(Editor's note. Ai this point in the post I originally included photographs of both of our sons and their families and of our daughter and her family, and I thanked them all for making this particular birthday of Mrs. RWP's so memorable. Because of the terrible things that can happen in today's crazy world, I have decided to remove the photographs in the interest of their privacy and safety. --RWP)
Moving right along...
In comments on the previous post, several people commented how green our neighborhood looks, but Graham Edwards who lives near the town of Stornoway on the Isle of Lewis in the Outer Hebrides Islands of Scotland didn't. He said it looked verdant. (For readers in Alabama, verdant means green.) Graham went on to say that he was going to say green but then he remembered that this is a highbrow blog so adjusted accordingly.
This being a highbrow blog and all, my mind went immediately to the second stanza of "The King Of Love My Shepherd Is", a hymn written by Sir Henry William Baker in 1877 that uses an earlier English translation of a Welsh poem based on the 23rd Psalm:
Where streams of living water flow,
my ransomed soul he leadeth;
and where the verdant pastures grow,
with food celestial feedeth.
The hymn has had several musical settings, including the well known Irish folk melody St. Columba, and the one by Dykes that was sung at Princess Diana's funeral in 1997, but my personal favourite is the one by Harry Rowe Shelley (1858-1947), performed here by the First Baptist Church choir of Portland, Maine in 2004:
"The King Of Love My Shepherd Is"
Here are the lyrics in case you couldn't understand them all from the video clip. They are actually a combination of the 23rd Psalm from the Old Testament and the parable of the lost sheep from the New Testament.
The King of love my shepherd is,
whose goodness faileth never.
I nothing lack if I am his,
and he is mine for ever.
Where streams of living water flow,
my ransomed soul he leadeth;
and where the verdant pastures grow,
with food celestial feedeth.
Perverse and foolish, oft I strayed,
but yet in love he sought me;
and on his shoulder gently laid,
and home, rejoicing, brought me.
In death’s dark vale I fear no ill,
with thee, dear Lord, beside me;
thy rod and staff my comfort still,
thy cross before to guide me.
Thou spreadst a table in my sight;
thy unction grace bestoweth;
and oh, what transport of delight
from thy pure chalice floweth!
And so through all the length of days,
thy goodness faileth never;
Good Shepherd, may I sing thy praise
within thy house forever.
(end of song)
The Welsh really know how to write a poem and the English really know how to translate one.
Just think, if this were a lowbrow blog and Graham Edwards had not used the word verdant, we might all be singing "Lavender Blue, Dilly Dilly, Lavender Green" or "The Green, Green Grass Of Home" by now.
