Chad Walsh*

Chad Walsh (1914—1991) wrote six poetry collections, and several other books. He served as an English professor for more than thirty years at Beloit College in Wisconsin. His name comes up frequently these days, as Beloit College has named a poetry prize in his honour, as well as the Chad Walsh Chapbook Series from Beloit Poetry Journal. His anthology Today’s Poems: American and British Poetry since the 1930s was published in 1964.

He is also remembered by C.S. Lewis devotees. It’s hard to look into Walsh without being swamped by information about him in relation to Lewis. It was through reading Lewis — particularly the novel Perelandra — that he was first drawn to faith. Walsh had first written an article about Lewis in The Atlantic Monthly, and then travelled to Oxford to interview him, in preparation for his book C.S. Lewis: Apostle to the Skeptics (first published in 1949, and recently republished by Wipf & Stock in 2008). This book led to the growing popularity of Lewis in the US, which had already started in the UK.

A Quintina Of Crosses

Beyond, beneath, within, wherever blood,
If there were blood, flows with the pulse of love,
Where God’s circle and all orbits cross,
Through the black space of death to baby life
Came God, planting the secret genes of God.

By the permission of a maiden’s love,
Love came upon the seeds of words, broke blood,
And howled into the Palestine of life,
A baby roiled by memories of God.
Sometimes he smiled, sometimes the child was cross.

Often at night he dreamed a dream of God
And was the dream he dreamed. Often across
The lily fields he raged and lived their life,
And Heaven’s poison festered in his blood,
Loosing the passion of unthinkable love.

But mostly, though, he lived a prentice’s life
Until a singing in the surge of blood,
Making a chorus of the genes of God,
Flailed him into the tempest of a love
That lashed the North Star and the Southern Cross.

His neighbors smelled an alien in his blood,
A secret enemy and double life;
He was a mutant on an obscene cross
Outraging decency with naked love.
He stripped the last rags from a proper God.

The life of God must blood this cross for love.

*This is the second Kingdom Poets post about Chad Walsh: first post.

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

C.S. Lewis*

C.S. Lewis (1898—1963) is one of the most influential Christian writers of all time. He taught English at Oxford (1925—1954) and then at Cambridge (1954—1963), and was a close friend and significant encourager to J.R.R. Tolkien.

Known to his friends as Jack, Lewis published more than thirty works, which have been translated into more than thirty languages, and have sold millions of copies. Ten years ago, this month, on the anniversary of his death, a memorial stone honouring him was unveiled in Poets' Corner in Westminster Abbey.

As we approach November 29th (this Wednesday), his birthday, the podcast Pints with Jack, along with “over thirty Lewis societies and content creators” will be marking for the first time “C.S. Lewis Reading Day.” Watch the promotional video, and then, if you are so inclined, listen to the Pints With Jack podcast from when they interviewed me about my book Conspiracy of Light: Poems Inspired by the Legacy of C.S. Lewis. (Poiema/Cascade).

The following poem is available in his book Poems (1964, Harcourt, Inc.)

Footnote to All Prayers

He whom I bow to only knows to whom I bow
When I attempt the ineffable Name, murmuring Thou,
And dream of Pheidian fancies and embrace in heart
Symbols (I know) which cannot be the thing Thou art.
Thus always, taken at their word, all prayers blaspheme
Worshiping with frail images a folk-lore dream,
And all men in their praying, self-deceived, address
The coinage of their own unquiet thoughts, unless
Thou in magnetic mercy to Thyself divert
Our arrows, aimed unskilfully, beyond desert;
And all men are idolaters, crying unheard
To a deaf idol, if Thou take them at their word.
Take not, O Lord, our literal sense. Lord, in thy great
Unbroken speech our limping metaphor translate.

*This is the third Kingdom Poets post about C.S. Lewis: first post, second post.

Entry written by D.S. Martin. He is the author of five poetry collections including Angelicus (2021, Cascade) ― a book of poems written from the point-of-view of angels. His books are available through Wipf & Stock.

John Betjeman*

John Betjeman (1906—1984) is one of Britain’s most popular twentieth century poets. He differed from most of his peers in that he was neither a modernist (like his school teacher T.S. Eliot) nor an academic (like his Oxford tutor C.S. Lewis). He had a love for Victorian architecture, as existed in railway stations and churches ― even writing books on the subject, the first of which was Ghastly Good Taste (1933). There is a nostalgia expressed in his verse, which appealed to the common people in Britain’s post-war years.

He became a High-Church Anglican while still in school ― a conversion which significantly influenced the rest of his life.

In his poetry he often mocked ideals of progress, and attitudes of the privileged, and church-goers who didn’t see their own hypocrisy. He honestly expressed his own doubts and his fear of death, which can be seen in the following poem.

Before the Anaesthetic

Intolerably sad, profound
St. Giles's bells are ringing round,
They bring the slanting summer rain
To tap the chestnut boughs again
Whose shadowy cave of rainy leaves
The gusty belfry-song receives.
Intolerably sad and true,
Victorian red and jewel blue,
The mellow bells are ringing round
And charge the evening light with sound,
And I look motionless from bed
On heavy trees and purple red
And hear the midland bricks and tiles
Throw back the bells of stone St. Giles,
Bells, ancient now as castle walls,
Now hard and new as pitchpine stalls,
Now full with help from ages past,
Now dull with death and hell at last.
Swing up! and give me hope of life,
Swing down! and plunge the surgeon's knife.
I, breathing for a moment, see
Death wing himself away from me
And think, as on this bed I lie,
Is it extinction when I die?
I move my limbs and use my sight;
Not yet, thank God, not yet the Night.
Oh better far those echoing hells
Half-threaten'd in the pealing bells
Than that this "I" should cease to be
Come quickly, Lord, come quick to me.
St. Giles's bells are asking now
"And hast thou known the Lord, hast thou?"
St. Giles's bells, they richly ring
"And was that Lord our Christ the King?"
St. Giles's bells they hear me call
I never knew the lord at all
Oh not in me your Saviour dwells
You ancient, rich St. Giles's bells.
Illuminated missals ― spires ―
Wide screens and decorated quires ―
All these I loved, and on my knees
I thanked myself for knowing these
And watched the morning sunlight pass
Through richly stained Victorian glass
And in the colour-shafted air
I, kneeling, thought the Lord was there.
Now, lying in the gathering mist
I know that Lord did not exist;
Now, lest this "I" should cease to be,
Come, real Lord, come quick to me.
With every gust the chestnut sighs,
With every breath, a mortal dies;
The man who smiled alone, alone,
And went his journey on his own
With "Will you give my wife this letter,
In case, of course, I don't get better?"
Waits for his coffin lid to close
On waxen head and yellow toes.
Almighty Saviour, had I Faith
There'd be no fight with kindly Death.
Intolerably long and deep
St. Giles's bells swing on in sleep:
"But still you go from here alone"
Say all the bells about the Throne.

*This is the third Kingdom Poets post about John Betjeman: first post
second post.

Entry written by D.S. Martin. His latest poetry collection is Ampersand (2018, Cascade). His books are available through Amazon, and Wipf & Stock, including the anthologies The Turning Aside, and Adam, Eve, & the Riders of the Apocalypse.

J.R.R. Tolkien

J.R.R. Tolkien (1892―1973) is one of the most influential novelists of the 20th century. His fantasy novel The Hobbit (1937, Unwin) and the subsequent trilogy The Lord of the Rings (1954-1955) led directly to a huge resurgence of fantasy literature over the past sixty-plus years.

His friendship with C.S. Lewis is well-documented and celebrated ― particularly Jack Lewis’s championing of The Hobbit, and his encouragement for Tolkien to complete and publish its famous sequel.

The poem Mythopoeia ― which can be read here in its entirety ― is Tolkien’s creative response to an evening of debate with Lewis (and Hugo Dyson) on September 19, 1931 concerning whether myths might be fit vessels to contain truth. The agnostic Lewis said myths were "lies breathed through silver". It is noteworthy that it was only a few days later that C.S. Lewis came to the realization of the truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ ― under the influence of his friend Tolkien.

In his book Faith, Hope and Poetry (2008, Routledge) Malcolm Guite shares the following excerpt from Tolkien’s poem to express how our imaginations, though tainted by the fall, have not been totally overthrown.

from Mythopoeia

The heart of Man is not compound of lies,
but draws some wisdom from the only Wise,
and still recalls him. Though now long estranged,
Man is not wholly lost nor wholly changed.
Dis-graced he may be, yet is not dethroned,
and keeps the rags of lordship once he owned,
his world-dominion by creative act:
not his to worship the great Artefact,
Man, Sub-creator, the refracted light
through whom is splintered from a single White
to many hues, and endlessly combined
in living shapes that move from mind to mind.

Entry written by D.S. Martin. His latest poetry collection is Ampersand (2018, Cascade). His books are available through Amazon, and Wipf & Stock, including the anthologies The Turning Aside, and Adam, Eve, & the Riders of the Apocalypse.

George MacDonald*

George MacDonald (1824—1905) is the author of more than fifty books in a wide variety of genres — novels, plays, sermons, poems, essays and fairy tales. He became a Congregational minister in Arundel, Scotland in 1850, but left that position three years later due to theological differences. He never took on another church — although he was offered a staggering $20,000 per year by a large New York City church in 1872, when he was in the United States on a lecture tour.

There are some who dispute some of MacDonald’s less-orthodox beliefs. He did eventually join the Anglican Church, but was not drawn to its high liturgy or theology. MacDonald himself did not want to spend energy disputing. In one novel he wrote:

-----“The farmer believed in God—that is, he tried to do
-----what God required of him, and thus was on the straight
-----road to know him. He talked little about religion, and
-----was not one to take sides on doctrinal issues. When he
-----heard people advocating or opposing the claims of this
-----or that party in the church, he would turn away with a
-----smile such as men yield to the talk of children. He had
-----no time, he would say, for that kind of thing. He had enough
-----to do in trying to faithfully practice what was beyond dispute.”

Numerous authors have declared George MacDonald’s influence on their work, including J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Lewis Carroll, and Madeleine L'Engle.

The Grace of Grace

Had I the grace to win the grace
Of some old man in lore complete,
My face would worship at his face,
And I sit lowly at his feet.

Had I the grace to win the grace
Of childhood, loving shy, apart,
The child should find a nearer place,
And teach me resting on my heart.

Had I the grace to win the grace
Of maiden living all above,
My soul would trample down the base,
That she might have a man to love.

A grace I had no grace to win
Knocks now at my half open door:
Ah, Lord of glory, come thou in!—
Thy grace divine is all, and more.

*This is the second Kingdom Poets post about George MacDonald: first post.

Entry written by D.S. Martin. His latest poetry collection is Ampersand (2018, Cascade). His books are available through Amazon, and Wipf & Stock, including the anthologies The Turning Aside, and Adam, Eve, & the Riders of the Apocalypse.

Thomas Dekker

Thomas Dekker (1572—1632) is a contemporary of Shakespeare who wrote prolifically — particularly as a playwright. He collaborated on plays with Ben Jonson — both before and after they had written mocking portrayals of each other for the London stage. Dekker’s most famous play, The Shoemaker’s Holiday (1599), a rowdy comedy of life in London, is still performed today. He was also very active as a pamphleteer, taking on such topics as the London Plague of 1603, and the Gunpowder Plot.

Paul McCartney borrowed from Dekker the following lines, almost unaltered, and set them to music, without acknowledging their source for The Beatles’ 1969 album Abbey Road.
-----Golden slumbers kiss your eyes,
-----Smiles awake you when you rise;
-----Sleep, pretty wantons, do not cry,
-----And I will sing a lullaby...

Although Dekker was not particularly known as a religious man, C.S. Lewis recognized the root of the line, “All life is but a wandering to find home” — from the play The Witch of Edmonton — as an “exposition of medieval Christian doctrine.”

The following comes from Robert Hudson’s 2017 edition of Dekker’s Four Birds of Noah’s Ark — a prayer book, rather than a poetry book. Even so, these prayers are expressed in poetic lines, which speak eloquently in metaphor and echoing rhythms, very much like the Psalms. Hudson has annotated the prayers and modernized the language, without robbing Dekker’s prayers of their music.

A Prayer For The City

[Luke 19:41-44]

O Father of mercy, look down upon this city not
-----with an eye of justice, for no flesh
-----is righteous in your sight, but behold this,
-----your sanctuary, as your Son beheld Jerusalem.
Set, O Lord, a host of angels at the gates,
-----and let truth spread her banner on the walls.
-----Let not the arrow of the invader fall
-----upon our houses by day nor the sword
-----of the strong man smite us by night.
Give wisdom, O Lord, to the rulers of this city,
-----zeal to the preachers, and holiness of life
-----to the inhabitants. Let the tree of your gospel,
-----which for so many years has flourished here,
-----still spread into large branches, and may
-----those branches bear an abundance of lively fruit.
Save, O Lord, this temple of yours; bless it, defend it,
-----crown it with honors so that it may outshine
-----all the cities in the world
-----in goodness as it does in greatness. Amen.

Entry written by D.S. Martin. His latest poetry collection is Ampersand (2018, Cascade). His books are available through Amazon, and Wipf & Stock, including the anthologies The Turning Aside, and Adam, Eve, & the Riders of the Apocalypse.

Guillaume de Salluste du Bartas

Guillaume de Salluste du Bartas (1544—1590) is a French Huguenot, who served in the court of Henri IV, from well before he came to the French throne.

Du Bartas’ divine poetry was appreciated across Europe during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. At the turn of that century he was still the most esteemed poet in France, although literary fashions changed later in the 1600s. Because of his Protestant views, his influence was felt much longer in England — where he had made a significant impression on Philip Sydney, Edmund Spenser, and John Milton. James VI of Scotland’s enthusiasm for du Bartas’ verse also spread the poet’s fame.

He also made an impact on the Metaphysical poets. C.S. Lewis wrote in English Literature in the 16th Century, “…no one can point to a moment at which poetry began to be Metaphysical nor to a poet who made it so; but of all poets perhaps Guillaume de Salluste du Bartas… comes nearest to that position.”

The following is from Joshua Sylvester's translation, which appeared in editions from 1608 to 1641, and is part of the first poem from The Divine Weeks (Part 1—Building The World)

from The First Day

No sooner said He, “Be there light,” but lo!
The formless lump to perfect form ‘gan grow,
And all illustred with light’s radiant shine,
Doffed mourning weeds and decked it passing fine.
All hail, pure lamp, bright, sacred and excelling;
Sorrow and care, darkness and dread repelling;
The world’s great taper, wicked men’s just terror,
Mother of truth, true beauty’s only mirror—
God’s eldest daughter! O, how thou art full
Of grace and goodness! O, how beautiful!
Since thy great Parent’s all-discerning eye
Doth judge thee so, and since His Majesty—
Thy glorious Maker—in His sacred lays
Can do no less than sing thy modest praise.

This post was suggested by my friend Burl Horniachek.

Entry written by D.S. Martin. His latest poetry collection is Ampersand (2018, Cascade). His books are available through Amazon, and Wipf & Stock, including the anthologies The Turning Aside, and Adam, Eve, & the Riders of the Apocalypse.

Malcolm Guite*

Malcolm Guite is an English formalist poet, who is chaplain at Girton College, Cambridge, and teaches at the Faculty of Divinity at Cambridge University. He is author of several books, including two poetry anthologies for Lent and Advent, as well as Mariner: A Voyage with Samuel Taylor Coleridge (2017, Hodder & Stoughton): his analysis of "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner."

I met with him last fall in Hamilton, Ontario — the city his family had moved to when he was crossing into adolescence, before he was sent to boarding school in England to preserve his British identity. It was a delight, to drive him through Hamilton streets which he began to recognize from his youth.

During his terrible boarding school experience his worldview shifted from Christianity to existentialism. However, by his final year of graduate studies at Pembroke College, Cambridge, he re-engaged with Christian faith through his experience of beauty in the romantic poets, the religious significance of historic sites he had visited, and through a paper he had written analyzing the Psalms.

Guite participates in many events in Britain and North America related to C.S. Lewis scholarship, and has collaborated and toured with Canadian musician Steve Bell. The following poem is from his third full-length poetry collection Parable and Paradox, which appeared from Canterbury Press in 2016.

I AM The Resurrection

John 11.25: I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in
me, though he were dead, yet shall he live.

How can you be the final resurrection?
That resurrection hasn’t happened yet.
Our broken world is still bent on destruction,
No sun can rise before that sun has set.
Our faith looks back to father Abraham
And forward to the one who is to come
How can you speak as though he knew your name?
How can you say: before he was I am?

Begin in me and I will read your riddle
And teach you truths my Spirit will defend
I am the End who meets you in the middle,
The new Beginning hidden in the End.
I am the victory, the end of strife
I am the resurrection and the life.

Posted with permission of the poet.

*This is the second Kingdom Poets post about Malcolm Guite: first post, third post.

Entry written by D.S. Martin. His latest poetry collection is Ampersand (2018, Cascade). His books are available through Amazon, and Wipf & Stock, including the anthologies The Turning Aside, and Adam, Eve, & the Riders of the Apocalypse.

Thomas Traherne*

Thomas Traherne (1637—1674) is a British poet — born in Hereford, England — whose work is only recently coming to light and becoming valued. He was mentioned by Samuel Johnson as one of the metaphysical poets, but few knew his work at that time. In the twentieth century Traherne influenced such writers as Dorothy L. Sayers, Thomas Merton, Elizabeth Jennings and C.S. Lewis.

He is venerated as a saint within the Anglican church. In 2007 four stained glass windows by artist Tom Denny, honouring Thomas Traherne, were installed in Herford Cathedral's Audley Chapel. The photo here is of one of these windows.

The following poem in Traherne's Centuries of Meditations is preceded by these words: "Upon those pure and virgin apprehensions which I had in my infancy I made this Poem."

The Approach

1
That childish thoughts such joys inspire,
Doth make my wonder, and His glory higher,
His bounty, and my wealth more great
It shows His Kingdom, and His work complete.
In which there is not anything,
Not meet to be the joy of Cherubim.

2
He in our childhood with us walks,
And with our thoughts mysteriously He talks;
He often visiteth our minds,
But cold acceptance in us ever finds:
We send Him often grieved away,
Who else would show us all His Kingdom's joy.

3
O Lord, I wonder at Thy Love,
Which did my infancy so early move:
But more at that which did forbear
And move so long, though slighted many a year:
But most of all, at last that Thou
Thyself shouldst me convert, I scarce know how.

4
Thy gracious motions oft in vain
Assaulted me: my heart did hard remain
Longtime! I sent my God away
Grieved much, that He could not give me His joy.
I careless was, nor did regard
The End for which He all those thoughts prepared.

5
But now, with new and open eyes,
I see beneath, as if above the skies,
And as I backward look again
See all His thoughts and mine most clear arid plain.
He did approach, He me did woo;
I wonder that my God this thing would do,

6
From nothing taken first ,I was;
What wondrous things His glory brought to pass!
Now in the World I Him behold,
And me, enveloped in precious gold;
In deep abysses of delights,
In present hidden glorious benefits.

7
These thoughts His goodness long before
Prepared as precious and celestial store
With curious art in me inlaid,
That childhood might itself alone be said
My Tutor, Teacher, Guide to be,
Instructed then even by the Deity.

*This is the second Kingdom Poets post about Thomas Traherene: first post, third post.

Entry written by D.S. Martin. His latest poetry collection, Conspiracy of Light: Poems Inspired by the Legacy of C.S. Lewis, is available from Wipf & Stock as is his earlier award-winning collection, Poiema.

Sheldon Vanauken

Sheldon Vanauken (1914—1996) is an American writer, best known for his autobiographical book A Severe Mercy (1977). It tells the story of the extremely devoted relationship he and his wife Davy shared, about their conversion to Christian faith, and about how he coped with her death when she was just 40 years old.

After World War II, while he was on sabbatical from his teaching position at Lynchburg College in Virginia, they were living in Oxford. Through the influence of some Christian students who had befriended them, they came to embrace Christianity. C.S. Lewis was a significant influence over their circle, and their growing faith. Included in the book are 18 letters written by Lewis to Vanauken, which helped him through this difficult time. A movie version of A Severe Mercy is presently in production.

The following poem comes from Mercies: Collected Poems (1988).

The Sands

The soul for comfort holds herself to be
Inviolate; but like the blowing sands
That sift in shuttered houses, Christ’s demands
Intrude and sting, deny her to be free

She twists and turns but finds it vain to flee,
The living Word is in the very air,
She can’t escape a wound that’s everywhere,
She can but stand or yield—to ecstasy

Her Lord is seeking entrance; she must choose.
A thickening callous can withstand the pain
Of this rough irritant, the sands that swirl
Against her thus defied. But if she lose
Her self, Christ enters in—the sharp-edged grain
Of sand embedded grows a shining pearl”

Entry written by D.S. Martin. His latest poetry collection, Conspiracy of Light: Poems Inspired by the Legacy of C.S. Lewis, is available from Wipf & Stock as is his earlier award-winning collection, Poiema.

Joy Davidman

Joy Davidman (1915—1960) is an American-born poet who is best known as the wife of C.S. Lewis. The 1993 movie Shadowlands (starring Anthony Hopkins and Debra Winger) dramatized the story of their relationship, right down to her death from cancer.

A Naked Tree: Love Sonnets to C.S. Lewis and Other Poems (Eerdmans, 2015) is a new comprehensive collection of her poetry, which includes the complete manuscript of her 1938 collection, Letter to a Comrade, which won both the Yale Series of Younger Poets Competition, and the Russell Loines Memorial Award. It also includes many poems addressed to Lewis, including a sequence of 45 love sonnets which she wrote in her pursuit of a love relationship with him.

My review of A Naked Tree will appear in the forthcoming issue of Sehnsucht: The C.S. Lewis Journal.

Love Sonnets to C.S. Lewis XXXIV

No, it was neither you, nor God, but I
Whose nature drove the dagger in my side
So deadly near my heart; if I should die
Of loving you, call it suicide.

Had I the choice of being otherwise
Than this meek amorous wretch? I cannot know;
I can be certain that I would not choose
Any lesser gate of death than you.

If I rebel, it is not that I crave for
More of this world's sweet poison in my food;
Only, when I see my children sleeping,
I think I have a task to keep alive for;
But they and I must take our chance on God.
Let it be as He wills, and no more weeping.

Entry written by D.S. Martin. His latest poetry collection, Conspiracy of Light: Poems Inspired by the Legacy of C.S. Lewis, is available from Wipf & Stock as is his earlier award-winning collection, Poiema.

Dorothy L. Sayers

Dorothy L. Sayers (1893—1957) always saw herself as a poet who wrote fiction. She was born in Oxford, the daughter of an Anglican chaplain. She is best known for her aristocratic detective Lord Peter Wimsey, who appeared in eleven novels and many short stories. The first of these novels, Whose Body appeared in 1923. Others from the series include: The Five Red Herrings, Murder Must Advertise and Gaudy Night.

Her first two published books were poetry collections. She also wrote non-fiction books, such as The Mind of the Maker, many plays, including, The Man Born to be King—twelve radio dramas about the life of Christ, which were first broadcast on the BBC Home Service during WWII—and what she considered to be her crowning achievement, her translation of Dante's Divine Comedy, which was not quite completed at the time of her death.

Sayers was friends with Charles Williams, C.S. Lewis and T.S. Eliot. She expressed her personal philosophy as: "The only Christian work is good work, well done."

Hymn in Contemplation of Sudden Death

LORD, if this night my journey end,
I thank Thee first for many a friend,
The sturdy and unquestioned piers
That run beneath my bridge of years.

And next, for all the love I gave
To things and men this side the grave,
Wisely or not, since I can prove
There always is much good in love.

Next, for the power thou gavest me
To view the whole world mirthfully,
For laughter, paraclete of pain,
Like April suns across the rain.

Also that, being not too wise
To do things foolish in men's eyes,
I gained experience by this,
And saw life somewhat as it is.

Next, for the joy of labour done
And burdens shouldered in the sun;
Nor less, for shame of labour lost,
And meekness born of a barren boast.

For every fair and useless thing
That bids men pause from labouring
To look and find the larkspur blue
And marigolds of a different hue;

For eyes to see and ears to hear,
For tongue to speak and thews to bear,
For hands to handle, feet to go,
For life, I give Thee thanks also.

For all things merry, quaint and strange,
For sound and silence, strength, and change,
And last, for death, which only gives
Value to every thing that lives;

For these, good Lord that madest me,
I praise Thy name; since, verily,
I of my joy have had no dearth
Though this night were my last on earth.

Entry written by D.S. Martin. His new poetry collection, Conspiracy of Light: Poems Inspired by the Legacy of C.S. Lewis, is available from Wipf & Stock as is his earlier award-winning collection, Poiema.

King David

King David (c. 1040—970 BC) was described by God himself as a man after his own heart, and so he was selected to replace Saul as king over Israel. As a young man he had taken on the great Philistine warrior Goliath. He was also renown as a harp player, and had been called upon to play music to soothe the madness that tormented King Saul.

His passion for praising Yahweh is demonstrated by the story of David dancing before the Ark of the Covenant as it was brought into Jerusalem (2 Sam. 6). He is credited with having written the majority of poems in the biblical book of Psalms. Most significantly, it was prophesized that the Messiah—through whom the whole world would be blessed—would be a descendant of David. That prophesy was fulfilled in the coming of Jesus Christ.

In his book Reflections on the Psalms, C.S. Lewis said of the following poem (Psalm 19), "I take this to be the greatest poem in the Psalter and one of the greatest lyrics in the world." Here it is presented in the New International Version.

Psalm 19

For the director of music. A psalm of David.

The heavens declare the glory of God;
---the skies proclaim the work of his hands.
Day after day they pour forth speech;
---night after night they reveal knowledge.
They have no speech, they use no words;
---no sound is heard from them.
Yet their voice goes out into all the earth,
---their words to the ends of the world.
In the heavens God has pitched a tent for the sun.
---It is like a bridegroom coming out of his chamber,
---like a champion rejoicing to run his course.
It rises at one end of the heavens
---and makes its circuit to the other;
---nothing is deprived of its warmth.

The law of the LORD is perfect,
---refreshing the soul.
The statutes of the LORD are trustworthy,
---making wise the simple.
The precepts of the LORD are right,
---giving joy to the heart.
The commands of the LORD are radiant,
---giving light to the eyes.
The fear of the LORD is pure,
---enduring forever.
The decrees of the LORD are firm,
---and all of them are righteous.

They are more precious than gold,
---than much pure gold;
they are sweeter than honey,
---than honey from the honeycomb.
By them your servant is warned;
---in keeping them there is great reward.
But who can discern their own errors?
---Forgive my hidden faults.
Keep your servant also from willful sins;
---may they not rule over me.
Then I will be blameless,
---innocent of great transgression.
May these words of my mouth
---and this meditation of my heart
---be pleasing in your sight,
---LORD, my Rock and my Redeemer.

Entry written by D.S. Martin. His new poetry collection, Conspiracy of Light: Poems Inspired by the Legacy of C.S. Lewis, is available from Wipf & Stock as is his earlier award-winning collection, Poiema.

G.K. Chesterton*

G.K. Chesterton (1874—1936) is a prolific British writer who was very influential in many spheres. His output included fiction, biographies, poetry, drama, journalism, theology, and literary and art criticism. His essay collection What's Wrong with the World (1910) was very influential on Marshall McLuhan, and Chesterton's The Everlasting Man (1925), contributed to the conversion to Christianity of C.S. Lewis. G.K. Chesterton's first poetry collection, Greybeards At Play appeared in 1900.

In 1893 he went through a crisis of skepticism and began experimenting with the occult. He later renewed his Christian faith and married Frances Blogg, who was a stabilizing spiritual influence upon him. Another significant spiritual influence was his friend Hilaire Belloc.

He and George Bernard Shaw often engaged in rollicking debates, disagreeing at every turn, and yet in the end they express deep respect for one another, and were good friends. According to his autobiography, Chesterton and Shaw played cowboys in a silent film which was never released.

A Christmas Carol

The Christ-child lay on Mary’s lap,
His hair was like a light.
(O weary, weary were the world,
But here is all aright.)

The Christ-child lay on Mary’s breast
His hair was like a star.
(O stern and cunning are the kings,
But here the true hearts are.)

The Christ-child lay on Mary’s heart,
His hair was like a fire.
(O weary, weary is the world,
But here the world’s desire.)

The Christ-child stood on Mary’s knee,
His hair was like a crown,
And all the flowers looked up at Him,
And all the stars looked down.

*This is the second Kingdom Poets post about G.K. Chesterton: first post, third post.

Entry written by D.S. Martin. His new poetry collection, Conspiracy of Light: Poems Inspired by the Legacy of C.S. Lewis, is available from Wipf & Stock as is his earlier award-winning collection, Poiema.

Ruth Pitter

Ruth Pitter (1897—1992) is a British poet, who published a total of eighteen poetry collections. For her book, First Poems (1920), she received help and encouragement from Hilaire Belloc. A Trophy of Arms earned her the 1937 Hawthornden Prize, and in 1955 she received the Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry. After WWII she was a frequent guest on BBC Radio, and in the late fifties was a regular on the early television talk show The Brains Trust.

In a letter, she once wrote:
------"As to my faith, I owe it to C. S. Lewis. For much of my
------life I lived more or less as a Bohemian, but when the
------second war broke out, Lewis broadcast several times,
------and also published some little books (notably The
------Screwtape Letters), and I was fairly hooked. I came to
------know him personally, and he came here several times.
------Lewis's stories, so very entertaining but always about
------the war between good and evil, became a permanent part
------of my mental and spiritual equipment."
She and C.S. Lewis became close friends, and he became a great admirer of her poetry.

O Come Out of the Lily

O come out of the lily to me,
Come out of the morning-glory's bell,
Out of the rose and the peony,
You that made them, made so well
Leaf and flower and the spiral shell,
And the weed that waves in coves of the sea.

O look out of the ermine's eye,
And look down with the eye of the bird,
And ride the air with the butterfly
Whose wings are written with many a word,
Read and beloved but never heard,
The secret message, the silent cry.

O leap out of another's mind,
Come from the toils of the terrible brain:
Sleep no longer, nor lurk behind
Hate and anger and woeful pain:
As once in the garden, walk again,
Centre and spirit of human kind.

This is the first Kingdom Poets post about Ruth Pitter: second post.

Entry written by D.S. Martin. His new poetry collection, Conspiracy of Light: Poems Inspired by the Legacy of C.S. Lewis, is available from Wipf & Stock as is his earlier award-winning collection, Poiema.

C.S. Lewis*

C.S. Lewis (1898—1963) is one of the most influential writers of the twentieth century. Because of the way his mind worked, forming analogies to explain the complex ideas he was presenting, his fiction often had much more going on than what was merely on the surface. He is well-known for such creations as The Screwtape Letters (1942) written from the point-of-view of a senior demon dispensing advice to an underling on how to undermine the spiritual progress of a human subject — or The Great Divorce (1946) which tells of an imagined bus tour of heaven for those who dwell in hell.

I have chosen to mark the fiftieth anniversary of his death by releasing my poetry collection Conspiracy of Light: Poems Inspired by the Legacy of C.S. Lewis (Cascade Books), which further interacts with Lewis's fascinating way of looking at things.

He will also be honoured at Westminster Abbey on November 22nd — the anniversary of his death — when a memorial stone will be ceremoniously unveiled in Poets' Corner. Other poets honoured in the South Transept include Geoffrey Chaucer, William Blake, W.H. Auden, and former Lewis student John Betjeman.

Prayer

Master they say that when I seem
To be in speech with you,
Since you make no replies, it’s all a dream
— One talker aping two.

They are half right, but not as they
Imagine; rather, I
Seek in myself the things I meant to say,
And lo! The well’s are dry.

Then, seeing me empty, you forsake
The Listener’s role, and through
My dead lips breathe and into utterance wake
The thoughts I never knew.

And thus you neither need reply
Nor can; thus while we seem
Two talking, thou art One forever, and I
No dreamer, but thy dream.

*This is the second Kingdom Poets post about C.S. Lewis: first post, third post

Entry written by D.S. Martin. His new poetry collection, Conspiracy of Light: Poems Inspired by the Legacy of C.S. Lewis, is available from Wipf & Stock as is his earlier award-winning collection, Poiema.

Chad Walsh

Chad Walsh (1914—1991) is the author of more than twenty books, and taught for over thirty years at Beloit College in Wisconsin, where he was professor of English, and where he helped found The Beloit Poetry Journal in 1950. He established himself as the American authority on C.S. Lewis with the publication of C.S. Lewis: Apostle to the Skeptics in 1949. Lewis had been a transforming influence on his life, in that Walsh came to Christianity from agnosticism partly through reading Lewis’ books. Walsh also became an Episcopal priest.

The following poem comes from the Chad Walsh collection, The Psalm of Christ: Forty Poems on the Twenty-Second Psalm (1982). It also appeared in the anthology A Widening Light, which was edited by Luci Shaw.

“Why hast thou forsaken me?”

Psalm 22:1

Perhaps the Socrates he had never read,
The Socrates that Socrates poorly understood,
Had the answer. From opposites, opposites
Are generated. Cold to heat, heat to cold,
Life to death, and death to life. Perhaps the grave's
Obscenity is the womb, the only one
For the glorified body. It may be
Darkness alone, darkness, black and mute,

Void of God and a human smile, filled
With hateful laughter, dirty jokes, rattling dice,
Can empty the living room of all color
So that the chromatic slide of salvation
Fully possesses the bright screen of vision.

Or perhaps, being man, it was simply
He must first go wherever man had been,
To whatever caves of loneliness, whatever
Caverns of no light, deep damp darkness,
Dripping walls of the spirit, man has known.

I have called to God and heard no answer,
I have seen the thick curtain drop, and sunlight die;
My voice has echoed back, a foolish voice,
The prayer restored intact to its silly source.
I have walked in darkness, he hung in it.
In all of my mines of night, he was there first;
In whatever dead tunnel I am lost, he finds me.
My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?
From his perfect darkness a voice says, I have not.

This is the first Kingdom Poets post about Chad Walsh: second post.

Entry written by D.S. Martin. He is the award-winning author of the poetry collections Poiema (Wipf & Stock) and So The Moon Would Not Be Swallowed (Rubicon Press). They are both available at: www.dsmartin.ca

Malcolm Guite

Malcolm Guite is an Anglican priest, and author of several books, including the study Faith, Hope and Poetry. Rowan Williams describes it as “a profound theology of the imagination”, and Luci Shaw praises Guite as “a poet and scholar of the highest order”. He serves as Chaplain at Cambridge University’s Girton College, and is a singer/guitarist for the blues band “Mystery Train”. His verse follows traditional poetic formats. Two of his significant literary influences are Coleridge and C.S. Lewis.

The following poem is from Malcolm Guite’s new book of sonnets, Sounding the Seasons, which will be published by Canterbury Press this year.

St. Thomas the Apostle

“We do not know… how can we know the way?”
Courageous master of the awkward question,
You spoke the words the others dared not say
And cut through their evasion and abstraction.
Oh doubting Thomas, father of my faith,
You put your finger on the nub of things
We cannot love some disembodied wraith,
But flesh and blood must be our king of kings.
Your teaching is to touch, embrace, anoint,
Feel after Him and find Him in the flesh.
Because He loved your awkward counter-point
The Word has heard and granted you your wish.
Oh place my hands with yours, help me divine
The wounded God whose wounds are healing mine.

Posted with permission of the poet.

This is the first Kingdom Poets post about Malcolm Guite: second post, third post.

Entry written by D.S. Martin. He is the award-winning author of the poetry collections Poiema (Wipf & Stock) and So The Moon Would Not Be Swallowed (Rubicon Press). They are both available at: www.dsmartin.ca

Brett Foster

Brett Foster is Associate Professor of English at Wheaton College. His first poetry collection, The Garbage Eater (2011) has now appeared from TriQuartely Books/Northwestern University Press.

His literary influences come from a variety of sources. He’s eager to praise the work of such renaissance poets as Milton, Spenser, Shakespeare and Marlowe — but then again if you were to speak of such mid-century voices as Charles Williams, Owen Barfield and C.S. Lewis (Foster is Poetry Editor at the Lewis-inspired journal Sehnsucht) he’d engage you in a lively discussion. Similarly he is an enthusiast of diverse contemporary poets including Seamus Heaney and Richard Wilbur. Foster’s academic love of literature shows itself strongly in his own verse; his work as a literary critic also reflects his wide interests.

The following poem first appeared in Image.

Devotion: For Our Bodies

Yes, Love, I must confess I’m at it again,
struggling in vain with my Greek declensions.
I know it’s common, but I want to show
you what I found in Praxeis Apostolon,

chapter one, verse twenty-four: this exquisite
epithet, kardiognosta. Forget
briefly its context, that the Eleven,
genuflecting, implore the Lord to give

wisdom. Between Justus and Matthias,
who replaces Judas? Let this word pass
to private sharpness toward love’s dominion.
Let me kiss it across your collarbones—

knower of hearts. Its sweetness fills my mouth
and our twin lots, as if they’d chosen both.

Posted with permission of the poet.

Read my Ruminate review of The Garbage Eater here.

This is the first Kingdom Poets post about Brett Foster: second post, third post.

Entry written by D.S. Martin. He is the award-winning author of the poetry collections Poiema (Wipf & Stock) and So The Moon Would Not Be Swallowed (Rubicon Press). They are both available at: www.dsmartin.ca

George MacDonald

George MacDonald (1824–1905) is a Scottish writer best known as a novelist, but he also wrote in such genres as poetry, sermons, and literary criticism. He was a Congregational minister, who mentored the young Lewis Carroll, encouraging him to publish his stories of Alice which were popular with MacDonald’s many children.

His greatest influence is as a writer of fantasy — both for children (he would say “for the child-like”) and for adults. His best children’s books are The Princess and the Goblin (1872) [read my brief review here] and its sequel The Princess and Curdie (1882). His masterpieces of adult fantasy are Phantastes and Lilith — both published in 1895.

MacDonald greatly influenced many authors, including G.K. Chesterton and C.S. Lewis. Lewis referred to him as his master, and said, “...what I learned to love in Phantastes was goodness.” This quality comes through in MacDonald’s other works as well, which W.H. Auden confirms.

Approaches

When thou turn’st away from ill,
Christ is this side of thy hill.

When thou turnest toward good,
Christ is walking in thy wood.

When thy heart says, “Father, pardon!”
Then the Lord is in thy garden.

When stern Duty wakes to watch,
Then his hand is on the latch.

But when Hope thy song doth rouse,
Then the Lord is in the house.

When to love is all thy wit,
Christ doth at thy table sit.

When God’s will is thy heart’s pole,
Then is Christ thy very soul.

This is the first Kingdom Poets post about George MacDonald: second post.

Entry written by D.S. Martin. He is the award-winning author of the poetry collections Poiema (Wipf & Stock) and So The Moon Would Not Be Swallowed (Rubicon Press). They are both available at: www.dsmartin.ca