I love this poem by the Welsh poet Henry Vaughan (1621-95), for its marvelous depiction of the mystical life. His phrase “dazzling darkness” owes to John of the Cross, the 16th-century Spanish mystic whose Dark Night of the Soul sets out an apophatic spirituality, and Vaughan, too, urges the night, both literal and metaphorical, as the place to find God (or, rather, to be found in God).
Sunday Morning Poem: “Pied Beauty”
January 1, 2017 by
2016 was, well, a mixed bag, and 2017 promises to be no different. Perhaps this poem by Gerard Manley Hopkins can serve as an inaugural prayer that we might discern God’s grace in whatever comes.
Sunday Poem: “Graces from My Life”
October 9, 2016 by
Mornings late abed, melancholy rain,
feathered-hope graffiti, love’s youthful churn,
Boston flanerie, torque of longing’s strain,
son in darkness, autumn, a sermon’s turn;
lungs’ gulp, bereaved embrace, vanilla pine,
brokenness reknit, hands-uplifted prayer,
midnight thoughts, intimations of design,
a chancel choir, friends’ laughs, the weight of care;
fire-purpled evening, remade love, a verse,
motets’ weave and rise, raveled-open soul,
released Anfechtung, church-tears, mem’ry’s nurse,
morning quiet, mountains, the hoped-for whole;
pilgrim’s aching, first Herbert poem’s heart’s-ease,
stubborn bones, a kindly thought, sacred peace.
Sunday Morning Poem: Richard Crashaw, “On the Wounds of Our Crucified Lord”
January 25, 2015 by
Bringing a little baroque sensibility to our series, I present this poem by Richard Crashaw (1613-1649):
O these wakeful wounds of thine!
Are they mouths? or are they eyes?
Be they mouths, or be they eyne,
Each bleeding part some one supplies.
Lo! a mouth, whose full-bloomed lips
At too dear a rate are roses.
Lo! a bloodshot eye! that weeps
And many a cruel tear discloses.
O thou that on this foot hast laid
Many a kiss and many a tear,
Now thou shalt have all repaid,
Whatsoe’er thy charges were.
This foot hath got a mouth and lips
To pay the sweet sum of thy kisses;
To pay thy tears, an eye that weeps
Instead of tears such gems as this is.
The difference only this appears
(Nor can the change offend),
The debt is paid in ruby-tears
Which thou in pearls didst lend.
Sunday Morning Poem: “Eucharist”
January 18, 2015 by
A broken boy
broke the bread
and then
with breaking voice
broke the prayer.
His broken prayer
found broken me,
Jesus there
much more than
when he got it right.
Sunday Morning Poem: “Credo”
October 26, 2014 by
I’ve been at work on this one for a while, and I’ll probably keep tinkering, but here it is anyway. [Read more…]
Sunday Morning Poem: “The Flower,” by George Herbert
October 19, 2014 by
This poem, along with “The Agonie,” played a central part in my conversion to Herbert some ten years ago. I can still feel the pleasure of spiritual surprise I experienced upon first encountering the line “Thy word is all, if we could spell.”
Sunday Morning Poem: “There is a gold light in certain old paintings,” by Donald Justice
August 10, 2014 by
This late work appears as the final poem in Donald Justice’s Collected Poems (Knopf, 2006). It has been a favorite ever since I learned of it a few years ago. The third stanza strikes me as an especially clear expression of religious hope as tempered by thoroughgoing realism about the difficulty of life, represented by the almost Beckettian song at the end of the second stanza.
1 There is a gold light in certain old paintings That represents a diffusion of sunlight. It is like happiness, when we are happy. It comes from everywhere and from nowhere at once, this light, And the poor soldiers sprawled at the foot of the cross Share in its charity equally with the cross.
2 Orpheus hesitated beside the black river. With so much to look forward to he looked back. We think he sang then, but the song is lost. At least he had seen once more the beloved back. I say the song went this way: O prolong the suffering if that is all there is to prolong.
3 The world is very dusty, uncle. Let us work. One day the sickness shall pass from the earth for good. The orchard will bloom; someone will play the guitar. Our work will be seen as strong and clean and good. And all that we suffered through having existed Shall be forgotten as though it had never existed.
Note: regular BCC commenter melodynew contributes to a Poetry Sunday series over at The Exponent. Read her entry for today here. The more poetry, the better!
Sunday Morning Poem: Milton, “Adam and Eve’s Morning Hymn”
June 1, 2014 by
This excerpt from Book V of Paradise Lost frequently appeared under the title “Adam and Eve’s Morning Hymn” or “Milton’s Morning Hymn” in 18th-century anthologies. It was such a familiar set piece that Edmund Burke’s only son, Richard, came into the room where his parents were sitting and recited it just before he died.
These are thy glorious works, Parent of good,
Almightie, thine this universal Frame,
Thus wondrous fair; thy self how wondrous then!
Unspeakable, who sitst above these Heavens
To us invisible or dimly seen
In these thy lowest works, yet these declare
Thy goodness beyond thought, and Power Divine:
Speak yee who best can tell, ye Sons of light,
Angels, for yee behold him, and with songs
And choral symphonies, Day without Night,
Circle his Throne rejoycing, yee in Heav’n
On Earth joyn all ye Creatures to extoll
Him first, him last, him midst, and without end. [Read more…]
Sunday Morning Poem: “The Agonie,” by George Herbert
May 25, 2014 by
This series could not continue long without featuring George Herbert…
The Agonie
Philosophers have measur’d mountains,
Fathom’d the depths of seas, of states, and kings,
Walk’d with a staffe to heav’n, and traced fountains:
But there are two vast, spacious things,
The which to measure it doth more behove:
Yet few there are that sound them; Sinne and Love.Who would know Sinne, let him repair
Unto mount Olivet; there shall he see
A man so wrung with pains, that all his hair,
His skinne, his garments bloudie be.
Sinne is that presse and vice, which forceth pain
To hunt his cruell food through ev’ry vein.Who knows not Love, let him assay
And taste that juice, which on the crosse a pike
Did set again abroach; then let him say
If ever he did taste the like.
Love is that liquour sweet and most divine,
Which my God feels as bloud; but I, as wine.
Sunday Morning Poem: “Fault”
May 18, 2014 by
I find that poetry occupies a place very near the heart of my worship. Nobody in my High Priest’s Group is at all surprised anymore when I bring a poem into the discussion, and I’ve even been known to read them over the pulpit in testimony meeting. In that spirit, I’d like to inaugurate an occasional series in which I post a poem on Sunday morning, leaving the verse to speak for itself. (Discussion in the comments is, of course, both welcome and encouraged.) I’ll start things off by sharing an effort of my own, now six years old.
Fault—an interesting word:
culpability as chasm—
the building pressures
of an inner tectonics
resulting in rupture,
the riven self reveals
the illusion of identity.The first tremors throw
off the balance,
and the aftershocks
reiterate the wound,
the trembling gap between
the self I framed
and the charted graphs
of my seismic soul.
By Common Consent, a Mormon Blog 
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