Unthinkable Wings

On an entirely different ecclesiastical note: did you know Wordsworth wrote a sonnet to Our Lady? Not a bad one, at that...

Mother! whose virgin bosom was uncrost
With the least shade of thought to sin allied;
Woman! above all women glorified,
Our tainted nature's solitary boast;
Purer than foam on central ocean tost;
Brighter than eastern skies at daybreak strewn
With fancied roses, than the unblemished moon
Before her wane begins on heaven's blue coast;
Thy Image falls to earth. Yet some, I ween,
Not unforgiven the suppliant knee might bend,
As to a visible Power, in which did blend
All that was mixed and reconciled in Thee
Of mother's love with maiden purity,
Of high with low, celestial with terrene!


Admittedly "I ween" is Wordsworth at his clunkiest, but I do like the last three and a half lines very much indeed.

Hmph. Morning has thus far failed at being productive; having discovered I needed to get a friend a birthday present, er, about three days ago, and equally needing hay fever tablets, I sallied into the centre of town, only to discover that Boots wasn't open until 11; which necessitated a protracted hang about in Borders, which, well, I think the phrase is technically 'resulted in', rather than necessitated, spending more money on more books than planned. Ran into Incumbant, and exchanged gulilty glances over stacks of books; he said "You see, this is what happens when you come to a place like this, you have to spend all your time putting down books you've picked up," and I said, "It's putting them down that's the trick," - though I did manage not to splurge on Jim Butcher, so it could have been worse.

On the other hand, I did buy one of UA Fanthorpe's collections, and a nice little book of 100 Favourite Scottish Poems (not kailyaird, honest!) which, though sadly lacking in Buchan, has a good selection of obscure but good stuff, including some which was new to me:

Mary’s Song


I wad ha’e gi’en him my lips tae kiss,
Had I been his, had I been his;
Barley breid and elder wine,
Had I been his as he is mine.

The wanderin’ bee it seeks the rose;
Tae the lochan’s bosom the burnie goes;
The grey bird cries at evenin’s fa’,
‘My luve, my fair one, come awa’.’

My beloved sall ha’e this he’rt tae break,
Reid, reid wine and the barley cake;
A he’rt tae break, an’ a mou’ tae kiss,
Tho’ he be nae mine, as I am his.


Marion, Angus (1866-1946)

RELIJUS SUBTEXT IZ BAIRLY SUBTEXTUAL

( And, from the Exile's corner: )
( And, even more so: )
( However, let us not be sentimental, even about Scotland: so here is an excellent poem of political advice to our lords and masters at Holyrood (or anywhere else):  )
( And finally, as a warning to all academics inclined to take themselves too seriously (which is about 99%, and I count myself in the majority), a jolly exercise in quasi-Middle Scots  )

Low Sunday: Abu Ghosh

Calm, fluent, the Mass moves
like robes on a walking body, upright
and in no hurry, the chanted French
swings loose between the stresses.

Finding its way in here
something not quite the hard dawn,
crackling out of the grave, but
heavy, lumbering maybe, quiet,

As it pads in from downstairs,
lies down and looks at us, something
idle (maybe), breathing just audibly,
not without noticing; not to be avoided.

Rowan Williams

OK, it's a total cliche, but it's a cliche because it's good..

Love bade me welcome, yet my soul drew back,
Guilty of dust and sin.
But quick-ey'd Love, observing me grow slack
From my first entrance in,
Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning
If I lack'd anything.

"A guest," I answer'd, "worthy to be here";
Love said, "You shall be he."
"I, the unkind, the ungrateful? ah my dear,
I cannot look on thee."
Love took my hand and smiling did reply,
"Who made the eyes but I?"

"Truth, Lord, but I have marr'd them; let my shame
Go where it doth deserve."
"And know you not," says Love, "who bore the blame?"
"My dear, then I will serve."
"You must sit down," says Love, "and taste my meat."
So I did sit and eat.

George Herbert

I am the Great Sun

(From a Normandy crucifix of 1632)


I am the great sun, but you do not see me,
I am your husband, but you turn away.
I am the captive, but you do not free me,
I am the captain you will not obey.

I am the truth, but you will not believe me,
I am the city where you will not stay.
I am your wife, your child, but you will leave me,
I am that God to whom you will not pray.

I am your counsel, but you will not hear me,
I am your lover whom you will betray.
I am the victor, but you do not cheer me,
I am the holy dove whom you will slay.

I am your life, but if you will not name me,
Seal up your soul with tears, and never blame me.

Charles Causley

I actually don't know whether or not this is a whole poem, as I know it only from being quoted in Cyprian Smith's book on Eckhart; however, it seems complete in itself.

On whom Thy Name has set its seal,
From him all movement is unfurled:
He is the centre of the wheel,
He is the axis of the world.

Its beauty sways him yet cannot win him.
Transparent motion and poise and glance
Reveal the sanctuary within him
Through the patterned trellises of dance.

Martin Lings.

- Lings appears to have had an extraordinary life; he was a pupil and friend of CS Lewis, lived in Egypt and became a Sufi, was a Shakespeare scholar, and keeper of oriental printed books and manuscripts at the BM (later seconded to the BL).

Not 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 )

I've been buying books again, most notably The Poetry of Rowan Williams. He has his moments as a poet, does the ABC. I particularly like this one, which is about the Russian icon painter, Rublev, and his icon of the Old Testament Trinity

Rublev

One day, God walked in, pale from the grey steppe,
slit-eyed against the wind, and stopped,
said, Colour me, breathe your blood into my mouth.

I said Here is the blood of all our people,
these are their bruises, blue and purple,
gold, brown, and pale green wash of death.

These (god) are chromatic pains of flesh.
I said, I trust I make you blush,
O I shall stain you with the scars of birth

For ever. I shall root you in the wood,
under the sun shall bake you bread
of beechmast, never let you forth

to the white desert, to the starving sand.
But we shall sit and speak around
one table, share one food, one earth.

Rowan Williams.



† There's also a really disturbing one about Simone Weil, which is a good poem but would, I think, have to be labelled as triggering for anorexia...

Oh yes: Happy Birthday, too, to John Milton. I don't believe that all true poets are of the devil's party without knowing it, but you do illustrate that true poets are natural members of the awkward squad, and you embodied that nobly.

To celebrate, have a just-about-seasonal poem, which, in its way, is a good example of his awkward-squadishness (and, indeed, of his good and bad qualities generally). It does take a poet supremely confident of his own genius to write the last verse..

Ode on the Morning of Christ's Nativity

THIS is the month, and this the happy morn
Wherein the Son of Heaven's Eternal King
Of wedded maid and virgin mother born,
Our great redemption from above did bring;
For so the holy sages once did sing
That He our deadly forfeit should release,
And with His Father work us a perpetual peace.

That glorious Form, that Light unsufferable,
And that far-beaming blaze of Majesty
Wherewith He wont at Heaven's high council-table
To sit the midst of Trinal Unity,
He laid aside; and, here with us to be,
Forsook the courts of everlasting day,
And chose with us a darksome house of mortal clay.

Say, heavenly Muse, shall not thy sacred vein
Afford a present to the Infant God?
Hast thou no verse, no hymn, or solemn strain
To welcome Him to this His new abode,
Now while the heaven, by the sun's team untrod,
Hath took no print of the approaching light,
And all the spangled host keep watch in squadrons bright?

See how from far, upon the eastern road,
The star-led wizards haste with odours sweet:
O run, prevent them with thy humble ode
And lay it lowly at His blessed feet;
Have thou the honour first thy Lord to greet,
And join thy voice unto the Angel quire
From out His secret altar touch'd with hallow'd fire.

( The Hymn, cut to save your flists )

On this day in 1945, Dietrich Bonhoeffer was hanged in Flossenburg near Berlin; he was on the Nazi's list of political prisoners who were under no circumstances to be allowed to survive the war. Bonhoeffer was a Lutheran minister and one of the founders of the 'Confessing Church', who objected to the integration of the church into the state. He was,of course, an extremely sharp theologian, and apparently a good radio broadcaster (he was finally banned from the air after describing Hitler as not a 'Führer', but a 'Verführer' (seducer)). He was employed for a time by the Abwehr, (Military Intelligence, a nest of conspirators, which explains how someone who'd been banned from public speaking could be employed as a spook), and was involved in a number of plots, including discussions about ways and means of killing Hitler; he also helped Jews to escape to Switzerland, and was arrested in 1943 because this came to light. He spent most of the rest of his life in a Gestapo prison in Berlin, but was sent to a concentration camp, tried for treason in a drumhead trial, and hanged for his connections to the July 20th plot against Hitler.

He wrote this poem shortly before New Year 1945, as a present for his parents and his fiancee. I think it's rather good, though unfortunately I haven't found a good English translation and juno_magic has kindly provided a translation in the comments.

He is commemorated today in the C of E calendar as theologian and martyr.

( Lass warm und hell die Kerzen heute flammen die Du in unsre Dunkelheit gebracht. )