Tea at Trianon: By the Waters of Babylon

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Friday, July 29, 2016

By the Waters of Babylon

By the waters of Babylon by Arthur Hacker, 1888

1Upon the rivers of Babylon, there we sat and wept: when we remembered Sion:

2On the willows in the midst thereof we hung up our instruments.

3For there they that led us into captivity required of us the words of songs. And they that carried us away, said: Sing ye to us a hymn of the songs of Sion.

4How shall we sing the song of the Lord in a strange land?

5If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand be forgotten.

6Let my tongue cleave to my jaws, if I do not remember thee: If I make not Jerusalem the beginning of my joy.

7Remember, O Lord, the children of Edom, in the day of Jerusalem: Who say: Rase it, rase it, even to the foundation thereof.

8O daughter of Babylon, miserable: blessed shall he be who shall repay thee thy payment which thou hast paid us.

9Blessed be he that shall take and dash thy little ones against the rock.

—Psalm 136 (Douai version)

A Meditation on Psalm 136:
"Super flumina Babylonis."

The leaves have fallen.
The flowers have withered.
The rain comes down.
The year dies
In this garden of exile
Where we have hung up our hearts.
The clamor of Babylon roars
Beyond the wall;
I listen
For another sound.
I wait
For another song.
I watch
The horizon glow
Beneath clouds of lead
In a moment of yearning
For Paradise.
O Jerusalem unseen!
Our eyes are blind to your
Glories
Which all around us shine.
And yet
The voices of the saints
Seem to pierce
The curtain of rain.
I listen.
I wait.
I watch for dawn.
For that morning of mornings
The morning
Of going home.
O City of God!
Compared to the possession of thee
There is no happiness!