Christina Rossetti*

Christina Rossetti (1830—1894) is one of the best-known English poets of the nineteenth century. Her most famous collection is Goblin Market and Other Poems (1862). Her work became somewhat neglected with the rise of modernism in the early twentieth century, but gained a resurgence by the 1970s. She is said to have been a significant influence on Gerard Manley Hopkins, Elizabeth Jennings and Philip Larkin, among others.

In 1871 she was diagnosed with Graves' Disease, which she bravely endured with the help of her strong faith. She continued publishing poetry at this point, including A Pageant and Other Poems (1881), but primarily focused on devotional prose writing. She was considered the obvious candidate to succeed Alfred, Lord Tennyson as poet laureate — but she developed cancer in 1891, which eventually took her life.

Easter Monday

Out in the rain a world is growing green,
--On half the trees quick buds are seen
----Where glued-up buds have been.
Out in the rain God's Acre stretches green,
--Its harvest quick tho' still unseen:
----For there the Life hath been.

If Christ hath died His brethren well may die,
--Sing in the gate of death, lay by
----This life without a sigh:
For Christ hath died and good it is to die;
--To sleep whenso He lays us by,
----Then wake without a sigh.

Yea, Christ hath died, yea, Christ is risen again:
--Wherefore both life and death grow plain
----To us who wax and wane;
For Christ Who rose shall die no more again:
--Amen: till He makes all things plain
----Let us wax on and wane.

*This is the second Kingdom Poets post about Christina Rossetti: first post, third post, fourth post, fifth 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.

John Ditsky

John Ditsky (1938—2006) is a poet, and a literary scholar. He taught at several American universities before settling as an English professor at the University of Windsor, in Ontario, where he spent most of his career. His contribution to studies of American novelist John Steinbeck is extensive, having written several books and numerous essays about his work. Another of John Ditsky's books of literary assessment is: The Onstage Christ: Studies in the Persistence of a Theme.

Ditsky published more than 1300 poems in literary journals and wrote four collections of poetry, including Scar Tissue (1978). He also served for many years as Poetry Editor for Windsor Review.

John Ditsky's papers are archived at Ball State University in Indiana.

On Good Friday

On Good Friday, our Good
Friday, the sun shone
and the frogs sang antiphons;

the geese blew roaster
horns and the skunk cabbage
ruffled upward out of stream
beds. And if this was nearly
all — this and the woodpecker's

prospecting — there would be
more to come. For the Lord
went winking to his grave.

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.

Mary Oliver*

Mary Oliver is, according to the New York Times, by far the best-selling US poet. Her first book, No Voyage and Other Poems, appeared in 1963, and she has since published more than twenty collections. Through the years her voice has developed as one who is very attentive and appreciative of the natural world, and thankful to God for every little beautiful detail.

Mary Oliver's American Primitive (1983) won the Pulitzer Prize, and her New and Selected Poems (1992) won the National Book Award. Her most recent poetry collection is Felicity.

The following poem is from her 2006 collection, Thirst. I thought it would be a fine place to begin our Easter anticipations, as we move toward Palm Sunday.

The Poet Thinks about the Donkey

On the outskirts of Jerusalem
The donkey waited.
Not especially brave, or filled with understanding,
He stood and waited.

How horses, turned out into the meadow,
Leap with delight!
How doves, released from their cages,
Clatter away, splashed with sunlight!

But the donkey, tied to a tree as usual, waited.
Then he let himself be led away.
Then he let the stranger mount.

Never had he seen such crowds!
And I wonder if he at all imagined what was to happen.
Still, he was what he had always been: small, dark, obedient.

I hope, finally, he felt brave.
I hope, finally, he loved the man who rode so lightly upon him,
As he lifted one dusty hoof and stepped, as he had to, forward.

*This is the second Kingdom Poets post about Mary Oliver: first post, third post, fourth 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.

Luis Vaz de Camões

Luis Vaz de Camões (c.1524—1580) is the national poet of Portugal. Encyclopedia Britannica says that "Camões had a permanent and unparalleled impact on Portuguese and Brazilian literature alike..." He spent much of his life abroad. When fighting as a member of the Portuguese army in Morocco, he lost an eye. He served as a soldier in India for three years, was part of military campaigns in Arabia and East Africa, was shipwrecked on the African coast, and ended up in Mozambique — where he had to rely on the generosity of friends to help pay his passage home. In 1570 he arrived in Lisbon, having been away for seventeen years.

After his return to Lisbon he published The Lusiads (1572), an epic poem about the travels of the explorer Vasco da Gama. He also repented of the carnality of his youth, and wrote many fine poems of faith, including the following sonnets. Both of these were translated by William Baer and are from Luís de Camões: Selected Sonnets (Chicago, 2005).

Refuge

You who seek serenity in the wide
tempestuous sea of the world, cease
and abandon all hope of ever finding peace,
except in Jesus Christ, God Crucified.
If wealth absorbs your thoughts and preoccupies
your nights, God is the greatest treasure of all;
And if you're looking for beauty, always recall
that God alone is the Beauty that satisfies.
If you seek delights to set your heart on fire,
remember that God's the sweetest of all, Who rewards
His followers with victory at last;
If honor and glory are what your most desire,
no greater honor or glory has ever surpassed
humbly serving the highest Lord of Lords.

O Glorious Cross

O glorious cross, O victorious
and holy prize that encompasses everything;
O chosen miraculous sign ordained to bring
your remedy to each and every one of us.
O living font of sacred blood, expel
our sins and cure our sinful souls. In You,
O Lord, we know the almighty God, who
embodies the gentle name of mercy as well.
With you, the time of vengeance ends. A new
compassion flowers forth, forever and ever,
like after winter, when springtime blossoms again.
So vanquish all your enemies, Lord, You
who've made so many changes, yet never
cease to be exactly what You've always been.

Posted with permission of the translator.

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.

Anne Lee Tzu Pheng

Anne Lee Tzu Pheng is a Singapore poet whose collections include The Brink of an Amen, and most-recently Standing in the Corner (2014, Landmark Books). She was awarded the Singapore Cultural Medallion for Literature in 1985, and Chile's Gabriela Mistral Award in 1995. She has recently retired from her position as a senior lecturer in the English Department of the National University of Singapore.

She is one of her nation's most distinguished poets, and along with Edwin Thumboo is a pioneer of Singapore poetry. Her book Short Circuits: Through the Catchments of Faith and Writing is a collection of short vignettes about her experiences with poetry, writing and God. Singapore poet Aaron Lee directed her work to my attention.

All Crooks

we are all crooks
caught in the hand
of the Chief Shepherd
he uses us as hooks
to bring the strays back

Candlesong

As my years burn down
you put me to new use,
place me upon the palm
---held up to you,
---that I may light
---a way for two:
---just so, in time,
---his light may be
---upon another hand
outstretched, like me.

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.

Robert Southwell

Robert Southwell (1561—1595) is an English poet who studied in France and in Rome, and was eventually ordained as a Jesuit priest in 1584. In that year it was proclaimed that such English-born ordained Catholics must not remain in England, on pain of death. Even so, Southwell returned to England as a Jesuit missionary in 1586.

He was arrested in 1592 and eventually imprisoned in the Tower of London. Much of his poetry is believed to have been written while he was in prison. He was hanged for high treason in 1595.

Shortly after his death St Peter's Complaint with Other Poems was anonymously published, and became very popular.

Upon The Image of Death

Before my face the picture hangs
That daily should put me in mind
Of those cold names and bitter pangs
That shortly I am like to find;
But yet, alas, full little I
Do think hereon that I must die.

I often look upon a face
Most ugly, grisly, bare, and thin;
I often view the hollow place
Where eyes and nose had sometimes been;
I see the bones across that lie,
Yet little think that I must die.

I read the label underneath,
That telleth me whereto I must;
I see the sentence eke that saith
Remember, man, that thou art dust!
But yet, alas, but seldom I
Do think indeed that I must die.

Continually at my bed's head
A hearse doth hang, which doth me tell
That I ere morning may be dead,
Though now I feel myself full well ;
But yet, alas, for all this, I
Have little mind that I must die.

The gown which I do use to wear,
The knife wherewith I cut my meat,
And eke that old and ancient chair
Which is my only usual seat,—
All these do tell me I must die,
And yet my life amend not I.

My ancestors are turned to clay,
And many of my mates are gone;
My youngers daily drop away,
And can I think to 'scape alone?
No, no, I know that I must die,
And yet my life amend not I.

Not Solomon for all his wit,
Nor Samson, though he were so strong,
No king nor person ever yet
Could 'scape but death laid him along;
Wherefore I know that I must die,
And yet my life amend not I.

Though all the East did quake to hear
Of Alexander's dreadful name,
And all the West did likewise fear
To hear of Julius Caesar's fame,
Yet both by death in dust now lie;
Who then can 'scape but he must die?

If none can 'scape death's dreadful dart,
If rich and poor his beck obey,
If strong, if wise, if all do smart,
Then I to 'scape shall have no way.
Oh, grant me grace, O God, that I
My life may mend, sith I must die.

This is the first Kingdom Poets post about Richard Southwell: second 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.