The soul of man
Resembleth water:
From heaven it cometh,
To heaven it soareth.
And then again
To earth descendeth,
Changing ever.
Down from the lofty
Rocky wall
Streams the bright flood,
Then spreadeth gently
In cloudy billows
O’er the smooth rock,
And welcomed kindly,
Veiling, on roams it,
Soft murmuring,
Tow’rd the abyss.
Cliffs projecting
Oppose its progress,
Angrily foams it
Down to the bottom,
Step by step.
Now, in flat channel,
Through the meadowland steals it,
And in the polish’d lake
Each constellation
Joyously peepeth.
Wind is the loving
Wooer of waters;
Wind blends together
Billows all-foaming.
Spirit of man,
Thou art like unto water!
Fortune of man,
Thou art like unto wind!
What though the heaven be lowering now,
And look with a contracted brow?
We shall discover, by-and-by,
A repurgation of the sky;
And when those clouds away are driven,
Then will appear a cheerful heaven.
How did they keep his birthday then,
The little fair Christ, so long ago?
O, many there were to be housed and fed,
And there was no place in the inn, they said,
So into the manger the Christ must go,
To lodge with the cattle and not with men.
The ox and the ass they munched their hay
They munched and they slumbered, wondering not,
And out in the midnight cold and blue
The shepherds slept, and the sheep slept too,
Till the angels’ song and the bright star ray
Guided the wise men to the spot.
But only the wise men knelt and praised,
And only the shepherds came to see,
And the rest of the world cared not at all
For the little Christ in the oxen’s stall;
And we are angry and amazed
That such a dull, hard thing should be!
How do we keep his birthday now?
We ring the bells and we raise the strain,
We hang up garland, everywhere
And bid the tapers, twinkle fair,
And feast and frolic–and then we go
Back to the Mine old lives again.
Are we so better, then, than they
Who failed the new-born Christ to see?
To them a helpless babe,–to us
He shines a Saviour glorious,
Our Lord, our Friend, our All–yet we
Are half asleep this Christmas day.
A new monk shows up at a monastery where the monks spend their time making copies of ancient books. The new monk goes to the basement of the monastery saying he wants to make copies of the originals rather than of others’ copies so as to avoid duplicating errors they might have made. Several hours later the monks, wondering where their new friend is, find him crying in the basement. They ask him what is wrong and he says “the word is CELEBRATE, not CELIBATE!”
Joke 2
A blowfly goes into a bar and asks: “Is that stool taken?”
Joke 3
They have just found the gene for shyness. They would have found it earlier, but it was hiding behind two other genes.