Robert Bridges*

Robert Bridges (1844―1930) is an English poet. He began his career as a physician with the idea that he would retire at age 40 to dedicate himself full-time to writing. He did retire in 1882, but primarily due to lung disease, following a severe bout of pneumonia. He had been writing all along, privately publishing his first poetry collection in 1873.

Robert Bridges reflected his deep Christian faith in his poetry. Although his best-known poems are the shorter pieces found in some early collections from 1890 and 1894, his greatest critical achievement came with the long poem The Testament of Beauty (1929). Bridges was appointed Poet Laureate in 1913.

Besides writing his own poetry he made valuable contributions through his Yattendon Hymnal (1899) which preserved early hymn tunes through his translations of hymn texts into English ― through critical studies of John Milton and John Keats ― and especially through making sure the poetry of his friend Gerard Manley Hopkins was not forgotten. Bridges published Poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins in 1918 after his friend’s death.

Noel: Christmas Eve 1913

Pax hominibus bonae voluntatis

A frosty Christmas Eve
---when the stars were shining
Fared I forth alone
---where westward falls the hill,
And from many a village
---in the water'd valley
Distant music reach'd me
---peals of bells aringing:
The constellated sounds
---ran sprinkling on earth's floor
As the dark vault above
---with stars was spangled o'er.
Then sped my thoughts to keep
---that first Christmas of all
When the shepherds watching
---by their folds ere the dawn
Heard music in the fields
---and marveling could not tell
Whether it were angels
---or the bright stars singing.

Now blessed be the tow'rs
---that crown England so fair
That stand up strong in prayer
---unto God for our souls
Blessed be their founders
---(said I) an' our country folk
Who are ringing for Christ
---in the belfries to-night
With arms lifted to clutch
---the rattling ropes that race
Into the dark above
---and the mad romping din.

But to me heard afar
---it was starry music
Angels' song, comforting
---as the comfort of Christ
When he spake tenderly
---to his sorrowful flock:
The old words came to me
---by the riches of time
Mellow'd and transfigured
---as I stood on the hill
Heark'ning in the aspect
---of th' eternal silence.

*This is the second Kingdom Poets post about Robert Bridges: 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.

Aurelius Prudentius

Aurelius Prudentius (c.348―c.413) is a Roman Christian poet, born in what is now northern Spain. He had attained influential positions, as the governor of two provinces, and in the imperial court of Milan. Around 392 he refocused his attention to live a life of poverty, and to use his skill as a poet for the glory of God. He published his poetry collections Cathemerino (Daily Rounds), and Peristephanon (Crown of Martyrdom), plus works of apologetics. His Psychomachia (Warfare of the Soul) is the first epic poem written by a Christian.

Six stanzas of Prudentius’ Christmas poem “Corde Natus Ex Parentis.” were translated as “Of the Father’s Love Begotten” by John Mason Neale in 1852, and was later expanded by Henry W. Baker.

The following translation is from Roby Furley Davis and appeared in The English Hymnal (1906). Davis translated nine of Prudentius’ 38 stanzas from the original Latin poem.

Of the Father’s Heart Begotten

Of the Father's heart begotten,
Ere the world from chaos rose,
He is Alpha, from that Fountain
All that is and hath been flows;
He is Omega, of all things,
Yet to come the mystic Close,
Evermore and evermore.

By His Word was all created
He commanded and 'twas done;
Earth and sky and boundless ocean,
Universe of three in one,
All that sees the moon's soft radiance,
All that breathes beneath the sun,
Evermore and evermore.

He assumed this mortal body,
Frail and feeble, doomed to die,
That the race from dust created,
Might not perish utterly,
Which the dreadful Law had sentenced
In the depths of hell to lie,
Evermore and evermore.

O how blest that wondrous birthday,
When the Maid the curse retrieved,
Brought to birth mankind's salvation
By the Holy Ghost conceived,
And the Babe, the world's Redeemer
In her loving arms received,
Evermore and evermore.

Sing, ye heights of heaven, his praises;
Angels and Archangels, sing!
Wheresoe’er ye be, ye faithful,
Let your joyous anthems ring,
Every tongue his name confessing,
Countless voices answering,
Evermore and evermore.

This is He, whom seer and sibyl
Sang in ages long gone by,;
This is He of old revealed
In the page of prophecy;
Lo! He comes the promised Saviour;
Let the world his praises cry!
Evermore and evermore.

Hail! Thou Judge of souls departed;
Hail! of all the living King!
On the Father's right hand throned,
Through his courts thy praises ring,
Till at last for all offences
Righteous judgement thou shalt bring,
Evermore and evermore.

Now let old and young uniting
Chant to thee harmonious lays
Maid and matron hymn Thy glory,
Infant lips their anthem raise,
Boys and girls together singing
With pure heart their song of praise,
Evermore and evermore.

Let the storm and summer sunshine,
Gliding stream and sounding shore,
Sea and forest, frost and zephyr,
Day and night their Lord adore;
Let creation join to laud thee
Through the ages evermore,
Evermore and evermore.

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.

Wendell Berry*

Wendell Berry is a Kentucky poet referred to by America magazine as “the cranky farmer, poet and essayist you just can’t ignore.” He has published more than fifty books of poetry, fiction, essays, and criticism, and has identified himself as an agrarian, a pacifist, and a Christian.

The Poetry Foundation summarizes Berry’s environmental message as: “humans must learn to live in harmony with the natural rhythms of the earth or perish… Berry strongly believes that small-scale farming is essential to healthy local economies, and that strong local economies are essential to the survival of the species and the wellbeing of the planet.”

Berry was first known as a poet before his novels and environmentalism became well known ― his essays particularly bringing him wide recognition. He taught English at New York University and later at University of Kentucky before retiring in 1977 to dedicate more time to his farm.

The following is one of his many Sabbath poems ― poems inspired by his meditative Sunday morning walks.

Remembering That It Happened Once

Remembering that it happened once,
We cannot turn away the thought,
As we go out, cold, to our barns
Toward the long night’s end, that we
Ourselves are living in the world
It happened in when it first happened,
That we ourselves, opening a stall
(A latch thrown open countless times
Before), might find them breathing there,
Foreknown: the Child bedded in straw,
The mother kneeling over Him,
The husband standing in belief
He scarcely can believe, in light
That lights them from no source we see,
An April morning’s light, the air
Around them joyful as a choir.
We stand with one hand on the door,
Looking into another world
That is this world, the pale daylight
Coming just as before, our chores
To do, the cattle all awake,
Our own frozen breath hanging
In front of us; and we are here
As we have never been before,
Sighted as not before, our place
Holy, although we knew it not.

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

Peter Cooley

Peter Cooley is Professor of English Emeritus at Tulane University, in New Orleans, and is former Poet Laureate of Louisiana. He serves as poetry editor for Christianity and Literature.

His eleven poetry books include: The Company of Strangers (1975), Sacred Conversations (1998), Divine Margins (2009), and his most-recent poetry collection The One Certain Thing. (2021, Carnegie Mellon University Press). This book of elegies, written in the wake of the sudden death of his wife of fifty years, has been described as a “three-part conversation between the speaker, his wife, and God.”

The following ekphrastic poem first appeared in The Christian Century. This link provides an image of the Fra Angelico painting that inspired the poem.

Fra Angelico, The Annunciation, 1437–1446

Light from my chosen star will come to me
in morning prayer, but only if I beg,
desperate like the unfortunate I met
yesterday morning, New Orleans 8 a.m.
corner Claiborne and Carrollton.
He lifted both palms up, that’s how I pray
we’re brotherbodies Fate estranged—
I’m sure the stars pray in dazzling choirs
or singly, hands clasped to their chests
like Fra’s angel, kneeling, left knee bent,
facing Mary, supernal light gracing the porticos.
This visit that might have changed the world.

If only I could transcribe the painting’s beautifuls!
But here I am, exhausted as if I’d spent the night
sleeping in the park the way he has to,
ashamed of the comparison but praying this
on one knee beside my bed, asking myself,
asking the morning star and you and You,
why did I drive by, not giving him a dime?
How dare I try to compare myself, twice,
to the angel, to him, both, I’m twice-ashamed.
And, say it, afraid, twice-afraid to write this.

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.

Richard Jones*

Richard Jones is an accomplished poet, who has been the editor of the journal Poetry East ever since he founded it in 1980. He has taught at DePaul University in Chicago since 1987, and is the author of more than a dozen books of poetry, including The Blessing: New & Selected Poems (2000, Copper Canyon).

His latest collection is Stranger on Earth (2018, Copper Canyon). Andrew Jarvis wrote in the New York Journal of Books that most of these prose poems are “…derived from memories, and Jones utilizes his memories of family, history, and culture to craft poems full of clear images and rich detail…” He says the “concept of beauty, and all things beautiful, is explored in the majority of these poems…” and points out that Marcel Proust’s philosophy ― “Life of every day is supremely important” ― is central to the book.

Back in 2007 when a number of artists (including poets B.H. Fairchild and Sydney Lea) were asked by Image to express why they believe in God, Richard Jones responded straight-forwardly,
----------“I believe in God because the poetry of the scriptures
----------revealed him to me. By God’s grace I opened the Bible
----------and discovered his near and palpable presence. Now, when
----------I read, illuminated by the Spirit, I give thanks as I find
----------myself abandoning my own limited understanding to seek
----------his perfect will…”

The Manifestation

The night of the Perseid shower,
thick fog descended
but I would not be denied.
I had put the children to bed,
knelt with them,
and later
in the quiet kitchen
as tall red candles
burned on the table between us,
I’d listened to my wife’s sweet imprecations,
her entreaties to see a physician.
But at the peak hour—
after she had gone to bed,
and neighboring houses
stood solemn and dark—
I felt no human obligation
and went without hope into the yard.
In the white mist
beneath the soaked and dripping trees,
I lifted my eyes
into a blind nothingness of sky
and shivered in a white robe.
I couldn’t see the outline
of the neighbor’s willows,
much less the host of streaking meteorites
no bigger than grains of sand
blazing across the sky.
I questioned the mind, my troubled thinking,
and chided myself to go in,
but looking up,
I thought of the earth
on which I stood,
my own
scanty plot of ground,
and as the lights passed unseen
I imagined glory beyond all measure.
Then I turned to the lights in the windows—
the children’s nightlights,
and my wife’s reading lamp, still burning.

Posted with permission of the poet.

*This is the second Kingdom Poets post about Richard Jones: 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.

Robert B. Shaw

Robert B. Shaw is the author of What Remains to Be Said: New and Selected Poems (2022, Pinyon) which includes verse from his seven earlier collections. He is Professor Emeritus of English at Mount Holyoke College in Massachusetts, and has taught at both Harvard and Yale. The two poetry-related nonfiction books he has written ― The Call of God: The Theme of Vocation in the Poetry of Donne and Herbert (1981), and Blank Verse: A Guide to Its History and Use (2007) ― parallel Shaw’s poetic work.

When interviewed by Ryan Wilson for Literary Matters he said, “I haven’t very often made religious sentiments paramount in my work, but because they have shaped my view of existence, they are there to be found in more than a few poems. I think that in certain pieces my view of nature can broadly be termed sacramental. I may not have intended that in every case when I sat down to write, but it is what emerged.”

The last of the “new” poems in What Remains to Be Said concludes with the following hope concerning his poems:
----------"Let them give homage to the Word
----------"by whom the leaves of life are stirred.
----------"What I write now, let them say then.
----------"And let the last word be Amen.

The following poem first appeared in The Hudson Review, subsequently in The Best American Poetry 1998, in his 1999 collection Below The Surface, this year in the new anthology Christian Poetry in America Since 1940, and in his new volume What Remains to Be Said.

A Geode

What started out a glob of molten mud
hawked up by some Brazilian volcano
back in the Pleistocene is now a rock
of unremarkable appearance, brown
as ordinary mud and baseball-size.
Picking it up produces a surprise:
besides a pleasant heftiness, a sound
of sloshing can be noticed. Vapors caught
within its cooling crust were liquified,
and linger still: a million-year-old vintage.
Although one might recall the once ubiquitous
snowstorm-in-a-glass-globe paperweights,
this offers us no view inside to gauge
the wild weather a shake or two incites.
Turbulence masked by hard opacity . . .
If we could, which would we rather see?—
age-old distillate, infant tears of the earth,
or gem-like crystal of the inner walls
harboring them like some fair reliquary?
To see the one we'd have to spill the other.
Better to keep it homely and intact,
a witness to the worth of hiddenness,
which, in regard to our own kind, we call
reticence, and in terms of higher things,
mystery. Let the elixir drench unseen
the facets that enshrine it, world without end.

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.

Ruth Pitter*

Ruth Pitter (1897—1992) is a British poet who published eighteen collections, and received many honours, including the Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry in 1955. In 1974 she became one of the twelve living writers honoured with the title Companion of Literature by the Royal Society of Literature.

She did not embrace poetic modernism — so popular in her day — and because of this has been largely overlooked in ours. Fellow formalist poet Philip Larkin included four of her poems in The Oxford Book of Twentieth Century English Verse (1973) — and she has been lauded by several poets and critics. Elizabeth Jennings said in the introduction to Ruth Pitter’s Collected Poems (1996, Enitharmon) that her poetry shows “an acute sensibility and deep integrity.”

Since the wrestling between critics for influence continues, only time will tell whether Ruth Pitter will gain new popularity, or slip into obscurity. Kathleen Raine has expressed she believes Pitter’s poetry “will survive as long as the English language, with whose expressiveness in image and idea she has kept faith, remains.”

The following poem is from Pitter’s book A Trophy of Arms (1936) and is the title poem in a new critical edition of her collected poems, edited by Don W. King (2018, Kent State University Press).

Sudden Heaven

All was as it had ever been—
The worn familiar book,
The oak beyond the hawthorn seen,
The misty woodland’s look:

The starling perched upon the tree
With his long tress of straw—
When suddenly heaven blazed on me,
And suddenly I saw:

Saw all as it would ever be,
In bliss too great to tell;
For ever safe, for ever free,
All bright with miracle:

Saw as in heaven the thorn arrayed,
The tree beside the door;
And I must die—but O my shade
Shall dwell there evermore.

*This is the second Kingdom Poets post about Ruth Pitter: 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.