“O love that will not let me go”

O Love that wilt not let me go,
I rest my weary soul in thee;
I give thee back the life I owe,
That in thine ocean depths its flow
May richer, fuller be.

O light that followest all my way,
I yield my flickering torch to thee;
My heart restores its borrowed ray,
That in thy sunshine’s blaze its day
May brighter, fairer be.

O Joy that seekest me through pain,
I cannot close my heart to thee;
I trace the rainbow through the rain,
And feel the promise is not vain,
That morn shall tearless be.

O Cross that liftest up my head,
I dare not ask to fly from thee;
I lay in dust life’s glory dead,
And from the ground there blossoms red
Life that shall endless be.

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This is exactly the kind of worship song I like. The author is George Matheson, a Scottish preacher and theologian active in the late 1800s and early 1900s. He wrote of this hymn,

My hymn was com­posed in the manse of In­ne­lan [Ar­gyle­shire, Scot­land] on the ev­en­ing of the 6th of June, 1882, when I was 40 years of age. I was alone in the manse at that time. It was the night of my sister’s mar­ri­age, and the rest of the fam­i­ly were stay­ing over­night in Glas­gow. Some­thing hap­pened to me, which was known only to my­self, and which caused me the most se­vere men­tal suf­fer­ing. The hymn was the fruit of that suf­fer­ing. It was the quick­est bit of work I ever did in my life. I had the im­press­ion of hav­ing it dic­tat­ed to me by some in­ward voice ra­ther than of work­ing it out my­self. I am quite sure that the whole work was com­plet­ed in five min­utes, and equal­ly sure that it ne­ver re­ceived at my hands any re­touch­ing or cor­rect­ion. I have no na­tur­al gift of rhy­thm. All the other vers­es I have ever writ­ten are man­u­fact­ured ar­ti­cles; this came like a day­spring from on high.

(Source: Cyberhymnal. Fair warning: Music plays automatically.)

The hymn has acquired several melodies over the years, as hymns are wont to do. For those who were in c-group today, Chris Miner composed the melody we used, and it is the melody Sandra McCracken made popular. (For those who weren’t there, Youtube has a similar version.)

What I learned today. Also, webcomics!

I learned that there is such a thing as a proper adjective, the descriptive form of a proper noun. I knew that they existed, but I didn’t know there was a special term for them.

This pictures for sad children comic (yes, that is its name) sums up pretty well what I think of the technological singularity movement.

Speaking of webcomics, you know how Garfield sucks? The internet has taken it upon itself to fix that in the form of “Garfield Minus Garfield,” which is exactly what it says on the tin. It turns out that removing all traces of the cat himself transforms the strip into a perpetual dialog between John and his bizarre, lonely life. It’s dark, funny, and occasionally profound–everything, in other words, the unaltered strip isn’t.

I don’t even know how to title this

When I woke up this morning, I knew I’d have to find a topic for today’s blog post. I wasn’t worried; after all, aren’t there plenty of interesting things online? The internet is a jaded man’s dream, an endless wunderkammer of folly, oddity, and spectacle.

I know all this, but I still wasn’t prepared for this:

“Will Clark is set to direct ‘Pride and Predator,’ which veers from the traditional period costume drama when an alien crash lands and begins to butcher the mannered protags, who suddenly have more than marriage and inheritance to worry about.” (source; h/t Tim D.’s Facebook profile)

Upon expressing my shock at this, Anna R. informed me of the upcoming “Pride and Prejudice and Zombies.”

This…I just…what. 

(Incidentally, Joseph Palmer was what I was going to post on before I came across all this.)

Boredom problem partially solved!

As you know, I struggle with being bored in class. Today a solution hit me: more blog posts.

This is a change from my usual policy of not posting unless I’ve put some degree of polish to my thoughts. I try to pick credible links, anticipate objections, and generally post carefully. This is hard and I only do it when I feel like it, so I don’t post much. This will change.

What does this mean for you? Well, for one thing, it means my time stamps will be less accurate because I’ll shifting them a few hours to prevent profs from noticing that I’m sharing Wikipedia’s list of conspiracy theories (1) with all four of my faithful readers during their lecture on [post redacted]. I like to keep my deniable plausible, after all. So if any profs are reading this, you can at least believe that I’m bored and goofing off in someone else’s class. (2) 

To everyone else, I can promise less quality but I can promise more quantity. And I can promise one other thing: my goal will be to learn at least one interesting thing every class period, and I’ll share it with you. Who knows, it might even be something I’ve learned as part of the class! 

Well, okay. Maybe I’ll work up to that. Small steps.

(1) “This article needs additional citations for verification.” Heh.

(2) Well, except for you–I’m totally bored and goofing off in your class.

Ogden Nash’s “To My Valentine”

 

One day late. Drat.

——————-

More than a catbird hates a cat,
Or a criminal hates a clue,
Or the Axis hates the United States,
That’s how much I love you.

I love you more than a duck can swim,
And more than a grapefruit squirts,
I love you more than a gin rummy is a bore,
And more than a toothache hurts.

As a shipwrecked sailor hates the sea,
Or a juggler hates a shove,
As a hostess detests unexpected guests,
That’s how much you I love.

I love you more than a wasp can sting,
And more than the subway jerks,
I love you as much as a beggar needs a crutch,
And more than a hangnail irks.

I swear to you by the stars above,
And below, if such there be,
As the High Court loathes perjurious oathes,
That’s how you’re loved by me. 

 

Musk for librarians?

Library-scented perfume.

While I do like the smell of old books, I can’t say I’ve ever been tempted to ask one out.

Robert Frost’s “To the Thawing Wind”

It’s forty five degrees out and the world is equal parts snow and dripping ice. What could be a better day for this poem?

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Come with rain, O loud Southwester!
Bring the singer, bring the nester
Give the buried flower a dream;
Make the settled snow-bank steam;
Find the brown beneath the white;
But whate’er you do to-night,
Bathe my window, make it flow,
Melt it as the ices go;
Melt the glass and leave the sticks
Like a hermit’s crucifix;
Burst into my narrow stall
Swing the picture on the wall;
Run the rattling pages o’er;
Scatter poems on the floor;
Turn the poet out of door.