Joy Comes Unbidden
Is it the same with you? Does Beauty come
Unheralded as birds and sunsets do,
A voice that but a moment since was dumb.
A rift of sudden sunlight breaking through?
All unexpectedly the winter's spring:
Surprisingly from where your foot has trod
A bidden lark will rise and soar and sing
And bear the soul before the face of God!
Or one may walk alone among the trees
And catch the laughter on the lips of day
Unwarned, amid such a sudden joy will seize
The being as will take the breath away.
Nor rhyme nor reason cites the time or place
Where lilting joy reveals unveiled her face.
Dorothea Spears
Joy in Autumn
What way was there of knowing, when I woke
And saw the morning shrouded in its cloak
Of gray, that joy was overflowing? Oak
And pine and poplar wept when day broke.
The children of the day, its minutes, hours
And seconds passed unsmiling through the bowers
Of dahlia and chrysanthemum, the flowers
Beloved of Autumn, when the sun cowers
And mountains hide their faces in a veil
Of mist. And melancholy winds wail
A warning to adorning blossoms frail
Defiant, fearless though the skies pale.
On such a day, what way was there of knowing
The fount of joy would fill to overflowing?
Dorothea Spears
Joy of Autumn
Let me live to the full this glorious May,
From the moment morning opens its shining eyes
To greet a sparkling world with renewed surprise!
Let me gather the bloom from the cheeks of day
Before the ardent sun has kissed away
Her innocence. This year let me be wise
From the minute the blushing mountain heralds the rise
Of the laggard sun, for beauty will not stay!
Let me be a gourmet, an epicure,
Savouring to the full each burning tree,
Drinking in each day with ecstasy
Of being alive, for Beauty will not endure!
Let me so mingle this Autumn with my breath
That nothing can take it from me… Nothing, but death.
1944
Jubilate
There are so many ways
Of giving praise
There is the way of beauty,
And the way of scent
(Beloved of the flowers)
There is the way of duty
And the still way of content:
One does not need a voice
To rejoice…
There are so many ways
Of giving praise!
July
The mercury in the mute glass falls –
This is the month of sudden squalls!
This is the month of sullen seas
And sodden earth and naked trees
And leaden skies and screaming gales!
This is the month when old Sol pales
And hides his kingly head in gloom
While clouds join battle in his room.
Their forces clash in clamorous brawl
And burst on torrents over all;
O’er rich and poor, and young and old
They pour their waters manifold –
This is the month of wind and rain.
Tom-boy July is here again!
“Dawn”, Silwood Rd
Rondebosch, Cape
June Night
I would that you had stood with me
That sweet, soft night in June,
When all the earth and sea and sky
Were perfectly atune:
Dark mountains merging into dark sky;
Dark waters to dark land;
Above, the moonlit canopy,
By southern breezes fanned.
And in the valley far below,
And all along the bay,
The city lights, agleam like stars
Along the milky way.
I would that you had stood with me
All in that soft June night,
To see the handiwork of God,
And know His ways are right.
Cape Town South Africa.
Dorothea Graham Botha
The Epworth Press 1925
Just
There is no cause without effect
And there can be no effect without cause.
Is not this the basic truth
Underlying all laws?
And those Great Laws which guide the Universe −
When he has disobeyed them
Dare man call his punishment a curse,
Who might have stayed them?
And snivel like a weakling making moan,
Impugning God when he must reap
Effects that spring from causes he has sown.
If man were puppet in the hands of Fate
Then might he question. But he was designed
To have dominion over earth's estate
To loosen and to bind.
And if in arrogance he chose
The way of separation
Should he not take the consequence that flows
Inexorably from his determination? −
If we must blame a God for earthly ill
Let the blame be for giving man free will.
Dorothea Spears