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tree_and_leafNot my nation, of course, but any excuse for poetry is a good one.
Since he was commemorated yesterday, have some Donne, characteristically managing to combine an intense focus on death and God with a certain amount of geeky enthusiasm for science...
HYMN TO GOD, MY GOD, IN MY SICKNESS
Since I am coming to that holy room
Where, with thy choir of saints for evermore
I shall be made thy music, as I come
I tune the instrument here at the door,
And what I must do then, think here before.
Whilst my physicians by their love are grown
Cosmographers, and I their map, who lie
Flat on this bed, that by them may be shown
That this is my southwest discovery,
PER FRETUM FEBRIS, by these straits to die,
I joy that in these straits I see my west;
For though their currents yield return to none,
What shall my west hurt me? As west and east
In all flat maps (and I am one) are one,
So death doth touch the resurrection.
Is the Pacific Sea my home? Or are
The eastern riches? Is Jerusalem?
Anyan, and Magellan, and Gibraltar,
All straits, and none but straits, are ways to them,
Whether where Japhet dwelt, or Cham, or Shem.
We think that Paradise, and Calvary,
Christ's cross, and Adam's tree, stood in one place;
Look, Lord, and find both Adams met in me;
As the first Adam's sweat surrounds my face,
May the last Adam's blood my soul embrace.
So, in his purple wrapp'd receive me, Lord,
By these his thorns give me his other crown;
And as to others' souls I preached thy word,
Be this my text, my sermon to mine own:
“Therefore, that he may raise, the Lord throws down.”
Here, too, is a page of liturgical resources on Donne, which I wish I'd found yesterday. The author observes "I have seen one poem of his both in a manual of devotion and in a pornography collection." He doesn't say which one it was, though the obvious choice is surely "Batter My Heart", which is both a searching examination of the author's spiritual condition, and quite spectacularly kinky. Though this sort of, er, cross-over, is not just a phenomenon peculiar to Donne. An acquaintance of mine claims to have found a site using slashy photographs (of the 'arty', soft focus, romantic kind) to illustrate selections from Heinrich Seuse.* Which makes a certain amount of sense, except it overlooks the gender-bending aspects of Seuse, who may have conceived of the soul's relation to Christ in erotic terms, but did it by describing his marriage to the Second Person of the Trinity, the goddess Sophia. In contrast to the familiar trope (originating with Hildegard) of the male sex symbolising the divinity of Christ, 'and woman his humanity', for Seuse it's the other way round. Jesus, the incarnate Word is, naturally enough, a man, but for Seuse, his divine nature is easiest imagined as feminine.
* I have not, alas, managed to track it down, and I've never quite dared ask what search string she was using....
Since he was commemorated yesterday, have some Donne, characteristically managing to combine an intense focus on death and God with a certain amount of geeky enthusiasm for science...
HYMN TO GOD, MY GOD, IN MY SICKNESS
Since I am coming to that holy room
Where, with thy choir of saints for evermore
I shall be made thy music, as I come
I tune the instrument here at the door,
And what I must do then, think here before.
Whilst my physicians by their love are grown
Cosmographers, and I their map, who lie
Flat on this bed, that by them may be shown
That this is my southwest discovery,
PER FRETUM FEBRIS, by these straits to die,
I joy that in these straits I see my west;
For though their currents yield return to none,
What shall my west hurt me? As west and east
In all flat maps (and I am one) are one,
So death doth touch the resurrection.
Is the Pacific Sea my home? Or are
The eastern riches? Is Jerusalem?
Anyan, and Magellan, and Gibraltar,
All straits, and none but straits, are ways to them,
Whether where Japhet dwelt, or Cham, or Shem.
We think that Paradise, and Calvary,
Christ's cross, and Adam's tree, stood in one place;
Look, Lord, and find both Adams met in me;
As the first Adam's sweat surrounds my face,
May the last Adam's blood my soul embrace.
So, in his purple wrapp'd receive me, Lord,
By these his thorns give me his other crown;
And as to others' souls I preached thy word,
Be this my text, my sermon to mine own:
“Therefore, that he may raise, the Lord throws down.”
Here, too, is a page of liturgical resources on Donne, which I wish I'd found yesterday. The author observes "I have seen one poem of his both in a manual of devotion and in a pornography collection." He doesn't say which one it was, though the obvious choice is surely "Batter My Heart", which is both a searching examination of the author's spiritual condition, and quite spectacularly kinky. Though this sort of, er, cross-over, is not just a phenomenon peculiar to Donne. An acquaintance of mine claims to have found a site using slashy photographs (of the 'arty', soft focus, romantic kind) to illustrate selections from Heinrich Seuse.* Which makes a certain amount of sense, except it overlooks the gender-bending aspects of Seuse, who may have conceived of the soul's relation to Christ in erotic terms, but did it by describing his marriage to the Second Person of the Trinity, the goddess Sophia. In contrast to the familiar trope (originating with Hildegard) of the male sex symbolising the divinity of Christ, 'and woman his humanity', for Seuse it's the other way round. Jesus, the incarnate Word is, naturally enough, a man, but for Seuse, his divine nature is easiest imagined as feminine.
* I have not, alas, managed to track it down, and I've never quite dared ask what search string she was using....
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Date: 2009-04-01 11:23 am (UTC)It's an entire genre!
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Date: 2009-04-01 01:50 pm (UTC)