Posted on 03/01/2002 6:33:22 PM PST by Night Hides Not
It is especially poignant for me, thanks to my lovely wife who has presented me with two wonderful sons: Richie (12), and Nathan (one week), plus a most-of-the-time-wonderful 14 year old daughter (Shauna - just kidding, sweetie).
Thank you, Mark, for these beautiful words.
While not confronting the tragedy of abortion as directly as your fine lyrics, I've found the following W.B. Yates poem a prophetic, if not subliminal indictment of the macabre practice...
WHERE dips the rocky highland
Of Sleuth Wood in the lake,
There lies a leafy island
Where flapping herons wake
The drowsy water rats;
There we've hid our faery vats,
Full of berrys
And of reddest stolen cherries.
Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand.
Where the wave of moonlight glosses
The dim gray sands with light,
Far off by furthest Rosses
We foot it all the night,
Weaving olden dances
Mingling hands and mingling glances
Till the moon has taken flight;
To and fro we leap
And chase the frothy bubbles,
While the world is full of troubles
And anxious in its sleep.
Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand.
Where the wandering water gushes
From the hills above Glen-Car,
In pools among the rushes
That scare could bathe a star,
We seek for slumbering trout
And whispering in their ears
Give them unquiet dreams;
Leaning softly out
From ferns that drop their tears
Over the young streams.
Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand.
Away with us he's going,
The solemn-eyed:
He'll hear no more the lowing
Of the calves on the warm hillside
Or the kettle on the hob
Sing peace into his breast,
Or see the brown mice bob
Round and round the oatmeal chest.
For he comes, the human child,
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world's more full of weeping than he can understand.
-William Butler Yeats
I've had it on my home page for some time now..
Breeze between the knees...Congrats on both your boys...You've got to be proud! As an MP captain in Korea, I had considered trying an interservice transfer to USAF OSI. The AF doesn't have a warrant officer corps, per se, and, as far as Criminal Investigation and Counter Intel, they tend to let their commissioned officers get a lot more hands on, as opposed to the Army where the commissioned officers tend to plan, supervise and direct. I interviewed with the AFOSI commander at Osan, an AF 0-6...who was a West Point grad that had reclassed to the AF! Ultimately, my chain of command, "convinced," me I didn't want to attempt an interservice transfer...
...I've since found my calling in the private sector.
NO BIRTHDAY
I never had a birthday,
A party or a cake;
Never had a chance to play,
or watch the sun awake.
I ne'er beheld the seasons fair--
Saw winter, spring, or fall;
Or felt a brush of summer air,
Or heard a wildbird call.
I never saw a lark in flight,
Beheld a flowering tree;
Or gazed upon the stars at night--
Nor sailed upon the sea.
No chance had I to go to school,
And be with girls and boys,
Go swimming in a shady pool,
Or make a little noise.
And Christmas joys were not for me,
Ne'er would a New Year ring;
I'll never gather 'round a tree,
And happy carols sing.
But most, I never knew of love--
To give, or to receive;
I never heard of God above,
Knew nothing to believe.
And even when I died, so young,
I had no funeral;
No one to weep, no saddend song--
I had no burial.
You see, I was aborted--
Torn from my mothers womb;
She really had no time for me,
A bucket was my tomb.
And now I think what might have been'
If I'd a chance to live;
A chance to try, --to sink or swim,
And of myself to give.
So, won't you set a day aside--
A birthday once a year;
A day for me, who so young died,
Unloved, unwanted here.
********
Copyright 1975 Richard Kenny,
All rights reserved
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