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.

Marly Youmans

Marly Youmans has written sixteen books of poetry and fiction ― which is a good way to put it, since some of her books straddle the divide between genres.

Her most recent book is Seren of the Wildwood (2023, Wiseblood) ― an epic poem written within the strict limitations Marly Youmans has placed upon herself. Its 61 chapters each consist of 21 lines of blank verse (iambic pentameter):
----------Never speak of your passions by the wildwood—
----------The needfulness that might have saved their lives…
followed by five lines of rhyming verse:
----------And trees
----------May shelter eyes and ears
----------That do not care to please—
----------The shade where something hears,
----------The dark where something sees.
It tells the story of a girl, born after the death of her brothers, seemingly because her father had said,
----------“I wish I had a daughter, not you boys
----------Who shut your ears and are no help to me!”
Be careful what you wish for, indeed!

Earlier poetry collections include Claire: poems (2003, LSU Press), and The Book of the Red King (2019, Phoenicia Publishing). She lives in New York State.

The following poem appeared in [A New] Decameron.

The Hand

I found a hand, half-buried in a field—
Like light, it held all colors in itself,
A sparkling white, perhaps alabaster
Or moonlight pooled and then solidified.
I bought the field. I dug around the hand,
Hired men to drag it from the hiding place.
They marveled at the size; I crossed their palms
With silver, bribing them to tell no one.
I scrubbed the dirt, the lichen flourishes
And stains until the hand was luminous
By day or night. It shone below the moon
As if it were the glove to catch that ball.
In summer, I lay naked in its curl,
The coolness of the skin against my skin.
In fall, leaves settled in the fingers’ bowl.
In snow, the hand was lost beneath the stars.
One night I dreamed the fingers held three keys.
The first was silvery, a key of rain.
The second, bronze, unlocking a great chest
Where all the souls of those to be were stored.
The third was golden, notched and nicked with signs,
But what it meant, or why the angels flew
Backwards and forwards, hunting the bright key,
I didn’t know. I reached to them in sleep.
Stories say that God could make a mountain
With just one hand. To make a man took two.
All I know is story. I called and woke,
And dew was on my face like chilly tears.

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.

Elizabeth Melville

Elizabeth Melville (c.1578―c.1640), also known as Lady Culross, is a Scottish poet. The first edition of her Ane Godlie Dreame appeared in 1603, making her the first known woman in Scotland to have her poetry published. Her father, Sir James Melville of Halhill, served in the courts of Mary Queen of Scots, and King James VI (who became England’s James I in 1603).

She described her 60-stanza, 480-line poem as an account of a dream she had had when in deep spiritual anguish. It has been suggested that John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress was influenced by Ane Godlie Dreame.

Elizabeth Melville was active among those resisting English attempts to bring the Presbyterian Kirk under the authority and influence of the Church of England. She wrote the following sonnet for the Calvinist preacher John Welsh, when ― for holding a General Assembly at Aberdeen in July, 1605 ― he was imprisoned in Blackness Castle.

A Sonnet Sent to Blackness
To Mr. John Welsh by the Lady Culross

My Dear Brother with courage bear the cross.
---Joy shall be joined with all your sorrow here;
High is your Hope. Disdain this worldly dross:
---Anew shall you for this wished day appear.

Though it is dark, the sky cannot be clear.
---After the cloud, it shall be calm anon.
Wait on his will who with Blood hath bought you dear
---Extol his name though outward joys be gone.

Look to the Lord: you are not left alone.
---Since he is yours, oft pleasure can you take.
He is at hand and hears your every groan
---End out your fight and suffer for his sake.

---A sight most bright your soul shall shortly see
---When show of glore your rich reward shall be.

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.

William Shakespeare*

William Shakespeare (1564―1616) is considered by many to be the greatest writer this world has ever known. All hype aside, he is easily one of the most influential.

His personal religious views can only be determined by things voiced by the characters in his plays, by what the persona of his sonnets expressed, and by his religious practice. According to the latter he would be seen as an Anglican Christian, although regular attendance at Church of England services was compulsory.

He would have heard the Bishop’s Bible regularly read in church, but based on the language of his plays he was also familiar with the Geneva Bible, a personal Bible not used in the church, but owned by individuals for devotional study. Shakespeare clearly spent much time reading this translation.

Being an Englishman of his age, he would certainly have seen himself as Christian. The following sonnet could only have been written by someone who did.

Sonnet 146

Poor soul, the centre of my sinful earth,
[......] these rebel powers that thee array,
Why dost thou pine within and suffer dearth,
Painting thy outward walls so costly gay?
Why so large cost, having so short a lease,
Dost thou upon thy fading mansion spend?
Shall worms, inheritors of this excess,
Eat up thy charge? Is this thy body's end?
Then soul, live thou upon thy servant's loss
And let that pine to aggravate thy store;
Buy terms divine in selling hours of dross;
Within be fed, without be rich no more.
So shalt thou feed on Death, that feeds on men,
And, Death once dead, there's no more dying then.

*This is the second Kingdom Poets post about William Shakespeare: 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.

William Everson*

William Everson (1912—1994) is a northern California poet, known as part of the beat movement of San Francisco in the 1950s. His early books such as These Are The Ravens (1935) established him as a nature poet. He embraced Catholicism in 1948, and he entered the Dominican Order as Brother Antoninus in 1951.

His rise to fame came during this time of discovered faith — as his second wife returned to church, and encouraged him to join her. Ironically, because they had both previously been married their union was not recognized by the Catholic church, and so they separated and, years later, divorced.

In 1957 Kennoth Rexroth’s “San Francisco Letter” in the Evergreen Review declared the significance of this new movement of poets — including William Everson — which established him in the popular press as “The Beat Friar,” and led to readings across the US and as far away as Europe.

He left the Dominican Order in 1969 for a secular life to allow himself to pursue a romantic relationship with the woman who would become his third wife; he did, however, maintain his poetic vocation and his Christian faith.

Out of the Ash

Solstice of the dark, the absolute
Zero of the year. Praise God
Who comes for us again, our lives
Pulled to their fisted knot,
Cinched tight with cold, drawn
To the heart’s constriction; our faces
Seamed like clinkers in the grate,
Hands like tongs—Praise God
That Christ, phoenix immortal,
Springs up again from solstice ash,
Drives his equatorial ray
Into our cloud, emblazons
Our stiff brow, fries
Our chill tears. Come Christ,
Most gentle and throat-pulsing Bird!
O come, sweet Child! Be gladness
In our church! Waken with anthems
Our bare rafters! O phoenix
Forever! Virgin-wombed
And burning in the dark,
Be born! Be born!

*This is the second Kingdom Poets post about William Everson: 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.

Gwenallt

Gwenallt (1899―1968) is a Welsh poet, born as David James Jones, who adopted Gwenallt as his bardic name which he created “by transposing Alltwen, the name of the village across the river from his birthplace”. At age 16 he joined the Marxist Labour Party, and during the latter part of WWI was imprisoned as a conscientious objector. After the war he studied Welsh, and by 1927 was appointed Lecturer in the Welsh Department of University College Wales, Aberystwyth.

He outgrew the political idealism of his youth, but also faced disillusionment with other structures. He was passed over, time and again, for a professorship by college authorities, and he was unsettled in his search for a spiritual home ― reacting strongly to what was said or done by church leadership. He was raised as a Nonconformist, flirted with Catholicism, became a member of the Church of Wales for many years, but ended his days as a member of a Methodist Chapel at Aberystwyth.

Gwenallt wrote his poetry in Welsh, and the first of his five poetry collections, Ysgubau’r Awen (1939), was published to much critical acclaim; in time he became a major voice in Welsh poetry. He also eventually wrote two novels, although his poetry remains more influential. He is noteworthy for his passionate, spiritual voice, his precise local imagery, and the universal significance of his themes.

Here are two English versions of one of Gwenallt’s poems ― which I include for comparison, and to demonstrate how the translating of poetry is akin to writing the poem afresh, hopefully as close to the spirit of the original as possible. The first version was translated by Patrick Thomas ― from Sensuous Glory: The Poetic Vision of D. Gwenallt Jones (2000, Canterbury Press); and the second is translated by Rowan Williams, from his book Headwaters (2008, Perpetua Press). Patrick Thomas and Rowan Williams have both granted me permission to include their translations.

Sin

When we strip off every kind of dress,
The cloak of respectability and wise knowledge,
The cloth of culture and the silks of learning;
The soul's so bare, so uncleanly naked:
The primitive mud is in our poor matter,
The beast's slime is in our marrow and our blood,
The bow's arrow is between our finger and thumb
And the savage dance is in our feet.
As we wander through the original, free forest,
We find between the branches a piece of Heaven,
Where the saints sing anthems of grace and faith,
The Magnificat of His salvation;
We raise our nostrils up like wolves
Baying for the Blood that redeemed us.

Sin

Take off the business suit, the old-school tie,
The gown, the cap, drop the reviews, awards,
Certificates, stand naked in your sty,
A little carnivore, clothed in dried turds.
The snot that slowly fills our passages
Seeps up from hollows where the dead beasts lie;
Dumb stamping dances spell our messages,
We only know what makes our arrows fly.
Lost in the wood, we sometimes glimpse the sky
Between the branches, and the words drop down
We cannot hear, the alien voices high
And hard, singing salvation, grace, life, dawn.
Like wolves, we lift our snouts: Blood, blood, we cry,
The blood that bought us so we need not die.

This post was suggested by my friend Burl Horniachek.

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.

Thomas á Kempis

Thomas á Kempis (1380–1471) is the author of the well-known devotional book The Imitation of Christ, which was anonymously published in Latin in the Netherlands in 1418. He was born in Kempen, near Dusseldorf, Germany. He received Holy Orders in 1413 and was made sub-prior of the Monastery of Mount St. Agnes in the Dutch city of Zwolle in 1429.

Thomas’s responsibilities included copying manuscripts ― he is said to have copied the entire Bible at least four times ― and in teaching novices. He wrote four booklets for this purpose, which were eventually compiled as The Imitation of Christ.

Christian History says of The Imitation of Christ, “Sir Thomas More…said it was one of the three books everybody ought to own. Ignatius of Loyola, founder of the Jesuits, read a chapter a day from it and regularly gave away copies as gifts. Methodist founder John Wesley said it was the best summary of the Christian life he had ever read.” Many consider it the most influential Christian book, next to the Bible itself.

Oh, Love

O love, how deep, how broad, how high,
beyond all thought and fantasy,
that God, the Son of God, should take
our mortal form for mortals' sake!

He sent no angel to our race,
of higher or of lower place,
but wore the robe of human frame,
and to this world himself he came.

For us baptized, for us he bore
his holy fast and hungered sore;
for us temptation sharp he knew,
for us the tempter overthrew.

For us he prayed, for us he taught;
for us his daily works he wrought,
by words and signs and actions thus
still seeking not himself but us.

For us, by wicked men betrayed,
for us, in crown of thorns arrayed,
he bore the shameful cross and death;
for us he gave his dying breath.

For us he rose from death again,
for us he went on high to reign;
for us he sent his Spirit here
to guide, to strengthen, and to cheer.

All glory to our Lord and God
for love so deep, so high, so broad,
the Trinity whom we adore
forever and forevermore.

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.