Augustus Toplady

Augustus Toplady (1740—1778) is an Anglican clergyman and hymnist, best known for his hymn “Rock of Ages” which has frequently been included in various poetry anthologies such as The Random House Treasury of Best-Loved Poems (1990).

He was born in Surrey and, after the death of his father who was a soldier, he was raised by his mother. She was from Ireland. Augustus went with her when she travelled to claim some inherited land. While in Ireland he received his bachelor’s degree from Trinity College, Dublin. He also published a small volume of poetry in Dublin in 1759.

A legend arose, concerning the writing of his famous hymn, that Toplady wrote the words while sheltering beneath a large rock in 1763 when he was caught in a violent storm in the gorge of Burrington Combe, Somerset. Although this probably never happened, the story has become so accepted, that there is a plaque, marking the spot and naming the outcropping “Rock of Ages.”

Augustus Toplady was a staunch Calvinist, and was frequently in conflict with the evangelist John Wesley and his followers.

Rock of Ages

Rock of Ages, cleft for me,
Let me hide myself in Thee.
Let the water and the blood,
From Thy wounded side which flowed,
Be of sin the double cure;
Save from wrath and make me pure.

Not the labour of my hands
Can fulfill Thy law's demands;
Could my zeal no respite know,
Could my tears forever flow,
All for sin could not atone;
Thou must save, and Thou alone.

Nothing in my hand I bring,
Simply to Thy cross I cling;
Naked, come to Thee for dress;
Helpless, look to Thee for grace;
Foul, I to the fountain fly;
Wash me, Saviour, or I die.

While I draw this fleeting breath,
When my eyes shall close in death,
When I soar to worlds unknown,
See Thee on Thy judgment throne,
Rock of Ages, cleft for me,
Let me hide myself in Thee.

Entry written by D.S. Martin. He is the author of six poetry collections including Angelicus (2021, Poiema/Cascade), plus three anthologies — available through Wipf & Stock. His new book The Role of the Moon, inspired by the Metaphysical Poets, is now available from Paraclete Press.

Duncan Campbell Scott

Duncan Campbell Scott (1862—1947) is one of Canada’s Confederation poets, and was a prominent civil servant. The first of his eight poetry collections, The Magic House and Other Poems, was published in 1893.

He had wanted to become a doctor, but in 1879 because his father (a Methodist Minister) had influence but lacked money, Duncan was hired by Canada’s first Prime Minister, John A. MacDonald, to be a clerk in the federal Department of Indian Affairs— a department he served in for the rest of his career.

He is a controversial figure in Canadian literature. His poetry celebrates the Canadian wilderness, and the life of her native peoples. Ironically Scott’s poetic sorrow at their dying cultures — as Northrop Frye noted — was exacerbated by the national policy of assimilation which he contributed to as deputy superintendent of the Department of Indian Affairs from 1913 to 1932.

Despite this legacy from his contribution to, and participation in, the Canadian government’s policies, Scott’s literary reputation as a fine poet is undeniable. His long poem “A Legend of Christ’s Nativity” appeared in Lundy’s Lane and Other Poems (McClelland & Stewart, 1916).

From Shadow

Now the November skies,
And the clouds that are thin and gray,
That drop with the wind away;
A flood of sunlight rolls,
In a tide of shallow light,
Gold on the land and white
On the water, dim and warm in the wood;
Then it is gone, and the wan
Clear of the shade
Covers fields and barren and glade.
The peace of labour done,
Is wide in the gracious earth;
The harvest is won;
Past are the tears and the mirth;
And we feel in the tenuous air
How far beyond thought or prayer
Is the grace of silent things,
That work for the world alway,
Neither for fear nor for pay,
And when labour is over, rest.

The moil of our fretted life
Is borne anew to the soul,
Borne with its cark and strife,
Its burden of care and dread,
Its glories elusive and strange;
And the weight of the weary whole
Presses it down, till we cry:
Where is the fruit of our deeds?
Why should we struggle to build
Towers against death on the plain?
All things possess their lives
Save man, whose task and desire
Transcend his power and his will.

The question is over and still;
Nothing replies: but the earth
Takes on a lovelier hue
From a cloud that neighboured the sun,
That the sun burned down and through,
Till it glowed like a seraph's wing;
The fields that were gray and dun
Are warm in the flowing light;
Fair in the west the night
Strikes in with vibrant star.

Something has stirred afar
In the shadow that winter flings;
A message comes up to the soul
From the soul of inanimate things:
A message that widens and grows
Till it touches the deeds of man,
Till we see in the torturous throes
Some dawning glimmer of plan;
Till we feel in the deepening night
The hand of the angel Content,
That stranger of calmness and light,
With his brow over us bent,
Who moves with his eyes on the earth,
Whose robe of lambent green,
A tissue of herb and its sheen,
Tells the mother who gave him birth.
The message plays through his power,
Till it flames exultant in thought,
As the quince-tree triumphs in flower.
The fruit that is checked and marred
Goes under the sod:
The good lives here in the world;
It persists,— it is God.

Entry written by D.S. Martin. He is the author of six poetry collections including Angelicus (2021, Poiema/Cascade), plus three anthologies — available through Wipf & Stock. His new book The Role of the Moon, inspired by the Metaphysical Poets, is now available from Paraclete Press.

Marianne Moore*

Marianne Moore (1887―1972) was raised for the first few years of her life in the manse of the First Presbyterian Church in Kirkwood, Missouri, since her grandfather was pastor there, and since her father, whom she never met, was not on the scene. In 1918 Marianne and her mother moved to Greenwich Village; here she was able to interact with such poets as E.E. Cummings and William Carlos Williams.

Her second book, Observations, won The Dial Award in 1924, and then from 1925 to 1929 she served as editor for The Dial. Her awards include: the Helen Haire Levinson Prize from Poetry magazine, the National Book Award, the Pulitzer Prize, and the Bollingen Prize. She once said that her favourite poem was the Book of Job.

At the Yankee's 1968 season opener, at age eighty, Marianne Moore threw the opening pitch. In her poem “Baseball and Writing” she expressed:
------Fanaticism? No. Writing is exciting
------and baseball is like writing.
------------You can never tell with either
---------------how it will go
---------------or what you will do…

Her Christian faith informed and influenced her poetry significantly. The following poem is identified in a Wendell Berry poem in his book Another Day: Sabbath Poems, 2013—2023.

What Are Years

What is our innocence,
what is our guilt? All are
naked, none is safe. And whence
is courage: the unanswered question,
the resolute doubt, —
dumbly calling, deafly listening—that
in misfortune, even death,
encourage others
and in its defeat, stirs
the soul to be strong? He
sees deep and is glad, who
accedes to mortality
and in his imprisonment rises
upon himself as
the sea in a chasm, struggling to be
free and unable to be,
in its surrendering
finds its continuing.
So he who strongly feels,
behaves. The very bird,
grown taller as he sings, steels
his form straight up. Though he is captive,
his mighty singing
says, satisfaction is a lowly
thing, how pure a thing is joy.
This is mortality,
this is eternity.

*This is the third Kingdom Poets post about Marianne Moore: first post, second post.

Entry written by D.S. Martin. He is the author of six poetry collections including Angelicus (2021, Poiema/Cascade), plus three anthologies — available through Wipf & Stock. His new book The Role of the Moon, inspired by the Metaphysical Poets, is now available from Paraclete Press.