Margaret’s Song

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  There was a king in Thule,  True even to the grave;  To whom his dying mistress  A golden beaker gave.  At every feast he drained it,  Naught was to him so dear,  And often as he drained it,  Gush’d from his eyes the tear.  When death came, unrepining  His cities o’er he told;  All to his heir resigning,  Except his cup of gold.  With many a knightly vassal  At a royal feast sat he,  In yon proud hall ancestral,  In his castle o’er the sea.  Up stood the jovial monarch,  And quaff’d his last life’s glow,  Then hurled the hallow’d goblet  Into the flood below.  He saw it splashing, drinking,  And plunging in the sea;  His eyes meanwhile were sinking,  And never again drank he. “Margaret’s Song” by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) in “Faust. Part I.”

Rock Concert

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Luke's gospel describes the Triumphal Entry of Jesus into Jerusalem. As He entered the city on the colt of donkey, the people sang out praise and laid palm branches and their cloaks along the road while crying out, "Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord!" The Pharisees wanted to silence this praise, to which Jesus responded, "if these become silent, the stones will cry out."

Science confirms these rocks are made of a volcanic basalt, but cannot explain the particular musical tones they produce when struck. One cannot help but be amazed to hear the Creator speak of particular qualities such as this, embedded within His Creation. Additionally, it makes one wonder exactly how the stones will cry out when these stones must be struck . . .


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