Morning has broken like the first morning
Blackbird has spoken like the first bird
Praise for the singing
Praise for the morning
Praise for them springing fresh from the world
Sweet the rain’s new fall, sunlit from heaven
Like the first dew fall on the first grass
Praise for the sweetness of the wet garden
Sprung in completeness where his feet pass
Mine is the sunlight
Mine is the morning
Born of the one light Eden saw play
Praise with elation, praise every morning
God’s recreation of the new day
Morning has broken like the first morning
Blackbird has spoken like the first bird
Praise for the singing
Praise for the morning
Praise for them springing fresh from the world
This lovely hymn has crossed over into popular music and has been covered by many, many artists.
For me there have been countless mornings when I’ve risen early and stepped out barefoot onto wet grass and had that exact feeling … like the first morning.
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Well, here I am stamping my feet like an impatient child on December 23, waiting for Christmas FINALLY to arrive. And it’s all the fault of Karl Marlantes and Hilary Mantel.
Mr. Marlantes wrote what was to me one of the best books about the VietNam War, Matterhorn. It told the story of a young Marine Lieutenant during a relatively brief interval in that conflict. To me it smacked the most of reality, but of course how would I know, a man who never left our comfortable shores during my time in the armed forces?
But still, we read books every day that touch us, even though they are written about times and places that we did not experience in person, don’t we? And picking out the ones that seem the most real is part of our obligation. Our unsigned contract with ourselves.
So now he has a new novel that I am anticipating reading, Deep River.
Marlantes’s novel Deep River (2019) was published in July 2019. It follows a Finnish family which flees Finland and settles in the Pacific Northwest in a logging community. The story looks into the logging industry and labor movements of the early 1900s, and rebuilding a family in America while balancing family tradition.
Wikipedia
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But it is Mantel who now disturbs my days the most. Because she has already written two wholly excellent novels about the era of Oliver Cromwell and Henry VIII, Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies. And now her promised trilogy is complete, with the publication of The Mirror and the Light.
The first two were the kind of book that made you hate it when you reached the last page and there were no more pages to look forward to. The sort of unhappiness that would make one fling the dog-eared paperback against the wall in frustration.
So I have certainly set myself up to either have a grand time reading this book, or a major disappointment. Either way will probably involve some flinging.
Stay tuned.
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Little Home In The Valley 