A KIND OF BEAUTY

An imperfect sonnet triptych in memory of Latin teacher and music lover Frank Langley (1931-2023), with apologies to St John Henry Newman.

Lux æterna luceat eis, Domine.
Cum Sanctis tuis in æternum:
quia pius es.

(May light eternal shine upon them, O Lord.
With Thy saints for evermore:
For Thou art gracious.)

I

It is a bit pretentious, I admit – 
The Latin title – but I can’t forget
Such ancient words that far exceed my ken –
Like the Confessions of Saint Augustine, 
Or verb tables to rote-learn declension.
The nearest I came was Italian
And French, and working with a gentleman –
Becalmed of mind, respected language don –
Who taught it at the WEA;
The tongue in which my parents learnt to pray.
We’d sometimes lunch among the grassy graves
And talk of Buddha, Caracas and staves 
Of music he’d heard at a record club.
He was a deer. I was a tiger cub.

II

A cradle Catholic, I sang hymns of praise,
Then meditated before dawn for days
And saw trunks tremble in the morning rays
And knew a new compassion in my gaze,
But navigated life by other ways.
Years passed when an old flame from uni days,
Who studied Latin (and read Ancient Greek), 
Took me to St Mary’s where Newman preached. 
“I might have known you knew him,” his eyes danced
As they had often done when first we chanced
Upon affection, playing gamelan.
He was a reader; I, a charlatan
Who longed to know great things, but not yet, God;
Apologia sat at home unread.

III

So many patient volumes line my shelves, 
Potent with wonder. Many other selves
I’ve passed, indifferent to the songs they sing.
But what if all around are noticing
Each vacant gaze, each fear or thoughtless sting, 
Yet hold out, still, their humble offering –
As 1s unquenched by zeroes on the way?
I’d seek to greet each entity and pray  
With love, effulgently. The parted veil, 
Dear friends and teachers, asks me now to hail
All that I failed to heed: your beacon lamps
Blinking through calm and storm-tossed seas their amps.
We beget every soul beyond its birth 
In light to light from Light that lights the Earth.  

– Rita Glennon