Here's to our horse, and to his right ear,

God send our master a happy new year:

A happy new year as e'er he did see,

With my wassailing bowl I drink to thee.

 

So the Shortest Day came

and the year died

And everywhere down the centuries of the snow‐white world

Came people singing, dancing,

To drive the dark away.

They lighted candles in the winter trees;
They hung their homes with evergreen;
They burned beseeching fires all night long
To keep the year alive.

And when the new year's sunshine blazed awake
They shouted, revelling.
Through all the frosty ages you can hear them
Echoing behind us ‐ listen!

All the long echoes, sing the same delight,
This Shortest Day,
As promise wakens in the sleeping land:
They carol, feast, give thanks,
And dearly love their friends,
And hope for peace.

And so do we, here, now,
This year and every year.
Welcome Yule! 

[Susan Cooper, 'The Shortest Day']

Happy Martinmas!

A tradition on St. Martin's Eve or Day is to share a goose for dinner. [Wikipedia]

It is the day of Martilmasse,

Cuppes of ale should freelie passe;

What though Wynter has begunne

To push downe the Summer sunne,

To our fire we can betake,

And enjoye the crackling brake,

Never heedinge Wynter's face

On the day of Martilmasse.

Surgam, et circuíbo civitátem: per vicos et pláteas quæram, quem díligit ánima mea: quæsívi illum, et non invéni. Invenérunt me vígiles, qui custódiunt civitátem. Num quem díligit ánima mea, vidístis? Páululum cum pertransíssem eos, invéni, quem díligit ánima mea: ténui eum, nec dimíttam, donec introdúcam illum in domum matris meæ et in cubículum genetrícis meæ. Adjúro vos, fíliæ Jerúsalem, per cápreas cervósque campórum, ne suscitétis neque evigiláre faciátis diléctam, donec ipsa velit. Pone me ut signáculum super cor tuum, ut signáculum super bráchium tuum: quia fortis est ut mors diléctio, dura sicut inférnus æmulátio: lámpades ejus lámpades ignis atque flammárum. Aquæ multæ non potuérunt exstínguere caritátem, nec flúmina óbruent illam: si déderit homo omnem substántiam domus suæ pro dilectióne, quasi nihil despíciet eam.

Non dominábitur.

Arnold Böcklin, Die Toteninsel (1883)

Si autem mórtui sumus cum Christo: crédimus, quia simul étiam vivémus cum Christo: sciéntes, quod Christus resurgens ex mórtuis, jam non móritur, mors illi ultra non dominábitur. 

[Romans 6:8-9]

Now if we be dead with Chriſt, we believe that we ſhall alſo live with him; knowing that Chriſt being raiſed from the dead, dieth no more; death hath no more dominion over him. 

[Cranmer, 1662]

And death shall have no dominion.
Dead men naked they shall be one
With the man in the wind and the west moon;
When their bones are picked clean and the clean bones gone,
They shall have stars at elbow and foot;
Though they go mad they shall be sane,
Though they sink through the sea they shall rise again;
Though lovers be lost love shall not;
And death shall have no dominion.

And death shall have no dominion.
Under the windings of the sea
They lying long shall not die windily;
Twisting on racks when sinews give way,
Strapped to a wheel, yet they shall not break;
Faith in their hands shall snap in two,
And the unicorn evils run them through;
Split all ends up they shan't crack;
And death shall have no dominion.

And death shall have no dominion.
No more may gulls cry at their ears
Or waves break loud on the seashores;
Where blew a flower may a flower no more
Lift its head to the blows of the rain;
Though they be mad and dead as nails,
Heads of the characters hammer through daisies;
Break in the sun till the sun breaks down,
And death shall have no dominion. 

[Dylan Thomas, 1933]

Then the Lady unbraided one of her long tresses, and cut off three gold hairs, and laid them in Gimli's hand. 'These words shall go with the gift,' she said. 'I do not foretell, for all foretelling is now vain: on the one hand lies darkness, and on the other only hope. But if hope should not fail, the I say to you, Gimli son of Glóin, that your hands shall flow with gold, and yet over you gold shall have no dominion.' 

['Farewell to Lórien']

A Oilibheir Naofa,
Guida Orainn

Deus, qui pro tuenda catholica fide beatum Oliverium, Martyrem tuum atque Pontificem, admirabili spiritus fortitudine imbuere dignatus es: concede nobis, eius intercessione et exemplo; ut ipsius in fide constantiam imitemur, et in periculis patrocinia sentiamus.

Ludwig Passini, 'A church interior with women at the confessional'

A dragon lives forever, but not so little boys

Painted wings and giant's rings make way for other toys

Cum essem párvulus, loquébar ut párvulus, sapiébam ut párvulus, cogitábam ut párvulus. Quando autem factus sum vir, evacuávi quæ erant párvuli. Vidémus nunc per spéculum in ænígmate: tunc autem fácie ad fáciem. Nunc cognósco ex parte: tunc autem cognóscam, sicut et cógnitus sum. Nunc autem manent fides, spes, cáritas, tria hæc: major autem horum est cáritas.