John Meade Falkner

John Meade Falkner (1858—1922) is a British novelist and poet. He was also quite successful in business, becoming the chair of the arms manufacturer Armstrong Whitworth. For many years he was the company's ambassador to foreign governments — spending much time in Europe and South America.

He published guidebooks for Oxfordshire, Bath and Berkshire, and three novels, the most famous of which is Moonfleet (1898).

After retirement he settled in Durham, becoming an Honorary Reader in paleography at the university, and an Honorary Librarian at the cathedral.

Christmas Day. The Family Sitting

In the days of Caesar Augustus
There went forth this decree:
Si quis rectus et justus
Liveth in Galilee,
Let him go up to Jerusalem
And pay his scot to me.

There are passed one after the other
Christmases fifty-three,
Since I sat here with my mother
And heard the great decree:
How they went up to Jerusalem
Out of Galilee.

They have passed one after the other;
Father and mother died,
Brother and sister and brother
Taken and sanctified.
I am left alone in the sitting,
With none to sit beside.

On the fly-leaves of these old prayer-books
The childish writings fade,
Which show that once they were their books
In the days when prayer was made
For other kings and princesses,
William and Adelaide.

The pillars are twisted with holly,
And the font is wreathed with yew,
Christ forgive me for folly,
Youth’s lapses — not a few,
For the hardness of my middle life,
For age’s fretful view.

Cotton-wool letters on scarlet,
All the ancient lore,
Tell how the chieftains starlit
To Bethlehem came to adore;
To hail Him King in the manger,
Wonderful, Counsellor.

The bells ring out in the steeple
The gladness of erstwhile,
And the children of other people
Are walking up the aisle;
They brush my elbow in passing,
Some turn to give me a smile.

Is the almond-blossom bitter?
Is the grasshopper heavy to bear?
Christ make me happier, fitter
To go to my own over there:
Jerusalem the Golden,
What bliss beyond compare!

My Lord, where I have offended
Do Thou forgive it me.
That so when, all being ended,
I hear Thy last decree,
I may go up to Jerusalem
Out of Galilee.

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.

Norman Nicholson*

Norman Nicholson (1914—1987) is an English poet, born in the town of Millom, Cumbria, where he lived his entire life—with the exception of almost two years in his teens in a tuberculosis sanatorium.

He was born the year WWI started, and "born again" the year WWII started—1939. Both place and faith are significant themes in his verse. He valued life away from large cities, and was a fervent environmentalist. He was over 40 when he met and married his wife, Yvonne.

When he was in his twenties, he was a protégé of T.S. Eliot who published his work with Faber & Faber. In addition to seven collections of poetry, he also wrote novels, plays, criticism and essays. When he died The Times obituary acclaimed him 'the most gifted English Christian provincial poet of his century'.

Carol for the Last Christmas Eve

The first night, the first night,
The night that Christ was born,
His mother looked in his eyes and saw
Her maker in her son.

The twelfth night, the twelfth night,
After Christ was born,
The Wise Men found the child and knew
Their search has just begun.

Eleven thousand, two fifty nights,
After Christ was born,
A dead man hung in the child's light
And the sun went down at noon.

Six hundred thousand or thereabout nights,
After Christ was born,
I look at you and you look at me
But the sky is too dark for us to see
And the world waits for the sun.

But the last night, the last night,
Since ever Christ was born,
What his mother knew will be known again,
And what was found by the Three Wise Men,
And the sun will rise and so may we,
On the last morn, on Christmas morn,
Umpteen hundred and eternity.

*This is the second Kingdom Poets post about Norman Nicholson: first 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.

O Antiphons

The O Antiphons are ancient poems written in Latin, and which are sung or recited at Vespers in various churches, including by Lutherans, Anglicans and Catholics. They date from at least the eighth century, if not earlier.

The seven antiphons each proclaims a different name for Christ, and are featured during Advent.
-------December 17: O Sapientia (O Wisdom)
-------December 18: O Adonai (O Lord)
-------December 19: O Radix Jesse (O Root of Jesse)
-------December 20: O Clavis David (O Key of David)
-------December 21: O Oriens (O Dayspring)
-------December 22: O Rex Gentium (O King of the nations)
-------December 23: O Emmanuel (O With Us is God)

Two fine Christian poets have recently found inspiration in the O Antiphons for their own poetry Malcolm Guite in Sounding the Seasons (2012), and Jill Peláez Baumgaertner in What Cannot Be Fixed (2014).

Five of the seven Antiphons are used in the following Christmas carol. John Mason Neale translated the hymn into English for his hymnal Hymns Ancient and Modern (1861).

O Come, O Come, Emmanuel

O come, O come, Emmanuel
And ransom captive Israel
That mourns in lonely exile here
Until the Son of God appear
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to thee, O Israel.

O come, Thou Rod of Jesse, free
Thine own from Satan's tyranny
From depths of Hell Thy people save
And give them victory o'er the grave
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to thee, O Israel.

O come, Thou Day-Spring, come and cheer
Our spirits by Thine advent here
Disperse the gloomy clouds of night
And death's dark shadows put to flight.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to thee, O Israel.

O come, Thou Key of David, come,
And open wide our heavenly home;
Make safe the way that leads on high,
And close the path to misery.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to thee, O Israel.

O come, O come, Thou Lord of might,
Who to Thy tribes, on Sinai's height,
In ancient times did'st give the Law,
In cloud, and majesty and awe.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to thee, O Israel.

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.

Madeleine L'Engle*

Madeleine L'Engle (1918—2007) was born and raised in New York City, although during her teen years she lived in the Swiss Alps and in Charleston, South Carolina. She met her husband, Hugh Franklin, when she was living in Greenwich Village and working in theatre. They were married in 1946, and he died in 1986. She was librarian at the Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine in New York for more than thirty years.

She is best known for her Newbery Medal winning novel A Wrinkle in Time (1963) and its sequels. In her poems, L'Engle primarily uses traditional structures. Her highly-quotable Walking on Water: Reflections on Faith and Art was first published in 1980. Her new and collected poems, The Ordering of Love (Shaw), appeared in 2005.

The following poem appeared in the Christmas collection Winter Song (1996) — which is a collaboration between Madeleine L'Engle and Luci Shaw.

Into the Darkest Hour

It was a time like this,
War & tumult of war,
a horror in the air.
Hungry yawned the abyss —
and yet there came the star
and the child most wonderfully there.

It was a time like this
of fear & lust for power,
license & greed and blight —
and yet the Prince of bliss
came into the darkest hour
in quiet & silent light.

And in a time like this
how celebrate his birth
when all things fall apart?
Ah! wonderful it is
with no room on the earth
the stable is our heart.

*This is the second Kingdom Poets post about Madeleine L'Engle: first 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.

Elizabeth Jennings*

Elizabeth Jennings (1926—2001) is the author of more than two dozen volumes of poetry, mostly published by Macmillan and Carcanet. Her family moved to Oxford, when she was six years old, and she lived there for the rest of her life. She was a traditionalist, rather than an innovator — demonstrating a fine lyrical style and mastery of poetic forms. In 1992 she became a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE).

She once wrote, "Only one thing must be cast out, and that is the vague. Only true clarity reaches to the heights and the depths of human, and more than human, understanding." She was discussing the work of other significant authors, but she clearly applied this principle to her own writing.

She is one of the poets to be featured in an upcoming anthology of Christian poetry I am editing for the Poiema Poetry Series.

The Visitation

She had not held her secret long enough
To covet it but wished it shared as though
Telling it would tame the terrifying moment
When she, most calm in her own afternoon,
-----Felt the intrepid angel, heard
His beating wings, his voice across her prayer.

This was the thing she needed to impart
The uncalm moment, the strange interruption,
The angel bringing pain disguised as joy,
But mixed with this was something she could share
-----And not abandon, simply how
A child sprang in her like the first of seeds.

And in the stillness of that other day
The afternoon exposed its emptiness,
Shadows adrift from light, the long road turning
In a dry sequence of the sun. And she
-----No apprehensive figure seemed,
Only a moving silence through the land.

And all her journeying was a caressing
Within her mind of secrets to be spoken.
The simple fact of birth soon overshadowed
The shadow of the angel. When she came
-----Close to her cousin’s house she kept
Only the message of her happiness.

And those two women in their quick embrace
Gazed at each other with looks undisturbed
By men or miracles. It was the child
Who laid his shadow on their afternoon
-----By stirring suddenly, by bringing
Back the broad echoes of those beating wings.

*This is the second Kingdom Poets post about Elizabeth Jennings: 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.

Edmund Waller

Edmund Waller (1606—1687) is an English poet who was elected to parliament when he was sixteen-years-old. He was educated at Eton College, and King's College, Cambridge. He tried to play both sides in the stormy political 1640s. After he had been caught by parliamentarians in his plot to secure London for the King, he was exiled from 1643 to 1652. In 1655 Waller's "Panegyrick to my Lord Protector" appeared, which seems to have been an attempt to gain Cromwell's favour. By 1660 he (perhaps more sincerely) celebrated “To the King, upon his Majesties happy return.”

Both John Dryden and Alexander Pope were admirers of Waller's poetry, in particular his "heroic couplets", which they both imitated. Edmund Waller's Divine Poems appeared in 1685.

Of the Last Verses in the Book

When we for age could neither read nor write,
The subject made us able to indite.
The soul, with nobler resolutions decked,
The body stooping, does herself erect:
No mortal parts are requisite to raise
Her, that unbodied can her Maker praise.

The seas are quiet, when the winds give o’er,
So calm are we, when passions are no more:
For then we know how vain it was to boast
Of fleeting things, so certain to be lost.
Clouds of affection from our younger eyes
Conceal that emptiness, which age descries.

The soul’s dark cottage, battered and decayed,
Lets in new light through chinks that time has made;
Stronger by weakness, wiser men become
As they draw near to their eternal home:
Leaving the old, both worlds at once they view,
That stand upon the threshold of the new.

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.

Brett Foster*

Brett Foster (1973—2015) is the author of the poetry collection The Garbage Eater (2011), and the chapbook Fall Run Road (2012). It was discovered last year that he had colon cancer. He passed away last Monday at his home in Wheaton, Illinois where he lived with his wife and two children. He served as Associate Professor of English at Wheaton College.

On a personal note, Brett assisted me with the editing of my most recent poetry book. He also introduced me to N.T. Wright's excellent book on the Psalms, when we were hanging out together at the Festival of Faith and Writing in Michigan last year.

The best way to honour him, is to share some of his fine poetry. Of the following poems, the first recently appeared in Books & Culture, and the second in the most-recent issue of Image.

Poem with a Phrase from George Herbert

Even if the body's garment has been rent,
it can still become an establishment
for rebuilding spirit, new, tender, and quick.
If there is no market for one's sickness,
there is at very least an etiquette
for feeling better—felt pain and everything met
in extremity, that is. There exists
the tumor, cyst, or grisly polyp, and Christ
resides, persists amid these hundred hells,
his garment hemmed with pomegranates, golden bells.

Tongue Is The Pen

Isaiah 43

I am making all things new! Or am trying to,
being so surprised to be one of those guys
who may be dying early. This is yet one more
earthen declaration, uttered through a better
prophet’s more durable mouth, with heart
astir. It’s not oath-taking that I’m concerned
with here, for what that’s worth— instead just a cry
from the very blood, a good, sound imprecation
to give the sickness and the shivering meaning.
Former things have not been forgotten,
but they have forgotten me. The dear, the sweet,
the blessed past, writes Bassani. Tongue is the pen.
Donning some blanket of decorousness
is not the prophet’s profession, not ever.
Not that I’ve tasted the prophet’s honey or fire:
I’m just a shocked, confounded fellow
who’s standing here, pumping the bellows
of his mellifluous sorrow. Yet sorrow’s the thing
for all prophets. Make a way in the wilderness,
streaming your home-studio-made recordings
from a personal wasteland. These are my thoughts.
I can’t manage the serious beard. My sackcloth
is the flannel shirt I’m wearing. But the short-circuited
months have whitened my hair, and it’s not
for nothing that Jeffrey calls me, with affectionate
mockery, the silver fox. It’s a prerequisite, finally—
being a marginal prophet, but a severe attention
to envisioned tomorrows must be present, too,
must be perceived as possible, audible, or followable.
There’s a hypothetically bright future for everything,
each wounded creature that is bitten, or bites.
And speaking of things overheard, you heard right:
if I have to go out, I am going to go out singing.

*This is the second Kingdom Poets post about Brett Foster: 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.