Tony Funderburk

Here’s another one of those connections I mentioned recently. This time it’s a very slight connection between the ten lords a leaping you’re hearing everywhere you go right now, and a poet.

He’s not the poet who wrote “ten lords a leaping.”

But he’s still a very famous poet who lived from 1809 to 1892. He came from a large family. And that’s putting it mildly. 11 brothers and sisters. And I’ve read that all of them had at least one severe mental breakdown. One of the brothers couldn’t beat his addiction to drugs. Another brother was put in an insane say for most of his life. And still another brother was confined once in a while, because of alcoholism, and died fairly young.

And yet the guy I’m talking about became a poet. Even a poet laureate.

And that’s in spite of the fact that he believed he inherited epilepsy from his father. He believed that condition caused him to fall into trances now and then.

Yeah, his life seemed to be troubled, to say the least. But he still wrote poetry that professors, teachers, and students study to this day. That includes me. I remember reading and discussing his works in high school.

What I don’t recall in those high school discussions is how, as a boy, this poet would think up lines and phrases and then memorize them till he could find a way to put them in a poem. Apparently it was more important to him to be sure the rhythm and language flowed the way he wanted than to clarify a message.

Also, he used writing as a tool to focus on life instead of the troubles of life.

And I can totally relate to those descriptions. They sound a lot like my writing style. My gigantic collection of spiral notebooks, through the decades, prove what I’m talking about. But it’s starting to sound like I forgot about the lords a leaping connection. So, here it is.

The poet I’m talking about was Alfred Lord Tennyson. His poem, Charge of the Light Brigade was published on this day, December 9, back in 1854. Now, your mission is not to question why. Your mission is to do or die. Well, don’t do the die part till you read this beautiful poem by a possible leaping lord.

Strong Son of God, Immortal Love

Strong Son of God, immortal Love,
Whom we, that have not seen thy face,
By faith, and faith alone, embrace,
Believing where we cannot prove;

Thine are these orbs of light and shade;
Thou madest Life in man and brute;
Thou madest Death; and lo, thy foot
Is on the skull which thou hast made.

Thou wilt not leave us in the dust:
Thou madest man, he knows not why,
He thinks he was not made to die;
And thou hast made him: thou art just.

Thou seemest human and divine,
The highest, holiest manhood, thou:
Our wills are ours, we know not how;
Our wills are ours, to make them thine.

And our little systems have their day;
They have their day and cease to be:
They are but broken lights of thee,
And thou, O Lord, art more than they.

We have but faith: we cannot know;
For knowledge is of things we see;
And yet we trust it comes from thee,
A beam in darkness: let it grow.

Let knowledge grow from more to more,
But more of reverence in us dwell;
That mind and soul, according well,
May make one music as before,

But vaster. We are fools and slight;
We mock thee when we do not fear:
But help thy foolish ones to bear;
Help thy vain worlds to bear thy light.

Forgive what seem’d my sin in me;
What seem’d my worth since I began;
For merit lives from man to man,
And not from man, O Lord, to thee.

Forgive my grief for one removed,
Thy creature, whom I found so fair.
I trust he lives in thee, and there
I find him worthier to be loved.

Forgive these wild and wandering cries,
Confusions of a wasted youth;
Forgive them where they fail in truth,
And in thy wisdom make me wise.   ~Alfred Lord Tennyson

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