The Hammock Papers: Illumine.

19 January 2020

Illumine.

Inness, Sunrise in the Apple Orchard, 1892

Our weary limbs refreshed now with rest,
After our sleep we wake and up arise.
Our sluggish bed no longer be our nest;
We dress us, Lord, as we can best devise,
Singing devoutly hymns of service,
Beseeching thee always be us among,
Who now praise thee most heartily in song.

Our tongue praise thee, good Lord, principally,
And in thy laud most joyously resound.
Our heart and our mind, our spirit worldly,
With ardent will thee clasp and envirowne
So that no sin may throw our souls down;
All our acts which yet are following,
Begin thou, Lord, and bring to good ending.

Darkness of sin and all obscurity
Give place to light, that it may clearly shine.
The day coming, the night must needs flee;
Suffer no blame our hearts to undermine,
Illumine us, Lord, with light of grace divine,
Removing sin that stole on us by night,
And guide us, Lord, by clearness of thy light.

We pray thee and beseech thee humbly
With heart and will and our sufficans,
Our sins all to wash away and wrie
And grant us be so perfect in creaunce
That we may thee praise and do thy pleasance
And perfectly give thee laud and praising
With hymns all that we may read or sing.

Anonymous, 15th c.

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WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART

"When I am, as it were, completely myself, entirely alone and of good cheer – say travelling in a carriage or walking after a good meal, or during the night when I cannot sleep – it is on such occasions that my ideas flow best and most abundantly. Whence, and how, they come I know not ; nor can I force them. Those ideas that please me I retain in memory and am accustomed, as I have been told, to hum them to myself. If I continue in this way, it soon occurs to me how I may turn this dainty morsel to account, so as to make a good dish of it. That is to say, agreeable to the rules of counterpoint, to the peculiarities of various instruments etc. All this fires my soul, and, provided I am not disturbed, my subject enlarges itself, becomes methodised, and defined, and the whole, though it be long, stands almost complete and finished in my mind, so that I can survey it like a fine picture or a beautiful statue at a glance. Nor do I hear in my imagination the parts successively, but I hear them, as it were, all at once. What a delight this is, I cannot tell."

MARCUS AURELIUS

"Is your cucumber bitter? Throw it away. Are there briars in your path? Turn aside. That is enough. Do not go on and say, 'Why were things of this sort ever brought into this world?' neither intolerable nor everlasting - if thou bearest in mind that it has its limits, and if thou addest nothing to it in imagination. Pain is either an evil to the body (then let the body say what it thinks of it!)-or to the soul. But it is in the power of the soul to maintain its own serenity and tranquility."

VINCENT van GOGH

"What am I in the eyes of most people? A nonentity or an oddity or a disagreeable person — someone who has and will have no position in society, in short a little lower than the lowest. Very well — assuming that everything is indeed like that, then through my work I’d like to show what there is in the heart of such an oddity, such a nobody. This is my ambition, which is based less on resentment than on love in spite of everything, based more on a feeling of serenity than on passion. Even though I’m often in a mess, inside me there’s still a calm, pure harmony and music. In the poorest little house, in the filthiest corner, I see paintings or drawings. And my mind turns in that direction as if with an irresistible urge. As time passes, other things are increasingly excluded, and the more they are the faster my eyes see the picturesque. Art demands persistent work, work in spite of everything, and unceasing observation."

DAN CAMPBELL