“Hold Onto What You Believe” by Mumford and Sons

I, I can’t promise you
that I won’t let you down,
and I, I can’t promise you
that I will be the only one around
when your hope falls down.

But we’re young, open flowers in the windy fields
of this war-torn world,
and love, this city breathes the plague
of loving things more than their creators.

I ran away–
I could not take the burden of both me and you
It was too fast,
casting love on me as if it were a spell I could not break
when it was a promise I could not make.

But what if I was wrong?

But hold on to what you believe –in the light–
when the darkness has robbed you of all your sight

And now this land means less and less to me
without you breathing through its trees.
At every turn the water runs away from me
and the halo disappears
and the hole when you’re not near.

So what if I was wrong?

But hold on to what you believe –in the light–
when the darkness has robbed you of all your sight

So hold on to what you believed in the light

Listen on YouTube:

Hold Onto What You Believe

Reflection: Yesterday, two my students, Abigail and Brooke, shared this song, this lyrical poem, as part of a presentation on the intersections of music and poetry. I wanted to remember it and share it with others.

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A PURE HEART

Now available from Lulu Press:

Preview A PURE HEART

“With A Pure Heart, Jane Beal invites her readers into a world of vivid observations, lush images, poignant allusions, and stirring emotions. In this world, we are invited to embrace the beauties of nature, the mysteries of God, and the realities of human experience as we reflect on both the joy and the heartache that links our souls with the poet’s.”

~ Dr. Christine A. Colón, author of Singled Out and Joanna Baillie and the Art of Moral Influence.

“My love is everything,” Jane Beal writes in a stunning poem from her collection, A Pure Heart. The tender and vivid poems in this collection brim with joy for the gift of life and bring tears of recognition to anyone who has lost, at least for a time, one they love. To experience the world through Beal’s lyrical poetry is to grieve the profound tears of a motherless child and to know heaven’s steady touch in the fiery color of opals, an infant’s wail, and the bridal chamber. Beal’s poetic genius lies in the life she draws from biblical imagery and the bonds of profound affection, especially the marriage bond, as expression of divine love pouring itself out from above and from within.”

~ Dr. Jane Marie Pinzino, editor of The 1431 Trial of Joan of Arc (from the Orleans MS)

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