L’ENVOI
Quietly, quietly, drifting away,
Into the heart of the dying day;
Fading with colours of purple and gold,
Silently passing, the story is told;
The volume is closed, and the light journeys west.
The heart that is weary finds beauty and rest,
Deep in shadows from whence it came;
And nothing is left but a stone and a name.
-And the world rolls on the same.
Dorothea Graham Botha
The Epworth Press
1925
Lament For Paris
Weep, ye daughters Mnemosyne,
Paris is fallen…weep, ye Muses Nine.
And don your darkest robes, Melpomene:
Paris is fallen…Paris, the divine.
A captive in the vandals’ hands is she,
A slave, who led the way to Liberty…
Paris is fallen... O ye gods, repine!
She chose to follow beauty as of old
That other Paris chose, whose judgement gave
To Venus the immortal fruit of gold.
Yet all the powers of Venus could not save
Her Paris then, nor yet this Paris keep…
Paris is fallen…weep, ye Muses, weep.
Late Rain
I lie and listen to the rain at night
Singing over and over again its old refrain,
And think “Will Summer never come again?”
And “Has the sun become a troglodite?”
But with the day I cry out in delight
And fling the shutters wide, for every pane
A picture of such beauty doth contain
As even the weariest waiting must requite:
So green the grass, the trees so heavenly green,
The little plants so flourishing and strong,
So eager to begin their blossom song
And all the world so fresh, so fair, so clean!
“Dear God,” I whisper, “don’t let me complain
Again of your magician, blessed Rain.”
Leave ‘Now’ to Dogs and Apes Man Has Forever
Round and round and round . . . Tick . . . Tock . . .
Tick . . Tock . . . Round and round and round
Go the prisoned fingers of the clock,
Forever impotent, forever bound;
Measuring its life in ordered spans
Of seconds, minutes, hours, a treadmill slave
Seeking to impose its will on man’s
By frightening whispers of a destined grave.
I laugh . . . I’m not afraid, grim-visaged one!
This flesh I wear will perish and decay
Like any garment, and this Day be done
And dawn again like any other day.
The clock has only a day of joys and Sorrows.
But man has a million years of fresh tomorrows.
Dorothea Spears
Legacy
It may be I shall leave you a thousand or two
In cash or property or stocks and shares
To worry you with income tax affairs
As capital and interest always do
(Unless I live too long, or the world goes through
Too many crises); a work or two that bears
A not unhonourable name and wears
Brief immortality to challenge you.
I would that I could leave you deeper dower -
A living consciousness of God to bind
You to all time and space all human kind . . .
A fellowship with cloud and tree and flower . . .
An access to the inner peace of mind . . .
Awareness of the beauty of the hour . . .
Dorothea Spears
Let Man Be Humble
Life itself is miracle enough.
We struggle, how we struggle to transmute
Created elements to living stuff.!
And yet . . . . in each invisible, minute,
Unvalued sperm produced at random lives
The image of its maker, beast or man.
Which, mated and developed. grows and gives
The story of his evolution's. span.
Beside this miracle how vain are we
With all our proud and various inventions.
Who haven't even learned the ABC
Creation spells, despite our vast pretensions.
Perhaps within another million years
Evolving man might learn to govern spheres.
Dorothea Spears
Let's face it
The passing years carry away
The certainties of youth
And the assurance of middle age,
And alter the perspective of truth.
At twenty we could teach our betters.
At forty we could overreach
The circumscription of our days
And ways. At fifty we could rise
Above the doubts that tripped us
And took us by surprise:
But having thought for sixty years
That we could shape the world
Are caught by an inevitable Now
From which we can't escape,
Nor tell the coming generation how.
Dorothea Spears
Liberation
Some day, some day I shall forget this Me,
It’s limitations and its prison wall,
Its little ills, its doubts, its constant call
And then I, too, shall walk upon the sea.
When I from thought of self this form shall free
And single-single minded fear no fret nor fall,
Knowing I have the governance of all,
E’en this side death shall I of earth be free.
I shall uplift the form, not form despise,
For this it is that holds man to the earth.
Not form itself, its weight, its height, its girth,
But consciousness of form, all it implies
Of limitation and the bonds of birth;
This once resolved, I, too, shall mount the skies.
Lie Still My Heart
Lie still my heart; lie still and rest;
Whatever God has willed is best.
See, on the bay, in lines of gold,
The rising moon hath fair foretold
The future path thy feet shall tread,
A golden path; be comforted.
Be comforted, my heart, nor grieve
For what is lost beyond retrieve.
The brave lights twinkle joy through pain;
The steady stars sing, ‘Hope again!’
And still across the bay is spread
The golden path. Be comforted.
A soft mist blurs the blending light-
Or is it tears that dim my sight?
Lie still, my heart, the night is fair,
And God will have thee in His care.
Dorothea Graham Botha
The Epworth Press 1925
Life Imprisons All, But Gives To Each
Life imprisons all, but gives to each
A bunch of keys with which, if he be wise,
He may extend the level of his reach
And open doors that lead him to the skies.
I had not thought before, how many doors
Within the house of life are closed forever
When one has lost the key of sound; what stores
Of common treasure he can rifle never.
I had not known the heavy doors of night
Could prison one in darkness so profound
And solitary, when the key of Sight
Is useless and one lacks the key of Sound.
Should we not weep for him whose lost key bars
Some door that gives us access to the stars?
Life is a One-way Street
There is no going back along the road
Of life… It is a one-way track.
Time and space will never synchronise
To duplicate an hour or a place
And it were folley to retrace
Old steps in an endeavour to surprise
Old landmarks of the heart or of the mind,
That played however proud a part
Upon the winding path that lies behind
This now and here, however dear
The time or place or face we seek to find.
The Arad of life is a spiral… up or down,
But never round and round, never twice
Identical. Although
We think we pay the same price
It is never exactly the same.
It is a turn above or turn below
Although we call it by the same name.
Do not think that you can ever go
To any given place in time again.
The past can only be a memory,
And he is wise of men who knows
That there is no return to yesterday.
And forgetting, unregretting,
Towards tomorrow goes.
Kodiak, Alaska
August 63
Light for Living
If I could only dip a pen in light . . .
If I could only fill a fountain-pen
With this abundant fire and light − Oh, then
The light would overflow and write and write
Until it flooded the encroaching night
That creeps across the fearful heart of men
And set the sun to shining clear again,
Revealing beauty and reviving sight.
This light is in us if we will to see,
The light that radiates the way, the goal,
The light and love and life to make us whole.
This love is in us if we will to free
The Self from self, unshuttering the soul
This Life is in us if we will to Be.
Dorothea Spears
Light Within
Always there is singing; there is light.
Although the outward silence be intense,
The weight of darkness brooding and immense
Enveloping the being like a night
Bereft of moon and star, bereft of sight,
The inner eye can pierce the gloom and sense
The beauty of the spirit's immanence
And touch the shining hem of all delight.
The singing − not of tamed birds in a cage −
But ecstasy of the ascending lark
When body, soul and spirit are aligned
The light that has endured from age to age...
Behind the vast and unendurable dark
The radiance that he who seeks will find.
Dorothea Spears
Like A Little Child
God, I am utterly weary;
Tired, so tired of play,
And I long to creep to Thy loving arms
Like a child at the close of day.
God, I am disappointed,
As a child at a dull day’s end,
And I long to unburden my weary heart
To my understanding Friend.
And Thou wilt soothe in the silence
Till all of the care in fled,
And I shall sleep like a little child
With Thy hand upon my head.
Lines
The sky is cloudy, and the air
Seems heavy with hidden sadness;
I am leaving soon for lands afar,
Methinks my heart should be all gladness.
But ‘tis not so; I linger here,
And everything I see seems dear.
Dorothea Graham Botha
The Epworth Press
1925
Lines for a Beloved One Setting Out on a Journey
Beloved teacher, leader, brother, friend:
A little while our bodies walk apart
Upon our journey to the endless end,
But there’s no separation in the heart.
Some think that space divides, but others know
In space we are united and made whole.
Our bodies take us far; they come and go
But there’s no separation in the soul.
And although we say “Auf wiedersehen” today
With sadness, needing your physical guidance still,
We shall be conscious of you upon our way
And lean upon you as we breast the hill
Towards the radiance of the risen son…
For in His Holy Being we are one.
Written by Mrs. Dorothea Spears and read by Mr. Van Essen at the Gatha class on August 10 1958.
Lines For A Kitchen Tea …To The Glory of God
A shining pot can praise the Lord
As blithely as a Dresden bowl,
And kitchen, sink and stove afford
A tongue to serve a radiant soul.
However humble, every art,
Pursued with pot or brush or pen,
Can voice the praises of the heart
And glorify our God to men.
So may His blessing sweetly tune
These humble servants which will bring
-Our Brother Scrub-brush, Sister Spoon-
And may you teach them how to sing.
So shall your kitchen merrily
Sing Laudo, laudo, Domine!
Lines from 'Born with Wonder'
There is a point beyond which a man no longer creates god in his own image.
There is a point at which man's consciousness expands
To touch the Infinite Consciousness, and realize
A little of the vastness and the wonder of the world not made with hands;
Accepting, in humility and wonder, that the real horizon lies
Beyond the limits of his mightiest surmise.
Strangely, beside the intimation of this vastness,
Man himself is not dwarfed but magnified.
Released from the imprisonment of the mortal fastness
Ordained for the protection of humanity in its youth,
He catches a glimpse of the glory of the unknowable Truth.
Lines From Pulpit Hill, Oban.
Here I shall lie and dream, Beloved.
Drinking deep the love of God;
Here, surrounded by deathless beauty,
I’ll lie and dream on the scented sod.
Far below me the azure water
Ripples radiant to shadowed hill:
Yonder stands the forsaken Castle,
Verdure crowned, and the clouds are still.
Water and hill and cloud, Beloved,
Breathe of the love of God to me;
As I lie and dream on the scented grasses,
Dream, Beloved of God- and thee.
Lines to the Victors
Beware of Hate, ye judges who will sit
In earth’s high places, in grave conclave met,
Not jot or tittle would I abrogate
Of Justice’s claims, no leniency lend
To your high counsels, but be very sure
Hate’s greedy finger does not tip the scale
Nor Hate’s deceptive shadow dim those eyes
That need their clearest vision in this hour.
Be firm. Be hard, and if you will. T'were meet
That punishment should follow after wrong,
Such punishment as such delinquencies
Deserve, to guard the future of the world.
But let it be a punishment and not
Revenge. Else, though we wear the Victor’s crown
And trample underfoot a beaten foe.
He will have won, if he has forced our souls
To harbour Hate and in that service move.
And we take vengeance for a guide, be sure
No peace, how hardly won, shall long endure.
Oaklands Newlands Ave, Newlands, C.P.
Lines Written In A Very Old Cottage In Kent
So old these portals are: the silent years
Glide in and out. They pass us on the stairs,
And in the hospitable oak-beamed chambers
The still years overtake us unawares.
Here beauty dwells – something more than beauty –
The rooms are mellow with the breath of years,
And with innumerable ghosts a-flutter,
Forgotten laughter, and forgotten tears.
Each year that passes leaves a benediction,
Pressing cool hands upon your head and mine:
We reap the deathless blessing of the ages,
And peace of heart they leave us for a sign.
Let us be quiet for a little space,
Quiet in the heart and in the mind
And in the body : maybe we shall find,
If we are still enough, the inner grace
To see the Son of God in every face.
If we are silent, God may touch blind
And wayward hearts to see the God behind
The homely beauty of the commonplace.
That tall, cloud-shouldering hill that butts the sky.
The beggar in the street—could we but see—
The sod, the seed, the flower, the whispering tree
Are manifesting God . . . and you and I.
The gates are open to Eternity
And Heaven than Man himself is not more high.
Listening to Life
The day that breaks in sorrow ends in singing . . .
The day that wakes in singing breaks in sorrow . . .
And who can tell the tune the bells are ringing,
The tune of yesterday, today, tomorrow?
What matters what the changeful hours bring?
What matter if the bells rejoice or toll?
For happiness can weep and sorrow sing
And all is beauty to the listening soul.
The graver note, the gayer tempo slowing,
The modulation to the minor key,
Give richer beauty to the pattern growing
Only discord shatters harmony.
What matter how the current day may start
Or end, if harmony is in the heart?
Dorothea Spears
LITTLE LIVES
Our little lives go on . . .
What shall we have for dinner tonight?
This is important.
To what show shall we go,
And who shall sit at the host’s right?
Protocol must be observed.
Our spouse has signed a suicide pact
On our behalf—
What do we wear to celebrate the act,
What bonfires do we light?
Our little differences still
Loom large against our eyes . . .
A penny piece of change can fill
The eye at close range.
Today a new Columbus sailed uncharted skies
Beyond
the ring-pass-not of man and mind . . .
What banners were unfurled?
What fabulous kingdoms shall we find?
He holds in his hand.
Outstretched, the key to a new world . . .
Can we understand?
The thing that matters most to us is this :
Is our skin black or white?
And what are we going to have for dinner tonight?
Living Record
Do I believe in evolution? Well,
Since I believe in the infinitesimal sperm
Of life that finds its way into the moist well
Of the womb, and on completion of its term
Of divine mathematics (addition and division
And Multiplication and integration) sums
Into a human being, and at parturition
Naked and helpless into man’s kingdom comes –
Then infant into child and child to man,
A spirit, soul, and form in the image of God
And still perfecting His unfinished Plan –
Can I believe in the stork and the moulded clod?
I do believe God writes the mystery
In man himself, creation’s history.
“Veritas”
Constantia, C.P.
Lone Bird
Over and over again he calls
But there - is no reply.
I search the hedges and the walls,
The wires that cut the sky,
For there is never an answer falls
To his repeated cry.
The feathered fellows of his kind
Have long since flown away
Some other summertime to find,
But something bids him stay
And he alone remains behind
And calls and calls all day.
Over and over again the call -
O bird, let be! Go by!
For there is no reply at all . . .
There is no reply.
-Dorothea Spears
Loneliness
How lonely the sky looks where a tree
Was once and is no more . . .
Like an empty chair in a living room
When one who sat there has closed the door
And will never come back again.
Dorothea Spears
Lonely flute
Lonely, lonely, lonely is the flute
Against the silence of the listening night
When all the voices of the day are mute,
Patterning a magic in moon's light.
I heard it so. So many years ago
I heard it so, haunting eastern skies
A world of time and space away. I know,
I know how plaintively the flute cries . . .
Chrysanthemums, pagodas, and the gold
And scarlet leaves of autumn, and the pain
Of autumn when the year is growing old
And beauty unfulfilled, and on the wane.
Syrinx is in the flute, and the voice of Pan
Half god, half goat, and longing to be man.
Dorothea Spears
Lonely Folk
I can’t help loving lonely folk –
I have been lonely too,
And I know so well that hollow ache
Deep down inside in the heart of you
And you work, and you play, but nothing can fill
The empty place that keeps hurting still.
Oh lonely folk, with your gnawing pain
Beyond the doctor’s power,
I know the depth of your loneliness
And the length of your weariest hour:
And I wish I could clasp each lonely hand
And whisper “Friend, I understand.”
Longing
There is no peace, nor here nor there;
No peace, though all the world be fair.
No peace, but longing day and night-
Nor peace nor love, nor joy nor light,
Nor rest, but yearning night and day
For thee! for thee! for thee, alway!
Why do I seek for happiness?
Thy love hast only power to bless,
Thy love, and thou art far from me,
Beyond a dark and bridgeless sea.
There is no hope; there is no star:
And thou and love art far, art far!
There is no peace, nor any rest,
Nor North to South, nor East to West.
There is no star in any sky;
Nor moon, nor sun : thou art not nigh.
There is no love, nor life for me;
Nor happiness, apart from thee!
Looking ahead
Man’s stature is too small as yet to wear
The cloak that’s knit to fit the world. He needs
Some smaller closer-clinging garment like
A country, nation, family to keep
His ego warm and help to make him feel
Important and assured. But he will find
Some day how tight these little garments bind;
Will put his shoulders back, throw out his chest,
Stand tall, and realize at last that he
Is big enough to wear humanity.
Dorothea Spears
Looking Forward
(For Soroptimists – Especially on Friendship Day)
More than ever, now, the world has need
Of us and of the truths for which we stand;
More imperative, now that those who lead
Should hold the vision of A promised Land
Where love and service conquer hate and greed
And common good means more than self’s demand,
And hope’s more potent than despair to plead.
Together we’ll go forward, hand in hand,
To love, to serve, to share, to understand.
1982
Lost
Tell me, where shall I turn, where shall I seek
The dream I thought I had found and have lost again,
The half-heard answer -that escaped this pen -
How many years ago? - I cannot tell,
But I seemed to know the answer then
And like the answer well.
Where have I lost it - or was it never true
And did I only dream I dreamed a dream, with you?
Dorothea Spears
Lost A Golden Key
I’ve lost a key, a golden key
That opens the golden door
To the lovely land of Never-Will-Be,
And Never-Has-Been-Before.
To everything in the Land of Dreams
That golden doorway led,
From wonderful journeys to – chocolate dreams,
Or a beautiful prince to wed!
And all the things one can’t receive
In the land of Work-a-Day
Were mine in the realm of Make-Believe
For as long as dared to stay.
Oh! Rich was I in those olden days
When the door swung open wide
And I could wander the golden ways,
Or run away and hide
When life was ugly and out of tune
And the world too big for me…
But you said it was silly to kiss the moon,
And now I have lost the key.
Lost Eden 1
Had I no conscience, I could be
Lark-happy all day long
With so much beauty jostling me
To set it in a song.
This homely garden is so full
Of wonderment and wings
That I should never find life dull
Just thinking, and looking at things.
For wonder wakes with each new day,
Comes thrusting through the sod…
New colours made of sun and clay
Keep glorifying God.
If I could only sit and dream
And let the world go by,
Accept that things are as they seem –
Now happy, happy I!
But being taught that man must work
(Since Eden has been lost)
I look to see the serpent lurk
And find him, at what cost.
Airlie Close
Constantia, C.P.
Lost Eden
Once I was wont to see
God’s smile in every flower,
His love in every tree,
Illuminating me.
Once I was wont to hear
His voice in every stream,
And knowing Him so near
Was never touched by Fear.
Once I was wont to feel
His kiss in every wind –
I had no need to kneel
To know Him living, real.
But I have grown too wise,
Or I have lost my way:
Or doubt has sealed my eyes
That once was paradise.
And I can go back never.
The gates are barred with flame,
Since I have grown so clever –
Are barred to me- forever.
Love is not a fort
Love is not a fort, to be defended
Against all comers to the weary end;
Nor flawed material that must be mended
Constantly lest faulty fibres rend.
Love is a mountain to be climbed, indeed,
Not fearfully but confidently; higher
Than the summit of a dream, or need
Of reassurance; higher than desire.
Love should be a sanctuary where
The heart however blunted can be sure
To find a certain refuge from despair,
A shelter where the mind can be secure.
Man today so needs to find release
From life's pursuers, in a place of peace.
Dorothea Spears
Love Wrought
When you and I are old and gone
These scenes we love so well,
The pool our lilies drift upon,
Our fern-embroidered dell;
The grotto where the water drips
All summer long, like tears;
The jasmine where the sun-bird sips –
These shall not change with years.
As long as one is left who cares
For quiet spots, love-wrought,
Age cannot take away these unawares
As you and I are caught.
Our beauty passes with the night,
But this beloved spot
Shall still disseminate delight
When you and I are not.
LOVE, BEING AGELESS.
Love, being ageless, lives continuously;
Love has no years. Love is forever young.
And yet world-old. When the first stars were hung
Love was. And when the great blue canopy
Of Heaven was spread, and dreaming, riotously
The lover-God His sunset colours flung
At eventide; and when the first bird sung.
And turquoise took its semblance from the sea.
So old is Love. And yet so young that I,
Who but to-day am born, have felt its thrill.
And though my day be nearly done. Love still
Is young and vibrant as at morning sky
We met, though now the sunset’s glow doth fill
My heavens. Love, being ageless, cannot die.
Lover's walk
This September I must fill my eyes
To overflowing with the loveliness
Of these spring-welcoming trees, before this brief
And delicate beauty, this tenderness of green
That like an aura wraps the burgeoning tree,
Loses the innocent sheen of infancy:
For this might be the last time I shall see
The wakening trees I have so loved invoke
The happiness inherent in the oak
When first the new life trembles in her leaves:
For now suburbia claims these wooded ways
And men again betray their heritage.
I must engrave them on my heart so deep
That memory will make them mine to keep.
Dorothea Spears
Lullaby
Swiftly, silently slips the sun
Over the edge of day.
Sleep you now, my little one,
The time is past for play.
Apollo is driving his fiery steeds
Around the world again;
And Pan is playing amongst the reeds
Of joy and of love and pain.
Sleep, my little one, from your star
Beautiful dreams we’ll borrow
Till the sun god sweeps with his golden car
Over the rim of tomorrow.
Lunar Governance
I wooed the inner silence where the sea
In thunderous tumult shattered into spray
Against land’s bouldered bastions, held at bay
By some unknown immutable decree,
To learn the secret of his cruelty:
For those who love him most he will betray
In sullen fury, or in wanton play…
And this is what he seemed to say to me:
“At your own peril, mortal, bar, my way.
No choice have I to loosen or to bind,
By moon compelled, and driven by the wind;
To warring elements myself am prey.”
I wondered, pondering the thing again –
Perhaps it is the same with cruel men?
“Veritas”
Constantia