and actually feeling good about for whom you're voting!

If you live on one of the states where your vote might not count, or even if you live in one of the states where your vote might count, but you simply can't vote for one of the main party's candidates, consider the Maturen and Munoz ticket.

A Tolkien Clerihew

There was a side of J.R.R. Tolkien
that was seldom seen.
When he was by himself
he'd sometimes dress as an elf.

A Clerihew (Pope Pius)

Pope Pius
is a victim of bias.
Only a closed-minded dope
still thinks of him as "Hitler's pope."

Another political clerihew (Trump)

Donald Trump
on the stump
will almost always spout a platitude
or something rude.

A Ben Carson/Politico Clerihew

Ben Carson
never claimed he committed arson.
That didn't stop Politico
from reporting, "He may have, you know."

Planned Parenthood scandal clerihews

Dr. Mary Gatter
was coy and even joked amid the chatter,
but her haggling over the price of a baby's heart or liver
made me shiver.

Dr. Mary Gatter
treated it as a laughing matter,
but sell enough baby parts, even that teenie,
and you might afford a Lamborghini.

The Atlantic touts Saint Chesterton

There is in the April issue of The Atlantic a wonderful piece ("A Most Unlikely Saint") about the effort to have G. K. Chesterton declared a saint. It begins:

If the Catholic Church makes G. K. Chesterton a saint—as an influential group of Catholics is proposing it should—the story of his enormous coffin may become rather significant. Symbolic, even parabolic. Chesterton’s coffin was too huge, you see, to be carried down the stairs of his house in Beaconsfield, its occupant being legendarily overweight at the time of his death, in 1936. So it went out a second-floor window. Very Chestertonian: gravity, meet levity. Hagiographers might pursue the biblical resonance here, citing the Gospel passages in which a paralyzed man, unable to penetrate the crowds surrounding the house in Capernaum where Jesus was staying, is lowered in through a hole in the roof. Or they might simply declare that Gilbert Keith Chesterton’s was a spirit too large to go out through the conventional narrow door of death—that it had to be received, as it were, directly into the sky.

It's a well-written piece, and a good introduction to Chesterton and the sainthood cause for those who were not aware of him or it. Even for those of us who were familiar, well worth reading if for no other reason than it will make us smile.

Marquis de Sade/50 Shades clerihew

A somber Marquis de Sade
said with a knowing nod,
"The wickedness of all my work fades
before that woman's 50 Shades.

Alice's Restaurant - Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving Thoughts From Chesterton

I would maintain that thanks are the highest form of thought, and that gratitude is happiness doubled by wonder.


There is no such thing on earth as an uninteresting subject; the only thing that can exist is an uninterested person.


The aim of life is appreciation; there is no sense in not appreciating things; and there is no sense in having more of them if you have less appreciation of them.


When it comes to life the critical thing is whether you take things for granted or take them with gratitude.


You say grace before meals. All right. But I say grace before the concert and the opera, and grace before the play and pantomime, and grace before I open a book, and grace before sketching, painting, swimming, fencing, boxing, walking, playing, dancing and grace before I dip the pen in the ink.


When we were children we were grateful to those who filled our stockings at Christmas time. Why are we not grateful to God for filling our stockings with legs?

Scarlet Letter Clerihews

While it's true Hester Prynne
committed a serious sin
the Reverend Dimmesdale
was guilty of the greater fail.

Roger Chillingworth
thought he'd reserved a berth,
then vengefully sought to save face
when someone usurped his place.

The vices of ISIS (clerihew)

One of the aims of ISIS
is eradicating Western sins and vices,
except, of course, for a select few
that they themselves like to do.

Putin-Rasputin - sure as shootin' (clerihew)

There are rumors that Vladimir Putin
somehow has ties to Rasputin.
So it makes sense his followers shiver
when Vlad takes a dip in a river.

A new Chesterton Academy

St. John Bosco Schools in Rochester (East Rochester, actually) NY has announced plans to expand next year, adding a ninth grade and calling the high school program Chesterton Academy.

The school currently offers a traditional curriculum - none of the common core nonsense - in an orthodox Catholic environment. The high school program will be more of the same.

This is an exciting development. It could even inspire me to leave my current job if they need to hire any new teachers.

I already have Chesterton Academy sweatshirt from the Chesterton Society!

The following quote is now my standard answer to the Chesterton critics that have never actually read Chesterton, (it's called the The Dunning Kruger Effect )

"...the dumber you are, the more confident you are that you’re not actually dumb. And when you get invested in being aggressively dumb…well, the last thing you want to encounter are experts who disagree with you, and so you dismiss them in order to maintain your unreasonably high opinion of yourself. "

The above came from The Death of Expertise and is worth a read it can be found here.