Category Archives: Poetry

sinful me, clay like dough
puffed up and beaten down
rolled and flattened and kneaded
like Him, to rise again

Once, when I gashed my finger, Grandmother
Led me to the closet down the hall.
There towels and bedsheets lay in fragrant folds
And an old, outgrown doll with bright-blink eyes
That scared me stiff with its hilarity
Drooled sawdust from its mouth onto a shelf.

Grandma pulled me close to her until
I understood the comfort of her touch.
She poked her free hand in the crevices
And spooled a spiderweb around her nails.
She wound the web again around my wound.
She daubed it tenderly until the clots of silk
Touched my blood and then my bleeding stopped
Almost at once.

                              There, among the smell of sheets,
In the cold, fresh, dark place that had scared me so,
Grandmother gave me her most secret smile.
Since that day,
Learning to love the doublness of things,
I think the spider silk is in my blood.

Eric Ormsby. Time’s Covenant—Selected Poems (Biblioasis, 2007). This poem originally appeared in For A Modest God, 1997.

Professor Ormsby is Chief Librarian at the Institute of Ismaili Studies in London in addition to being among the foremost English poets and a fine literary critic (see his Facsimiles of Time—Essays on Poetry and Translation (Erin, Canada: The Porcupine’s Quill, 2001). Dipping into Time’s Covenant is always richly rewarding. It’s one of the ways I escape, being carried along by a master of the language. Consider it highly recommended.

Come, my Way, my Truth, my Life:
Such a Way, as gives us breath:
Such a Truth, as ends all strife:
And such a Life, as killeth death.

Come, my Light, my Feast, my Strength:
Such a Light, as shows a feast:
Such a Feast, as mends in length:
Such a Strength, as makes his guest.

Come, my Joy, my Love, my Heart:
Such a Joy, as none can move:
Such a Love, as none can part:
Such a Heart, as joys in love.

George Herbert. 1633.

Now this is interesting. While Herbert tends in his poems (as does Christina Rossetti) towards a kind of genteel dualism (a phrase I coined in order to describe this non-revolutionary, non-confrontational, but quite unconventional Christianmystical dualism which is also very English and very middle class), here we see a very interesting arrangement in these three stanzas. Note the pattern, which seems at a glance to be rigidly followed throughout, but other than the use of three capitalized nouns per stanza and ABAB rhyming at line-ends, this is not the casse. Appearances deceive (let that be a genteel mystic’s lesson for you). In stanza 1 (Way-Truth-Life), the pairs are all nouns, subject-object: Way-breath, Truth-strife, Life-death. In stanza 2 (Light, Feast, Strength), all nouns: Light-feast, Feast-length, Strength-guest. Stanza 3 (Joy, Love, Heart) mixes it up by pairing the three main (capitalized!) nouns with two verbs (move, part) and one noun (love): Joy-move, Love-part, Heart-love. Also notice that in the second and third stanzas we find some repeats of the main words. In stanza 2 (Light, Feast, Strength), we have Light-feast. In stanza 3 (Joy-Love-Heart), however, the last line of the stanza (and of the poem as a whole) reuses all three of the main nouns, with the homograph ‘joy’ as a verb: ‘Such a Heart, as joys in love.’ So, the pattern is there, but is not so rigid as we are led to believe at a glance. Another striking, and intentional, usage in this poem relates to the capitalization. Note that the main three nouns of each are all capitalized, while other nouns are not, which is striking in the case of the nouns, as they were generally still typically capitalized into the later 17th and early 18th century. So this uppercase-lowercase usage is intentional, and, in fact, is rather an ‘Upstairs Downstairs’ thing: the capitalized nouns all refer to the the heavenly ‘He,’ while the lowercase words are terrestrially situated with the ‘I’ and ‘We’ characters. Also, don’t miss the trinitarianism: three capitalized nouns per stanza, and three stanzas. Also, the four of lines per stanza generally (in these sorts of Christian poems) reflect the four Gospels, while the total of twelve lines is probably rather the Twelve Apostles rather than the Twelve Tribes of Israel. So, those are some interesting bits about its organization and pattern, but the capitalizations are also interesting in that they draw on biblical texts.

The stanza 1 The trio Way-Truth-Life appears in John 14.6: ‘Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.’ (We’ll just pass over the absence of the second half of the verse in this poem, problematic as it is.) The rest of the capitalized nouns in the poem similarly represent Christ. In stanza 2, Light and Strength are paired in Psalm 27.1: ‘The LORD is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? the LORD is the strength of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?’ Feast is probably a reference to the communion meal. In stanza 3, Love and Heart are found in Matthew 23.37 parr alluding to Deuteronomy 6.5: ‘Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.’ The connection with Joy is uncertain. One suggestion is Matthew 25.21, 23, end: ‘…enter thou into the joy of thy lord.” Lastly, the “Come, my…” in the first line of each stanza perhaps reflects the final words of Rev 22.20, lending a bit of apocalypticism to the poem: ‘Even so, come, Lord Jesus.’

With those in mind, we have a better idea of what is going on in each line of the poem.

Stanza 1, line 2: a Way would normally tire people out, taking their breath away, not giving it. So here already we’re already seeing the strange, counterintuitive result of the mixing of the uppercase Divine and the lowercase human(s). Line 3 may be an oblique allusion to Hebrews 6.16: ‘For men verily swear by the greater: and an oath for confirmation is to them an end of all strife.’ Line 3 goes further, ending all strife. And the last verse of the stanza is both the most counterintuitive and most dualistic in the poem: dualistic because of the subject-object pairing of Life and death, counterintuitive because of the sentence: ‘And such a Life, as killeth death.’ This, of course, is a twofold reference to Christ, who can be said to have defeated (though not killed) death through his resurrection, and is to actually kill death in the future, as depicted in Revelation 20.14: ‘And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death.’ In paraphrase: ‘Come, Christ, you who overturn reality, stronger than all, stronger even than death.’

Stanza 2 is a little trickier. The Light showing a feast is also a communion reference. ‘Such a Feast as mends in length’ means ‘Such a feast that gets better as it goes’. So the first two verses really work together: the Light illumines the way to the communion/feast, which keeps getting better and better. The last line of the stanza relates to the Feast, as well: ‘Such a Strength as makes his guest.’ That is, the Strength invites to the Feast. So, in paraphrase: ‘Come, Christ, who lights the way to the ever-better communion feast, inviting whom you will.’ And this Feast, I think, with consideration of the Revelation allusions, is probably meant to represent an eternal Feast.

Stanza 3 is the culmination of the increasing closeness depicted in the poem stanza by stanza. Stanza 3 is a full-blown love poem: Christ the Joy that cannot be removed, the Love that no one can separate away, and Heart that rejoices in love (whose is unsaid; does it matter?). In the end, the world-overturner is your Lover forever.

It’s rather astonishing that all of this is packed into a mere twelve lines!

Love bade me welcome : yet my soul drew back,
Guilty of dust and sin.
But quick-ey’d Love, observing me grow slack
From my first entrance in,
Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning,
If I lack’d any thing.

A guest, I answer’d, worthy to be here :
Love said, you shall be he.
I the unkind, ungrateful? Ah my dear,
I cannot look on thee.
Love took my hand, and smiling did reply,
Who made the eyes but I?

Truth Lord, but I have marr’d them : let my shame
Go where it doth deserve.
And know you not, says Love, who bore the blame?
My dear, then I will serve.
You must sit down, says Love, and taste my meat :
So I did sit and eat.

George Herbert, Love (3), 1633

Here again, Herbert has the Feast of Love for the outwardly unwilling guest. The metaphor isn’t as opaque in this one, with Love (Christ) being called Lord at the start of the third stanza. It’s another setting of Christ as Love inviting the shameful sinner to the communion Feast, where the sinner actually wants to be, and where he ends up as the guest, not a servant.

I know the ways of learning; both the head
And pipes that feed the press, and make it run;
What reason hath from nature borrowed,
Or of it self, like a good housewife, spun
In laws and policy; what the stars conspire,
What willing nature speaks, what forc’d by fire;
Both th’ old discoveries, and the new-found seas,
The stock and surplus, cause and history:
All these stand open, or I have the keys:
        Yet I love thee.

I know the ways of honour, what maintains
The quick returns of courtesy and wit:
In vies of favours whether party gains,
When glory swells the heart, and mouldeth it
To all expressions both of hand and eye,
Which on the world a true-love-knot may tie,
And bear the bundle, wheresoe’re it goes:
How many drams of spirit there must be
To sell my life unto my friends or foes:
        Yet I love thee.

I know the ways of pleasure, the sweet strains,
The lullings and the relishes of it;
The propositions of hot blood and brains;
What mirth and music mean; what love and wit
Have done these twenty hundred years, and more:
I know the projects of unbridled store:
My stuff is flesh, not brass; my senses live,
And grumble oft, that they have more in me
Than he that curbs them, being but one to five:
        Yet I love thee.

I know all these, and have them in my hand:
Therefore not seeled, but with open eyes
I fly to thee, and fully understand
Both the main sale, and the commodities;
And at what rate and price I have thy love;
With all the circumstances that may move:
Yet through the labyrinths, not my grovelling wit,
But thy silk twist let down from heav’n to me,
Did both conduct and teach me, how by it
        To climb to thee.

George Herbert. The Pearl. Matt. 13. 1633

Having been tenant long to a rich Lord,
      Not thriving, I resolved to be bold,
      And make a suit unto him, to afford
A new small-rented lease, and cancel th’ old.
In heaven at his manor I him sought:
      They told me there, that he was lately gone
      About some land, which he had dearly bought
Long since on earth, to take possession.
I straight return’d, and knowing his great birth,
      Sought him accordingly in great resorts;
      In cities, theatres, gardens, parks, and courts:
At length I heard a ragged noise and mirth
      Of thieves and murderers: there I him espied
      Who straight, Your suit is granted, said, and died.

George Herbert, 1633

From forth the kennel of thy womb hath crept
A hellhound that doth hunt us all to death:
That dog, that had his teeth before his eyes,
To worry lambs and lap their gentle blood,
That foul defacer of God’s handiwork,
That excellent grand tyrant of the earth
That reigns in gallèd eyes of weeping souls,
Thy womb let loose to chase us to our graves.
O upright, just, and true-disposing God,
How do I thank thee that this charnel cur
Preys on the issue of his mother’s body
And makes her pew fellow with others’ moan.

Wm Shakespeare, Richard III, Act IV, Scene 4, lines 47-58.

The speaker is Queen Margaret to Richard’s mother, the Duchess of York. It is a breathtaking insult, is it not?

I wonder if the sap is stirring yet,
If wintry birds are dreaming of a mate,
If frozen snowdrops feel as yet the sun
And crocus fires are kindling one by one:
     Sing, robin, sing;
I still am sore in doubt concerning Spring.

I wonder if the Springtide of this year
Will bring another Spring both lost and dear;
If heart and spirit will find out their Spring,
Or if the world alone will bud and sing:
     Sing, hope, to me;
Sweet notes, my hope, soft notes for memory.

The sap will surely quicken soon or late,
The tardiest bird will twitter to a mate;
The Spring must dawn again with warmth and bloom,
Or in this world, or in the world to come:
     Sing, voice of Spring,
Till I too blossom and rejoice and sing.

Christina Georgina Rossetti, 1 March 1855

O child of the sixties
    thou art not “all that”!
To dance with the pixies
    thou doffest thy hat.
Thy tie is let fly,
    thy shoes are let loose.
Thinkest thou art a hippy
    in thy Brooks Brothers suit?

Forty years onward
    thou seest not the change,
thy gray ponytail
    now surrounded by mange.
Thou thinkest thy dance
    of ideas is so bold.
Yet ‘struth, they and thou
    are now simply just old.

Me, today, from about 11:30-11:54