The Pearl Poet

The Pearl Poet is the name used to refer to the author of the 14th century Middle English poem, which survives only in a single manuscript. The same manuscript also includes the romance "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight", and two Christian narrative poems: "Patience" and "Cleanliness". All four poems are believed to be the work of a single author.

In "Pearl" (spelled "Perle" in the original), a father mourns the death of his young daughter, and dreams he encounters her as a grown woman in heaven, although he is still earthbound. She answers his questions with doctrinal teaching, and shows him the heavenly city. The 101 12-line stanzas are very alliterative.

The following is from J.R.R. Tolkien's translation of "Pearl".

from Pearl (88)

Of sun nor moon they had no need,
For God Himself was their sunlight;
The Lamb their lantern was indeed
And through Him blazed that city bright
That unearthly clear did no light impede;
Through wall and hall thus passed my sight.
The Throne on high there might one heed,
With all its rich adornment dight,
As John in chosen words did write.
High God Himself sat on that throne,
Whence forth a river ran with light
Outshining both the sun and moon.

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.

Martha Serpas

Martha Serpas grew up in Galliano, Louisiana, takes seriously the wetland habitat of southern Louisiana, and is active in seeking it's preservation and restoration. She has taught at the University of Tampa (Florida) and is now a Professor of English at the University of Houston (Texas). She has also worked as a trauma hospital chaplain.

She is one of the poets to be included in an upcoming anthology of contemporary Christian poetry, which I am editing for the Poiema Poetry Series (Cascade Books), and which I hope will appear in the Spring of 2016.

Martha Serpas's third poetry collection, The Diener (2015) was published by LSU Press. The following poem is from her 2007 collection, The Dirty Side of the Storm (W.W. Norton).

Fais Do-Do

A green heron pulls the sky behind it
like a zipper. Sharp rows

of clouds fold into themselves, erasing
the framed blue tide.

Barrier islands disappear into
the Gulf’s gray mouth.


Everywhere something strives to overtake something else:
Grass over a mound of fill dirt, ants over grass,

the rough shading of rust between rows
of sheet metal frustrating the sky.

Boats breast up three deep in every slip
and as soon docked are waved away.


The only music’s crickets and lapping,
happy bullfrogs on slick logs.

A rustling skirt of palmettos
around the roots of a modest oak

that appear after hard rain. A fiddle,
or idling motor, moves away.


Go to sleep. God will come
in an extended cab for all of us:

the children, the dogs, the poets.
That old Adversary, the Gulf,

our succoring Mother, having given
everything, will carry the whole of us away.

Posted with permission of the poet.

This is the first Kingdom Poets post about Martha Serpas: 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.

John Dryden

John Dryden (1631—1700) is an English poet — the leading poet and literary critic of Restoration England. He was raised a Puritan, but became a member of the Church of England, and eventually a Roman Catholic. In politics he was a monarchist. He also wrote plays, producing three a year for The King's Company, after the Puritan ban on the theatre was lifted in 1663. He became Poet Laureate in 1668. His major work containing poems of faith is Religio Laici (1882).

His translation of The Aeneid by Virgil is still considered the best in the English language. His use of heroic couplets greatly influenced the poetry of Alexander Pope. John Dryden is buried at Westminster Abbey.

Veni, Creator Spiritus

Creator Spirit, by whose aid
The world’s foundations first were laid,
Come, visit every pious mind;
Come, pour thy joys on human kind;
From sin, and sorrow set us free;
And make thy temples worthy Thee.

O, Source of uncreated Light,
The Father’s promis’d Paraclete!
Thrice Holy Fount, thrice Holy Fire,
Our hearts with heav’nly love inspire;
Come, and thy Sacred Unction bring
To sanctify us, while we sing!

Plenteous of grace, descend from high,
Rich in thy seven-fold energy!
Thou strength of his Almighty Hand,
Whose power does heaven and earth command:
Proceeding Spirit, our Defence,
Who do’st the gift of tongues dispence,
And crown’st thy gift with eloquence!

Refine and purge our earthly parts;
But, oh, inflame and fire our hearts!
Our frailties help, our vice control;
Submit the senses to the soul;
And when rebellious they are grown,
Then, lay thy hand, and hold ’em down.

Chase from our minds the Infernal Foe;
And peace, the fruit of love, bestow;
And, lest our feet should step astray,
Protect, and guide us in the way.

Make us Eternal Truths receive,
And practise, all that we believe:
Give us thy self, that we may see
The Father and the Son, by thee.

Immortal honour, endless fame,
Attend the Almighty Father’s name:
The Saviour Son be glorified,
Who for lost Man’s redemption died:
And equal adoration be,
Eternal Paraclete, to thee.

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.

Calvin Miller

Calvin Miller (1936—2012) is the author of more than 40 books including the popular The Singer Trilogy. The first book, The Singer, appeared in 1975 and sold more than a million copies. It is an allegory, behind a gossamer-thin veil, in the tradition of John Bunyan's The Pilgrim's Progress. Through the way Miller weaved his poetic spell, The Singer opened a generation of evangelicals to more artistic modes of expression.

Calvin Miller served as a Baptist pastor in Nebraska for thirty years, and later became a professor at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, and most-recently at Beeson Divinity School.

from The Singer

When he awoke, the song was there.

Its melody beckoned and begged him to sing it.

It hung upon the wind and settled in the meadows where he walked.

He knew its lovely words and could have sung it all, but feared to sing a song whose harmony was far too perfect for human ear to understand.

And still at midnight it stirred him to awareness, and with its haunting melody it drew him with a curious mystery to stand before an open window.

In rhapsody it played among the stars.

It rippled through Andromeda and deepened Vega’s hues.

It swirled in heavy strains from galaxy to galaxy and gave him back his very fingerprint.

“Sing the Song!” the heavens seemed to cry. “We never could have been without the melody that you alone can sing.”

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.

Thomas Lynch

Thomas Lynch is a Michigan poet, fiction writer, essayist and undertaker. Yes, you read that correctly. In 1974 he took over his father's position as funeral director in Milford, Michigan, and has served that community ever since. His 1997 essay collection, The Undertaking: Life Studies from the Dismal Trade, received the Heartland Prize, the American Book Award, and was a finalist for the National Book Award. He has contributed to such publications as The New Yorker, The Paris Review and The London Times. He and his work have been the subject of two documentaries — one produced by PBS and the other by the BBC.

He is the author of five poetry collections; his most recent is The Sin Eater: A Breviary — published by Paraclete Press, and in an Irish edition by Salmon Press. He spends a portion of each year at the ancestral cottage in West Clare, Ireland, that was the home of his great, great grandfather.

The following poem is from his collection, Still Life in Milford (Norton).

Heavenward

Such power in the naming of things—
To walk out in the greensward pronouncing
Goldfinch, lilac, oriental poppy—
as if the shaping of the thing in sound
produced a pleasure like the sight of things
as if the housefinch winters in the mock-orange is
as tasty an intelligence to the lips and ears as
the sight of a small purple bird in December is
perched in a thicket of bald branches.
June you remember: the white blossoms, yellow
jackets, the fresh scent of heaven.
And other incarnations to be named:
nuthatch, magnolia, coreopsis, rose.
Surely this was God’s first gift of godliness—
that new index finger working over the globe
assigning from the noisy void those fresh,
orderly syllables. Ocean, garden,
helpmate, tree of knowledge.
Making came easy, creation
a breeze. But oh, that dizzy pleasure when
God said Eve and the woman looked heavenward.

Posted with permission of the poet.

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.

Thomas Kingo

Thomas Kingo (1634—1703) is a Danish poet, hymnist and bishop. Considered the greatest Danish poet of his day, Kingo wrote both romantic and political verse, but is best remembered for his poems of faith.

He wrote a songbook (1674) using common tunes for home devotional use, which included a different tune for each day of the week, featuring a morning song, an evening song, and a versification of one of David's penitential psalms. Also included were songs such as "Fare, World, Farewell" sung by a soul longing for heaven:
-------Loveliest roses are stiffest of thorn,
----------fairest of flowers with blight may corrode,
-------withering heart under rose-cheek is worn,
----------for yet is Fortune so strangely bestowed
-------------Here our land rides
-------------on peril-tides,
-------Blissfulness only in heaven abides.
(Stanza 5; translated by David Colbert)

In 1699 the hymnal he was commissioned to compile appeared. Of the 297 hymns in The Ordained New Church Hymnal, 86 were by Kingo himself. Some of his most moving poems include his elegies on death. His poems often personify such concepts as death, sorrow and joy.

The following morning hymn was translated by the Rev. P. C. Paulsen.

The Sun Arises Now in Light and Glory

The sun arises now
In light and glory
And gilds the rugged brow
Of mountains hoary.
Rejoice, my soul, and lift
Thy voice in singing
To God from earth below,
Thy song with joy aglow
And praises ringing.

As countless as the sand
And beyond measure,
As wide as sea and land
So is the treasure
Of grace which God each day
Anew bestoweth
And which, like pouring rain,
Into my soul again
Each morning floweth.

Preserve my soul today
From sin and blindness;
Surround me on my way
With loving kindness.
Embue my heart, O Lord,
With joy from heaven;
I then shall ask no more
Than what Thou hast of yore
In wisdom given.

Thou knowest best my needs,
My sighs Thou heedest,
Thy hand Thy children leads,
Thine own Thou feedest.
What should I more desire,
With Thee deciding
The course that I must take,
Then follow in the wake
Where Thou art guiding.

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.

Sandra Duguid

Sandra Duguid grew up in western New York State. For twenty years she taught literature, composition and creative writing at colleges in the New York/New Jersey metropolitan area, and at East Stroudsburg University in Pennsylvania. She lives in New Jersey.

Her first poetry collection, Pails Scrubbed Silver, was published by North Star Press in 2013. In 2014 she contributed a poem to my blog The 55 Project.

John Leax has said of her poetry, "She asks her reader, 'Can you imagine?' and then with sure insight and shining words, she makes imagination possible."

This following poem is from Pails Scrubbed Silver, and first appeared in America. It was also awarded a prize in a contest from Calvin College.

Road to Emmaus

There have been crucifixions, too,
in our town—innocents
gunned down in their doorways
or in school halls; or radiation's
black outlines, three crosses
marked a sister's chest: no wonder
we walk in quiet rage, musing.

And who, on this road, will join us,
seeming unaware
of the worst news in the neighborhood,
but spelling out the history of the prophets
and a future:
---Ought not Christ to have suffered these things
---and to enter into his glory?
Could our hearts still burn within us?

Will we ask the stranger to stay?
Break bread? And how
will our well-hammered and nailed
kitchens and bedrooms appear to us
when we understand who he is
just as he steals away?

Posted with permission of the poet.

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.