Tag Archives: Connecticut poetry

London’s Derrière

https://i0.wp.com/www.ngw.nl/heraldrywiki/images/c/c9/Connecticut.jpg

Ode to Connecticut

(although with the taxes one pays in this quaint New England state
the poem should be titled “Owed to CT”.
I don’t recall where I found this statal poem but it is very old)

Tune: “Londonderry Air“

Here in the vista of three hundred years we stand,

Our torches kindled by thy guiding light.

A Pilgrim host, we come to thee from every land,

With joyful hopes, well girded by thy might.

Connecticut, beloved State, all hail to thee;

Tower of might against a flaming sky,

The heav’ns resound with praise, ring out with victory.

God speed you on and all your glories sanctify.

Through summer heat and winter cold thy honor stands,

A bulwark gainst the mighty hosts of sin,

Till love shall spread to earth’s most distant island strands,

And Heaven’s righteous ways o’er evil win.

Connecticut, advancing through the changing years,

May knowledge guide thy sons and daughters fair,

And honor, truth and wisdom banish all our fears,

Connecticut, while we thy many glories share!

The years shall pass across thy mighty mountain walls,

Against the gold of every setting sun,

A newer host, well-born within thy ancient halls,

Shall bear thy standards of new glories won.

Connecticut, our fathers kept thy honor fair,

Thy reach of love they widened to the sea.

We shall keep faith, where they fought; we, too, shall dare,

Connecticut, for aye we pledge our hearts to thee.

You Connect, I Cut

CT sigillum

“Qui Transtulit Sustinet !” Motto of light!
‘Neath the folds of that banner we strike for the right;
Connecticut’s watchword oer hill and o’er plain,
“The Hand that transplanted, that Hand will sustain.”
“Qui Transtulit Sustinet !” On the broad fold
of Connecticut’s banner this motto’s enrolled,
and flashed to the sunlight on mornings bright wings,
A promise of glory and honor it brings,
The promise of One who ne’er promised in vain,
“The Hand that transplanted, that Hand will sustain.”
Ay and surely it well has sustained us thus far,
in peace and in plenty, in want and in war.
When the foe has attacked us in battle array,
Then Connecticut’s sons have stood first in the fray;
And faith in that watchword inspires us again,
For “He who transplanted will ever sustain!”
And now, in the darkness of treason’s black night
‘Neath the folds of that banner we strike for the right!
For the RIGHT !  ‘Tis OUR COUNTRY we’re marching to save,
The dear flag of The UNION in triumph shall wave!
Faith swells every heart! Hope fires every vein!
“And Thou who transplanted, Oh always sustain !”
S. S. [L.L.] Weld
Google books : L.L. WELD
Annals of Norwich in New London County

 

 

The Golden Thunders of the Sun

This is a favorite poem.
I dedicate it to anyone who has or remembers when they had
a 2 and a half year old daughter.

(The title of this poem cites Ecclesiastes 12:6)

susana-sonrisa    susana-caballo    susana-star-pose

Ere The Golden Bowl Is Broken

Anna Hempstead Branch (1875—1937)

He gathered for His own delight
The sparkling waters of my soul.
A thousand creatures, bubbling bright—
He set me in a golden bowl.

From the deep cisterns of the earth
He bade me up—the shining daughter—
And I am exquisite with mirth,
A brightening and a sunlit water.

The wild, the free, the radiant one,
A happy bubble I did glide.
I poised my sweetness to the sun
And there I sleeked my silver side.

Sometimes I lifted up my head
And globed the moonlight with my hands,
Or thin as flying wings I spread
Angelic wildness through the sands.

Then, woven into webs of light,
I breathed, I sighed, I laughed aloud,
And lifting up my pinions bright
I shone in Heaven, a bird-white cloud.

Then did I dance above the mead,
And through the crystal fields would run,
And from my scarlet splendors breed
The golden thunders of the sun.

Beneath the whitening stars I flew
And floated moon-like on the breeze,
Or my frail heart was piercéd through
With sharp sweet flowers of the trees.

Of giant crags I bear the scars,
And I have swept along the gale,
Such multitudes as are the stars,
My myriad faces rapt and pale.

As savage creatures strong and free
Make wild the jungle of the wood,
The starry powers that sport in me
Habit my silver solitude.

From out my smallness, soft as dew,
That utter fastness, stern and deep,
Terrible meanings look at you
Like visions from the eyes of sleep.

I cannot leap—I cannot run—
I only glimmer, soft and mild,
A limpid water in the sun,
A sparkling and a sunlit child.

What stranger ways shall yet be mine
When I am spilled, you cannot see.
But now you laugh to watch me shine,
And smooth the hidden stars in me.

Lightly you stroke my silver wing—
The folded carrier of my soul.
A soft, a shy, a silent thing,
A water in a golden bowl!

Read more of her poetry here

Anna H B