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.

Robert Hudson

Robert Hudson is a Michigan poet, editor, publisher, writer, and old-time fiddle player. His book The Christian Writers Manual of Style is now in its fourth edition. Although Bob is senior editor-at-large for Zondervan/HarperCollins Publishers, his personal, playful pursuits seem less about building his career than about his love of words, music and the spiritual life.

His first full-length poetry collection Kiss the Earth When You Pray: The Father Zosima Poems (2016) feels like translations from a medieval mystic. Zosima is in fact a fictitious character from Dostoyevsky's The Brothers Karamazov (inspired by a real-life Russian Orthodox ascetic). It is in the voice of Hudson's version of this character these poems are written.

Other recent books by Robert Hudson include The Monk's Record Player (2018, Eerdmans) — a fascinating intertwined joint-biography of Thomas Merton and Bob Dylan focusing on the summer of 1966 — and Four Birds of Noah's Ark (2017, Eerdmans) an updated version of Thomas Dekker's prayer book from 1608.

Bob and his wife Shelley Townsend-Hudson run Perkipery Press, which has published chapbooks for three decades, and play together as members of the band Gooder'n Grits, that performs the pre-bluegrass music of the Carolinas.

The following poem is from Kiss the Earth When You Pray.

On Creation

There is this. The river, silent,
moving through the reeds,

the crab tree
crippled with fruit,

the doe in winter
that will die before nightfall,

and the sapling with ambition
in the heart of the forest—

all things are warm
from the forge of Creation.

The muskrat slapping
water with its tail,

the mute stones
wearing smooth in rain,

the earthworm lolling
from its hole in flood time,

and the night sky heavy
with snow but waiting—

all these are still warm
from the fires of Creation.

The ox at the yoke,
at the row's end, turning,

the yew and the heron
and the unwinding stars,

the swallow blinded
in the eye of the sun,

and the mole whose patience
undermines the world—

all these are still warm
from the touch of that Hand.

Who sows the seeds in the drops
of rain and fills the morning crows

with laughter? Who hung
the web in the spider's mind?

Tell every pilgrim you meet on the way,
the shrine of the Holy is everywhere.

Posted with permission of the poet.

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.