Bede

Bede — often referred to as the Venerable Bede (673—735) — is an Anglo-Saxon poet, priest, theologian, scholar and historian. His best-known work is Ecclesiastical History of the English People (731), which outlines a history of England, beginning with the invasion by Julius Ceasar in 55 BC, and describes the conversion to Christianity of the Anglo-Saxon people. From this work came the method of dating events from Christ’s Birth (BC and AD).

At age seven, he was sent by his family to the monastery of Monkwearmouth to receive his education. He spent most of his life in the monastery, and its sister monastery at Jarrow, although he also travelled to various monasteries throughout Britain.

It is through Bede that we know that Cædmon (657—680) — besides his one surviving hymn — also wrote many poems about Genesis and the Gospels.

The following poem — also known as Bede’s Lament — is the most-copied Old English poem in ancient manuscripts; according to tradition it was written on his deathbed, although there is no evidence that he was the author. Here are a couple renderings of the poem in English. I include them both to assist us in our reflections.

Bede’s Death Song

Facing Death, that inescapable journey,
who can be wiser than he
who reflects, while breath yet remains,
on whether his life brought others happiness, or pains,
since his soul may yet win delight's or night's way
after his death-day.

Bede’s Death Song

Before the unavoidable journey there, no one becomes
wiser in thought than him who, by need,
ponders, before his going hence,
what good and evil within his soul,
after his day of death, will be judged.

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.

Luke Harvey

Luke Harvey is a poet who describes himself as “living in the interstate / between two worlds” — that is, in Chickamauga, Georgia, just ten miles from Chattanooga, Tennessee. He works as a high school teacher in that other world. He also writes for and works on the poetry editorial panel for The Rabbit Room.

Harvey’s debut poetry collection Let’s Call It Home has just appeared as part of the Poiema Poetry Series from Cascade Books. I am honoured to have worked with Luke in editing this fine book for publication.

The English poet Malcolm Guite has written of this new collection, “Time and again these poems do what poetry does best: they transfigure the familiar and so reveal something of its meaning: …from the mystery of the earthworm rising towards the rain, to the family who find that feeding a child pureed peas is an entirely sacramental act, in poem after poem Luke Harvey gives us a glimpse of what George Herbert called ‘Heaven in Ordinary’.”

The following poem is from Let’s Call It Home.

After the Murder

The crux of the matter is what to do.
with the body now crumbled

in your hands. Logic says dismember
it, scrubbing beneath your fingernails

to rinse away any condemning
evidence of having been at the scene

of the slaughter, then bury the axe.
Or maybe you play it cool, act

like it’s nothing new to hold a carcass
in your cupped palms, like really this

is something you do on a weekly basis,
nonchalant as a Sunday stroll. Of course,

you wouldn’t be here in the first place
if you were one to listen to logic,

so disregard that. You’re holding the flesh
and blood of another. This is no time for logic.

Pray for forgiveness and devour it,
wiping first one cheek, then the other.

Posted with permission of the poet.

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.

Adam Mickiewicz*

Adam Mickiewicz (1798—1855) is often referred to as Poland’s greatest poet. “He was at once the Homer and the Dante of the Polish nation,” said the poet and critic Jan Lechoń.

In 1824, after having been briefly imprisoned for pro-Polish independence activities, Mickiewicz was banished to Russia. He quickly became popular in the literary society of Saint Petersburg and Moscow, and befriended Alexander Pushkin. After five years of exile he was given permission to travel to Europe; he settled in Rome, and later in Paris.

In the Preface to the book Metaphysical Poems (2023, Brill) — which includes essays about Mickiewicz and a large selection of his poems (both in the original Polish and in English translation) — the selection of poems are said to show Mickiewicz to be,
----“…part of the diverse culture of European Romanticism, as well
----as the great metaphysical and mystical tradition extending from
----the classical culture of Greece and Rome, through mediaeval
----Christendom, to the early-modern Reformation and Enlightenment.
----In these poems Mickiewicz testifies to a spiritual longing for God
----and the meaning of human existence, a longing which transcends not
----only national, ethnic and linguistic boundaries, but also
----religious denominations.”

The following poem was translated by Mateusz Stróżyński and Jaspreet Singh Boparai and appears in Metaphysical Poems (2023 Brill).

Reason and Faith

When I have bowed proud reason and my head
Before the Lord like clouds before the sun:
The Lord raised them up like a rainbow bright
And painted them with myriad dazzling rays.

And it will shine, a witness to our faith,
When from the heavenly dome disaster flows;
And when we fear the flood, the rainbow will
Remind us of the covenant once more.

Oh, Lord! Humility has made me proud,
For even though I shine in heavenly realm —
My Lord! — the shine’s not mine! It’s but a weak
Reflection of your glorious, dazzling fires!

I looked upon the lowly realms of Man,
On his opinions’ varying tones and hues:
To reason they appeared large and confused,
But to the eyes of faith they’re small, and clear

All the proud scholars! Also you I see!
The storm is throwing you around like trash.
You are enclosed like snails in little shells,
While you desire to comprehend the globe.

They claim: “Necessity! It blindly rules
The world like the moon which governs the waves.”
While others say: “It’s Accident which plays
In Man like winds that frolic in the sky.”

There is a Lord who has embraced the sea
And made it trouble Earth eternally;
But carved for it the boundary in rock,
Designed to act as an eternal check.

*This is the second Kingdom Poets post about Adam Mickiewicz: first 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.

Seamus Heaney*

Seamus Heaney (1939—2013) is one of Ireland’s most respected poets. He grew up in the north and — not for political or religious reasons — moved to the south in 1972. He has also been shared by the US (he taught for one semester a year at Harvard for 20 years) and England (he was Poetry Professor at Oxford for five years).

In his poetry he frequently preserves memories of the past — the sound and feel of how tasks were accomplished during his childhood, other aspects of the way rural life was, and memories of family, church, and school life. He said, “Almost always [a poem] starts from some memory, something you’d forgotten that comes up like a living gift of presence.” For Heaney, though, such thoughts require further reflection. “That is the kind of poem I really like: the stimulus in memory, but the import, hopefully, more than just the content of memory.”

The following poem is, by my count, the third time Heaney has taken on this story from the Gospels (Matthew 9, Mark 2, Luke 5). The first was in his book Seeing Things (1991), the second in Human Chain (2010) — and this one appeared in Poetry Ireland Review in 2014, after Heaney’s death. As far as I know, it has not been collected in a posthumous poetry collection.

The Latecomers

He saw them come, then halt behind the crowd
That wailed and plucked and ringed him, and was glad
They kept their distance. Hedged on every side,

Harried and responsive to their need,
Each hand that stretched, each brief hysteric squeal –
However he assisted and paid heed,

A sudden blank letdown was what he’d feel
Unmanning him when he met the pain of loss
In the eyes of those his reach had failed to bless.

And so he was relieved the newcomers
Had now discovered they’d arrived too late
And gone away. Until he hears them, climbers

On the roof, a sound of tiles being shifted,
The treble scrape of terra cotta lifted
And a paralytic on his pallet

Lowered like a corpse into a grave,
Exhaustion and the imperatives of love
Vied in him. To judge, instruct, reprove,

And ease them body and soul.
Not to abandon but to lay on hands.
Make time. Make whole. Forgive.

*This is the fourth Kingdom Poets post about Seamus Heaney: first post, second post, third 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.

Ann Griffiths*

Ann Griffiths (1776—1805) is a hymnist of rural Wales whose poetic achievement is treasured by those who speak the Welsh language. She grew up in a family who faithfully attended their parish church and, like their neighbours, enjoyed traditional noson lawen evenings of singing with the harp and dancing.

In the mid-1790s, she embraced the spiritual renewal of the Methodist revival that was sweeping through Wales. This is when she began composing her hymns and poems, only a few of which she actually wrote down.

She recited them to her friend Ruth Hughes, who also committed them to memory. After Ann Griffiths died, it was Ruth’s husband, John Hughes, who published them. John was a teacher and preacher who had corresponded extensively with Ann as a spiritual mentor.

In the Dictionary of Welsh Biography, Gomer Morgan Roberts describes her verse as “characterized by a wealth of scriptural allusion, by deep religious and mystical feeling, and by bold metaphors.”

The following poem, translated into English by George Richard Gould Pughe, is from a collection called, The Hymns of Ann Griffiths, of Dolwar Fechan, which was published in 1900. It is available online through Project Gutenberg.

Hymn VI

“But God is faithful” 1 Cor. x, 18.

“Cofia, Arglwydd, dy ddyweddi,”

Lord, remember, we implore Thee,
----And defend from every foe
Thy poor spouse that bends before Thee
----Palpitating as a doe:
Be Thou unto her a Pillar
----To direct her in the night,—
To illuminate and fill her
----With the lustre of Thy Light.

Life is far more strange than fiction,—
----But its immortality
In defiance of affliction
----Magnifies its mystery.
When the winnowing commences,
----Lord, enable us to stand
Purified from past offences
----At the last on Thy Right Hand.

O that, as a cloud ascending
----Upwards to the skies above,
We may rise, and with unending
----Rapture realise Thy Love!
Three in One, The Same as ever,
----God proclaims His Name to be
Alpha and Omega, never
----Failing in fidelity.

*This is the second Kingdom Poets post about Ann Griffiths: first 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.