CMP Review 2025-10-30

October 30, 2025

In Edith Gell’s The Cloud of Witness this week we read about “Consecration of Mind.” Monday’s selection includes lines from an 1867 poem by Jean Ingelow:

When our thoughts are born,
Though they be good and humble, one should mind
How they are reared, or some will go astray
And shame their mother.

The idea of personifying our thoughts brought to mind another poem, “The Shepherdess” by Alice Meynell, first published in 1896. In this piece the poet praises a shepherdess whose “flocks are thoughts” and “she guards them from the steep”:

She holds her little thoughts in sight,
Though gay they run and leap.
She is so circumspect and right;
She has her soul to keep.

This poem, also known as “The Lady of the Lambs,” was set to music. It is a small, classical piece, set for soprano and wind quintet. One might think that classical music is from a bygone era and that the song, like the poem, is from the 19th century.

Alas, it is not. The exquisitely beautiful “The Lady of the Lambs” was composed in 1992. It is an inspiring companion to this week’s The Cloud of Witness. I recommend the recording by soprano Mary Bevan which you can find on music streaming services everywhere, and at this link.

@artmiddlekauff