[First published in Punch, or the London Charivari. 16 December 1843.]

With fingers weary and worn,
With eyelids heavy and red,
A woman sat, in unwomanly rags,
Plying her needle and thread —
Stitch! stitch! stitch!
In poverty, hunger, and dirt,
And still with a voice of dolorous pitch
She sang the “Song of the Shirt.”

“Work! work! work!
While the cock is crowing aloof!             10
And work — work — work,
Till the stars shine through the roof!
It’s Oh! to be a slave
Along with the barbarous Turk,
Where woman has never a soul to save,*        * [A reflection of Hood's conception of Islam.]
If this is Christian work!

“Work — work — work,
Till the brain begins to swim;
Work — work — work,
Till the eyes are heavy and dim!
Seam, and gusset, * and band,                    20 * [cloth inserted to strengthen or widen a garment.]
Band, and gusset, and seam,
Till over the buttons I fall asleep,
And sew them on in a dream!

“Oh, Men, with Sisters dear!
Oh, men, with Mothers and Wives!
It is not linen you’re wearing out,
But human creatures’ lives!
Stitch — stitch — stitch,
In poverty, hunger and dirt,                         30
Sewing at once, with a double thread,
A Shroud as well as a Shirt.

“But why do I talk of Death?
That Phantom of grisly bone,
I hardly fear its terrible shape,
It seems so like my own —
It seems so like my own,
Because of the fasts I keep;
Oh, God! that bread should be so dear
And flesh and blood so cheap!                     40

“Work — work — work!
My labour never flags;
And what are its wages? A bed of straw,
A crust of bread — and rags.
That shattered roof — this naked floor —
A table — a broken chair —
And a wall so blank, my shadow I thank
For sometimes falling there!

“Work — work — work!
From weary chime to chime,                        50
Work — work — work,
As prisoners work for crime!
Band, and gusset, and seam,
Seam, and gusset, and band,
Till the heart is sick, and the brain benumbed,
As well as the weary hand.

“Work — work — work,
In the dull December light,
And work — work — work,
When the weather is warm and bright —          60
While underneath the eaves
The brooding swallows cling
As if to show me their sunny backs
And twit me with the spring.

“Oh! but to breathe the breath
Of the cowslip and primrose sweet —
With the sky above my head,
And the grass beneath my feet;
For only one short hour
To feel as I used to feel,                                 70
Before I knew the woes of want
And the walk that costs a meal!

“Oh! but for one short hour!
A respite however brief!
No blessd leisure for Love or Hope,
But only time for Grief!
A little weeping would ease my heart,
But in their briny bed
My tears must stop, for every drop
Hinders needle and thread!”                           80

With fingers weary and worn,
With eyelids heavy and red,
A woman sat in unwomanly rags,
Plying her needle and thread —

Stitch! stitch! stitch!
In poverty, hunger, and dirt,
And still with a voice of dolorous pitch, —
Would that its tone could reach the Rich! —
She sang this “Song of the Shirt!”

Note: The source of this text is Inglis, R. B., et al., Adventures in English Literature (Toronto: W. J. Gage, 1952), pp. 436-37.

²To shew forth thy lovingkindness in the morning, and thy faithfulness every night,

³Upon an instrument of ten strings, and upon the psaltery; upon the harp with a solemn sound.

–Psalm 92:1-2(KJV)

¹O sing unto the LORD a new song: sing unto the LORD, all the earth.

²Sing unto the LORD, bless his name; shew forth his salvation from day to day.

³Declare his glory among the heathen, his wonders among all people.

–Psalm 96:1-3(KJV)

Lo How A Rose ‘Er Blooming-Charlotte Church

Amazing Grace – Declan Galbraith

Magnificent

What Child Is This — Charlotte Church

Mozart: Sehnsucht Nach Dem Fruhlinge

Give Me Jesus –Fernando Ortega

It is Well With My Soul -David Nevue

OH, give us pleasure in the flowers to-day;

And give us not to think so far away

As the uncertain harvest; keep us here

All simply in the springing of the year.

Oh, give us pleasure in the orchard white, 5

Like nothing else by day, like ghosts by night;

And make us happy in the happy bees,

The swarm dilating round the perfect trees.

And make us happy in the darting bird

That suddenly above the bees is heard, 10

The meteor that thrusts in with needle bill,

And off a blossom in mid air stands still.

For this is love and nothing else is love,

The which it is reserved for God above

To sanctify to what far ends He will, 15

But which it only needs that we fulfil.

“God has emplanted the desire into our souls by which every need should lead to the attainment of that which is good, every thought to the attainment of truth. For these we long in their purity: good rather than evil, truth rather than error; for no one enjoys being deceived or is pleased by going astray and meeting with evil instead of good. Yet no one by desiring them has ever attained them in their purity. What is good and true in our eyes does not correspond to the name, but rather the contrary. Thus it is also clear that neither the power of our love nor the greatness of our joy apparent when the things which we must love and which we enjoy are absent, nor is the compulsion of desire or the ardour of its fire known when the object of desire is absent.

For those who have tasted of the Savior, the Object of desire is present. From the beginning human desire was made to be gauged and measured by the desire for Him, and is a treasury so great, so ample, that it is able to encompass even God. Thus there is no satisfaction, nothing stills the desire, even if men attain to all the excellent things in life, for we still thirst as though we had none of the things for which we long. The thirst of human souls needs, as it were, an infinite water; how then could this limited world suffice?

He, then, is its repose because He alone is goodness and truth and anything else it desires. Those, therefore, who attain to Him are hindered by nothing from loving to the extent that love was implanted into our souls from the beginning, or from rejoicing as much as human nature is able to rejoice, or from anything that virtue and the water of regeneration added to these faculties. Since the good things of ordinary life are not true to their name it is impossible for either desire or joy to be fully effective in them, for even if something seems to be beautiful it is but a paltry spectre of true beauty. But in this case, since , since there is nothing which will stand in the way, love is clearly shown to be wonderous and ineffable and joy to be beyond description. Above all this is so because God has ordained each of these passions with Himself as its object, so that we should love Him and find our joy in Him alone. It follows, I think, that the passion should be in proportion to that infinite goodness and thus, so to speak, be in keeping with it.”

–The Life in Christ, Nicolas Cabasilas

http://kolhaadam.wordpress.com/2010/12/05/zechariahs-night-visions-part-3/

Why would HE not? For the past few weeks, months, days, and hours, I’ve been praying for His perfect will to happen in my life. Not the good will that I want, not the option that I’ve been toying about but HIS grand, ultimate purpose. It is just good that the Father reveals His will to us, He does not withhold it. As the pastor in my first Baptist church said, “It is the Father’s duty to reveal His will to us, but it is not his duty to tell us ‘why?’”

I have a hard time figuring out God’s will most of the time. I have to admit I gamble on trial and error and always have failed. What God does is He lays down opportunities and options, all of them good. What I do is juggle, get and grab everything until I lose them all.

But this time, it’s different. I chose only one and I still lost it. God must have wanted a U-turn. He wants me to rest in Him, seek His will and wait in quietness. When God is not answering, He is up for a better plan. I don’t see as God sees. He doesn’t look with human eyes, He looks with Divine sight way beyond the future and all its complexities. God does not need to explain away His purpose but one day, He will, and I will realize the reasons behind everything that happens.

For now, I am evaluating the past and the now, so I could take hold of my high calling in Christ and press forward to the future.

When you look at mythologies of other nations, in the area of the Promised Land, you learn that the snake was a sign of eternity. For example: in the Sumerian story, “The epic of Gilgamesh”, the snake stole the flower that gives man eternal life, from Gilgamesh. Another motif of the snake portrays it as one who guards the world, as he helped one of the kings beat an eagle that killed his descendents. In Egyptian mythology the snake named “Nahabu- Kaue” is what the whole world leans on.

In the Hebrew Bible, we see a very complex figure of the snake, or serpent, as is the case in other nations. Today we are going to ask ourselves what the snake symbolized in the old ages.
When the people of Israel complained to G-d in the desert, G-d sent those snakes from one hand, but he saved them with snakes from the other hand. For me, this story proves that the snake is not just an evil creature, but also a sign of life and rejuvenation, as we read in Numbers 21:5-9:

“וַיְדַבֵּר הָעָם, בֵּאלֹהִים וּבְמֹשֶׁה, לָמָה הֶעֱלִיתֻנוּ מִמִּצְרַיִם, לָמוּת בַּמִּדְבָּר

כִּי אֵין לֶחֶם, וְאֵין מַיִם, וְנַפְשֵׁנוּ קָצָה, בַּלֶּחֶם הַקְּלֹקֵל.
וַיְשַׁלַּח יְהוָה בָּעָם, אֵת הַנְּחָשִׁים הַשְּׂרָפִים,
וַיְנַשְּׁכוּ, אֶת-הָעָם; וַיָּמָת עַם-רָב, מִיִּשְׂרָאֵל.
וַיָּבֹא הָעָם אֶל-מֹשֶׁה וַיֹּאמְרוּ חָטָאנוּ,
כִּי-דִבַּרְנוּ בַיהוָה וָבָךְ–הִתְפַּלֵּל אֶל-יְהוָה,
וְיָסֵר מֵעָלֵינוּ אֶת-הַנָּחָשׁ; וַיִּתְפַּלֵּל מֹשֶׁה, בְּעַד הָעָם.
וַיֹּאמֶר יְהוָה אֶל-מֹשֶׁה, עֲשֵׂה לְךָ שָׂרָף, וְשִׂים אֹתוֹ, עַל-נֵס;
וְהָיָה, כָּל-הַנָּשׁוּךְ, וְרָאָה אֹתוֹ, וָחָי.
וַיַּעַשׂ מֹשֶׁה נְחַשׁ נְחֹשֶׁת, וַיְשִׂמֵהוּ עַל-הַנֵּס;
וְהָיָה, אִם-נָשַׁךְ הַנָּחָשׁ אֶת-אִישׁ—
וְהִבִּיט אֶל-נְחַשׁ הַנְּחֹשֶׁת, וָחָי”

“And the people spoke against God, and against Moses: ‘Wherefore have ye brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no bread, and there is no water; and our soul loatheth this light bread. ‘And the LORD sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people; and much people of Israel died. And the people came to Moses, and said: ‘We have sinned, because we have spoken against the LORD, and against thee; pray unto the LORD, that He take away the serpents from us.’ And Moses prayed for the people. And the LORD said unto Moses: ‘Make thee a fiery serpent, and set it upon a pole; and it shall come to pass, that every one that is bitten, when he seeth it, shall live. ‘And Moses made a serpent of brass, and set it upon the pole; and it came to pass, that if a serpent had bitten any man, when he looked unto the serpent of brass, he lived.”

The snake’s dualism of good and evil (see , Genesis 49:17, Exodus 4:3, Deuteronomy 8:15  and more) continued until the days of Hezekiah, the king of Judah, who decided to destroy any sign of the serpent from the story above; probably with the intention of removing any potential opponent, as we can see in 2 Kings 18:4-

“הוּא הֵסִיר אֶת-הַבָּמוֹת, וְשִׁבַּר אֶת-הַמַּצֵּבֹת

וְכָרַת, אֶת-הָאֲשֵׁרָה;

וְכִתַּת נְחַשׁ הַנְּחֹשֶׁת אֲשֶׁר-עָשָׂה מֹשֶׁה,

כִּי עַד-הַיָּמִים הָהֵמָּה הָיוּ בְנֵי-יִשְׂרָאֵל מְקַטְּרִים לוֹ

וַיִּקְרָא-לוֹ, נְחֻשְׁתָּן”

“He removed the high places, and broke the pillars, and cut down the Asherah; and he broke in pieces the brazen serpent that Moses had made; for unto those days the children of Israel did offer to it; and it was called Nehushtan”

But even in the days of Hezekiah, we can see the snake in a positive aspect; this time his name is “saraph”, as written in Isaiah 6:1-3-

“בִּשְׁנַת-מוֹת הַמֶּלֶךְ עֻזִּיָּהוּ

וָאֶרְאֶה אֶת-אֲדֹנָי יֹשֵׁב עַל-כִּסֵּא רָם וְנִשָּׂא;

וְשׁוּלָיו, מְלֵאִים אֶת-הַהֵיכָל.

שְׂרָפִים עֹמְדִים מִמַּעַל לוֹ, שֵׁשׁ כְּנָפַיִם שֵׁשׁ כְּנָפַיִם לְאֶחָד:

בִּשְׁתַּיִם יְכַסֶּה פָנָיו, וּבִשְׁתַּיִם יְכַסֶּה רַגְלָיו–וּבִשְׁתַּיִם יְעוֹפֵף.

וְקָרָא זֶה אֶל-זֶה וְאָמַר,

קָדוֹשׁ קָדוֹשׁ קָדוֹשׁ יְהוָה צְבָאוֹת; מְלֹא כָל-הָאָרֶץ, כְּבוֹדוֹ”.

“In the year that king Uzziah died I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne high and lifted up, and His train filled the temple. Above Him stood the seraphim; each one had six wings: with twain he covered his face and with twain he covered his feet, and with twain he did fly. And one called unto another, and said: Holy, holy, holy, is the LORD of hosts; the whole earth is full of His glory.”

If you read those verses closely, you can start to understand that in the story of the Garden of Eden, the snake represents not just evil, but maybe also good; for the snake told the woman the truth, and understood that the test wasn’t fair!
If the tree is the tree of knowledge and evil, is it not possible that the character of the snake is also comprised of both seemingly contradicting characteristics? Is the snake, who fought G-d, but who was also smart and crafty, only a negative character, or does the snake also have positive attributes?

–Classical Hebrew Newsletter

Today is glittering gold, ti’s the color of your light

When the birds shrilled and echoed on a moment of spark

The leaves waved hello as you smiled

From above, You gave us new light

Tonight, you hid your wondrous rays

And I laid still on the dark blanket hay

Scattered are the glitters of stars

I will stay awake to catch the mildew

I peeked as you came down in a sly

And asked why your stay was a flight

I heard stories, laughter and silence

Nothing stayed, but tomorrow, will you return?

–On a spur of the moment, 9:30pm, November 12, 2010

Robert Frost (1874–1963).  A Boy’s Will.  1915.

MY Sorrow, when she’s here with me, Thinks these dark days of autumn rain Are beautiful as days can be; She loves the bare, the withered tree; She walks the sodden pasture lane. 5 Her pleasure will not let me stay. She talks and I am fain to list: She’s glad the birds are gone away, She’s glad her simple worsted gray Is silver now with clinging mist. 10 The desolate, deserted trees, The faded earth, the heavy sky, The beauties she so truly sees, She thinks I have no eye for these, And vexes me for reason why. 15 Not yesterday I learned to know The love of bare November days Before the coming of the snow, But it were vain to tell her so, And they are better for her praise. 20

For a more complete collection of Robert Frost’s poetry, you could visit this site: http://www.bartleby.com/people/Frost-Ro.html

But the most interesting of all are the wildflowers. To me, they are very attractive. There is something about the commonality and its ability to thrive anywhere else.

My mother and her memories are that of a wildflower’s.

Having spent most of her childhood in the country where farming is the center of everyone’s lives, she would tell stories of how she worked as a young farmer–tending goats, carabaos and cows. She’d tell tales of her adventures with much gusto. Sometimes, I find them fascinating but most of the time, admirable. She’d tell about her hard-work from dawn to twilight, and how she would faithfully do her tasks as mandated by her very strict father.

I grew up hearing those stories and though I’d hear them over and over again, I never got tired. They have become stories of morale. Though my mother never told me to become as hardworking as she was, she was teaching us just that.

She was like a wildflower, strong and beautiful.

I never wondered why my father loved her. She was beautiful. With fair Spanish skin, Chinese eyes and a voluptuous built, she looked gorgeous when she was younger. She’d recall stories of how she took martial arts to defend herself. Indeed, for she settled when she was 36 years old, and had three children.

She taught me my alphabet, arithmetic, reading and sketching. I’d be obsessed with her sketches of the big crocodile, cats and dogs. I’d ask her to draw them over and over again. During my arithmetic lessons with my father, I’d ask her to solve them without knowing that I was cheating. She was the best spoiler and my cruelest enemy.

I first got my taste of fierce discipline when I was in second grade. She made me kneel on salt and grains when they found out I lied about my teacher not coming to school. I lied as the teacher hit me so bad for standing in the middle of the class. I knelt and cried was asked to say, I will not lie again.

In grade school, I went home later than usual because of a basketball game with my friends. I left without permission. When I went home, I got a hard hitting with the broomstick and my classmate would joke about it every time he sees me.

When I grew up, I got a taste of freedom. I went to church, camps, and wherever. I felt it was my mother’s way of spoiling me. She would let me make decisions after a good scolding. I appreciate it a lot and even when I became an adult, I’d usually get a good dose of nagging which keeps me grounded.

I learned my stories from my mother. She was my adviser, best friend and comforter. She knows what’s on my mind even without talking.

On her last few days, I stood beside her deathbed holding her hands; whispering words of encouragement and prayers. She’d look at me in the eyes and without talking, she told me how much she was suffering. She’ tell me it hurts and when she could not say it any longer, she talked with her eyes.

She left in a span of one week and died of cancer. Her passing was a betrayal. Like a wildflower, she came, lived and left fleetingly at 61. I felt like her life was spent shortly but meaningfully, having sent her siblings to school and working hard most of her life. She was very proud of her achievements.

She’d always tell her stories and I’d always love to listen though not at all times. Her absence is felt especially when I’m at home. But I knew that leaving will give her peace and rest. I did not want her to hurt, I did not want her to feel the pain. She finally will have eternal rest with her Maker.

I will surely tell her stories to my children–stories of hard-work, virtue and adventure. To me, my mother was a heroine, strong and brave. Like a flower, she came and left beautifully.

Psalm 90

God’s Eternity and Man’s Transitoriness
A Prayer of Moses the man of God.

1 LORD, thou hast been our dwelling place in all generations.
2 Before the mountains were brought forth,

or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world,
even from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God.
3 Thou turnest man to destruction;

and sayest, Return, ye children of men.
4 For a thousand years in thy sight
are but as yesterday when it is past, 2 Pet. 3.8
and as a watch in the night.
5 Thou carriest them away as with a flood; they are as a sleep:
in the morning they are like grass which groweth up.
6 In the morning it flourisheth, and groweth up;
in the evening it is cut down, and withereth.
7 For we are consumed by thine anger,
and by thy wrath are we troubled.
8 Thou hast set our iniquities before thee,
our secret sins in the light of thy countenance.
9 For all our days are passed away in thy wrath:
we spend our years as a tale that is told.
10 The days of our years are threescore years and ten;
and if by reason of strength they be fourscore years,
yet is their strength labor and sorrow;
for it is soon cut off, and we fly away.

11 Who knoweth the power of thine anger?
Even according to thy fear, so is thy wrath.

12 So teach us to number our days,
that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom.
13 Return, O LORD, how long?
And let it repent thee concerning thy servants.
14 O satisfy us early with thy mercy;
that we may rejoice and be glad all our days.

15 Make us glad according to the days wherein thou
hast afflicted us,
and the years wherein we have seen evil.
16 Let thy work appear unto thy servants,
and thy glory unto their children.

17 And let the beauty of the LORD our God be upon us:
and establish thou the work of our hands upon us;
yea, the work of our hands establish thou it.