Poem of the week

To celebrate the arrival of our Savior.

Luke 1:68-79
(Zechariah's prophecy over his newborn son, John the Baptist)

Blessed be the Lord God of Israel,
for he has visited and redeemed his people
and has raised up a horn of salvation for us
in the house of his servant David,
as he spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets from of old,
that we should be saved from our enemies
and from the hand of all who hate us;
to show the mercy promised to our fathers
and to remember his holy covenant,
the oath he swore to our father Abraham, to grant us
that we, being delivered from the hand of our enemies,
might serve him without fear,
in holiness and righteousness before him all our days.
And you, child, will be called the prophet of the Most High,
for you will go before the Lord to prepare his ways,
to give knowledge of salvation to his people
in the forgiveness of their sins,
because of the tender mercy of our God,
whereby the sunrise shall visit us from on high
to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death,
to guide our feet into the way of peace.

Word of the day

I found it very appropriate:

mogigraphia: writer's cramp.

(Incidentally, the word of the day came from my coworker Lucy, who's becoming a good friend and who had me over to hang out with her grown kids and their friends on Sunday night. One party activity, which I sadly missed, was to build gingerbread houses and then blow them up with firecrackers. My kind of people.)

Poem of the week

Another poem for Advent, by T.S. Eliot. Late last night, while I paged through an old edition of The Oxford Book of Christian Verse, this poem nearly spoke aloud. (A little background on Simeon can be found in Luke 2:22-35.)


A Song for Simeon
T.S. Eliot

Lord, the Roman hyacinths are blooming in bowls and
The winter sun creeps by the snow hills;
The stubborn reason has made stand.
My life is light, waiting for the death wind,
Like a feather on the back of my hand.
Dust in sunlight and memory in corners
Wait for the wind that chills towards the dead land.

Grant us thy peace.
I have walked many years in this city,
Kept faith and fast, provided for the poor,
Have given and taken honour and ease.
There went never any rejected from my door.
Who shall remember my house, where shall live my children's children
When the time of sorrow is come?
They will take to the goat's path, and the fox's home,
Fleeing from the foreign faces and the foreign swords.

Before the time of cords and scourges and lamentation
Grant us thy peace.
Before the stations of the mountain of desolation,
Before the certain hour of maternal sorrow,
Now at this birth season of decease,
Let the Infant, the still unspeaking and unspoken Word,
Grant Israel's consolation
To one who has eighty years and no to-morrow.

According to thy word.
They shall praise Thee and suffer in every generation
With glory and derision,
Light upon light, mounting the saints' stair.
Not for me the martyrdom, the ecstasy of thought and prayer,
Not for me the ultimate vision.
Grant me thy peace
(And a sword shall pierce thy heart,
Thine also).
I am tired with my own life and the lives of those after me,
I am dying in my own death and the deaths of those after me.
Let thy servant depart,
Having seen thy salvation.

From The Oxford Book of Christian Verse (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1940), 528-529.

Are you my cousin?

Christmas continues, with the generally joyful hurry of shopping, working, decorating, and Christmas parties. On Monday night I had a pleasant break: dinner with my sister and a long-lost cousin. It was, admittedly, potentially awkward: what you do talk about with someone you last saw when you were seven? But any apprehension I had was dispelled as soon as I met her: a warm and friendly girl with a ready smile and a bumper sticker on her car that read "Courtesy is contagious." How could you not enjoy taking such a girl to La Madeleine's? My sister, my long-lost cousin, and I lingered over crepes and cream puffs, tried to figure out how exactly we are related (third cousins once removed? first cousins thrice removed?) told scandalous stories about our ancestors, and discovered that all three of us are interested in literature, college theater, England, and old graveyards. Maybe it's genetic. And her theater stories almost top the burning letter from An Ideal Husband.

Poem of the week

Still for Advent.

These are the second and third sonnets from John Donne's La Corona. If you have a chance, read the whole thing. It's only seven sonnets in all, and each one has to with the life of Christ. (I've updated the spelling somewhat, as the version I have is very old fashioned.)


Holy Sonnets: La Corona
John Donne


2
Annunciation

Salvation to all that will is nigh;
That All, which always is All everywhere,
Which cannot sin, and yet all sins must bear,
Which cannot die, yet cannot choose but die,
Lo, faithful Virgin, yields himself to lie
In prison, in thy womb; and though there
Can take no sin, nor thou give, yet he'll wear
Taken from thence, flesh, which death's force may try.
Ere by the spheres time was created, thou
Wast in his mind, who is thy Son, and Brother;
Whom thou conceiv'st, conceiv'd; yet thou art now
Thy Maker's maker, and thy Father's mother;
Thou hast light in dark, and shutst in little room,
Immensity cloistered in thy dear womb.


3
Nativity

Immensity cloistered in thy dear womb,
Now leaves his well-belov'd imprisonment,
There he hath made himself to his intent
Weak enough, now into our world to come;
But Oh, for thee, for him, hath th' Inn no room?
Yet lay him in this stall, and from the Orient,
Stars, and wise men will travel to prevent
Th' effect of Herod's jealous general doom.
Seest thou, my Soul, with thy faith's eyes, how he
Which fills all place, yet none holds him, doth lie?
Was not his pity towards thee wondrous high,
That would have need to be pitied by thee?
Kiss him, and with him into Egypt go,
With his kind mother, who partakes thy woe.


From John Donne, Dean of St. Paul's, Complete Poetry and Selected Prose (Bloomsbury: Nonesuch Press, 1929), 276-277.

Poem of the week

For Advent.

This poem is translated from Old English and is probably about 1300 years old. It's part of a set of "Advent lyrics," originally written to mirror the liturgy used in medieval churches during Advent. English peasants and townspeople of the 7th and 8th centuries didn't have the Bible in their own language, but they did have these.

A technical note, for those who are interested in such things: As near as I can tell, the translator of these lines tried to echo the alliterative, rhythmic sound of the original. Each line pauses slightly in the middle, marked here by an extra space. The effect is chant-like, and (I think) very cool.


from the Advent Lyrics

O holy Jerusalem,   Vision of peace,
Fairest of royal seats,   City of Christ,
Homeland of angels,   in thee for ever
Rest the souls   of the righteous alone
In glory exulting.   No sign of sin
In that city-dwelling   shall ever be seen,
But from thee all evil   shall flee afar,
All trouble and toil.   Thou art wondrously filled
With holy hope,   as thy name is named.

Lift up thine eyes   on the wide creation,
The dome of heaven,   on every hand;
Behold His coming;   the King of glory
Himself approaches   to seek thee out,
To abide in thee,   as the blessed prophets
In their books foretold   the birth of the Christ,
To thy comfort spoke,   thou fairest of cities!
Now is the Babe come   born to transform
The works of the Hebrews.   He brings thee bliss,
Looses thy bondage,   draws nigh unto men,
For He only knows   their harrowing need,
How man in his wretchedness   waits upon mercy.


From Charles W. Kennedy, Early English Christian Poetry: Translated into Alliterative Verse (New York: Oxford University Press, 1952), pp. 86-87.