(no subject)

Unlike lyric poetry, where even if I don't know much about the author's biography, I have a strong sense of the poems as existing as items in a corpus, hymns for me tend to exist in a sort of limbo, unless the hymnwriter is already known to me for other reasons. And at times it can be jarring to find out about the writer concerned. It certainly was rather disconcerting to be informed by the Bishop of Buckingham that the author of "How shall I sing that majesty", which I have always liked, chiefly for the last verse - or rather, the last verse in modern hymnals - was not only a Puritan divine, but went completely mad in later years,prophesied the imminent end of the world, and thought that he would rise from the dead three days after his death. Which was rather a nuisance for his successor, as Mason's followers simply wouldn't give up and go home, and he had them camping outside the church for fifteen years.

Still, he had his moments as a hymnographer:

How great a being, Lord, is Thine,
Which doth all beings keep!
Thy knowledge is the only line
To sound so vast a deep.
Thou art a sea without a shore,
A sun without a sphere;
Thy time is now and evermore,
Thy place is everywhere.

Still more mindboggling is the realisation that one of his descendants is a very different Anglican cleric and hymnwriter, John Mason Neale, Anglo-Catholic, supporter of Anglican sisterhoods, thorn in the side of the authorities, and author of a series of translations of Orthodox or Catholic hymns and liturgies, including 'O Come, O Come, Emmanuel' - and, come to that, the author of 'Good King Wenceslas'. Two Anglicans who, one would have thought, couldn't be more different, though I suppose they do have a certain common ground in that they were clearly natural members of the Awkward Squad.

Peculiarly, poking about on Wikipedia indicates that some branches of the Lutheran church commemorate JM Neale in the liturgical calendar, which I find slightly odd. Although the list Wikipedia gives is decidedly eclectic, and certainly doesn't confine itself to some specific individuals whom it believes to have been particularly devoted to spreading the Lutheran faith, since as it includes, alongside obvious people like Luther and Melanchthon, vigorous rivals like John Calvin, a number of Roman Catholics including John XXIII and Chief Seattle, a number of Protestants of various flavours including Jan Hus, John Donne, Martin Luther King and the Wesleys, not to mention Job.

On the other hand, I really shouldn't have taken quite so long to work out that 'Katherina Luther' was Katherina von Brora. She did, after all, marry the man.

Poetry Month (April is the Cruellest Month?)

Not my nation, and I shan't manage a poem a day, but there's still always a good reason for poetry... I love this poem, even (because?) it sounds like a pastiche of Browning, and despite the ugly repetition of 'smiles' in st 3. But the last couplet is just superb.

The Old Astronomer to His Pupil

Reach me down my Tycho Brahe, I would know him when we meet,
When I share my later science, sitting humbly at his feet;
He may know the law of all things, yet be ignorant of how
We are working to completion, working on from then to now.

Pray remember that I leave you all my theory complete,
Lacking only certain data for your adding, as is meet,
And remember men will scorn it, 'tis original and true,
And the obloquy of newness may fall bitterly on you.

But, my pupil, as my pupil you have learned the worth of scorn,
You have laughed with me at pity, we have joyed to be forlorn,
What for us are all distractions of men's fellowship and smiles;
What for us the Goddess Pleasure with her meretricious wiles!

You may tell that German College that their honour comes too late,
But they must not waste repentance on the grizzly savant's fate.
Though my soul may set in darkness, it will rise in perfect light;
I have loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night.

--- Sarah Williams

ETA: following a suggestion from azdak, I've amended the last line of the third verse from the version I found on the net, which repeats 'smiles', which is unsatisfactory and looks suspiciously like Augensprung. Unfortunately I haven't got access to a more authoritative text; it must be in the Bodeleian somewhere, but right now I'm in the wrong country...