Quiz

Which Church Father are you?

You’re St. Justin Martyr! You have a positive and hopeful attitude toward the world. You think that nature, history, and even the pagan philosophers were often guided by God in preparation for the Advent of the Christ. You find “seeds of the Word” in unexpected places. You’re patient and willing to explain the faith to unbelievers. Find out which Church Father you are at The Way of the Fathers!

I think that's about right. I always try and look for truth wherever I can find it -- like in poetry, for example.

But it's one of the great sorrows of my life that I don't know many "unbelievers." Although I guess it's better that those rare, wonderful souls who don't know the word but are ripe for hearing it are entrusted to people who know a little bit more than I do.

My Last Duchess

by Robert Browning

That's my last Duchess painted on the wall,
Looking as if she were alive. I call
That piece a wonder, now: Frà Pandolf's hands
Worked busily a day, and there she stands.
Will't please you sit and look at her? I said
"Frà Pandolf" by design, for never read
Strangers like you that pictured countenance,
The depth and passion of its earnest glance,
But to myselfthey turned (since none puts by
The curtain I have drawn for you, but I)
And seemed as they would ask me, if they durst,
How such a glance came there; so, not the first
Are you to turn and ask thus. Sir, 'twas not
Her husband's presence only, called that spot
Of joy into the Duchess' cheek: perhaps
Frà Pandolf chanced to say "Her mantle laps
Over my Lady's wrist too much," or "Paint
Must never hope to reproduce the faint
Half-flush that dies along her throat": such stuff
Was courtesy, she thought, and cause enough
For calling up that spot of joy. She had
A heart — how shall I say? — too soon made glad,
Too easily impressed; she liked whate'er
She looked on, and her looks went everywhere.
Sir, 'twas all one! My favour at her breast,
The dropping of the daylight in the West,
The bough of cherries some officious fool
Broke in the orchard for her, the white mule
She rode with round the terrace — all and each
Would draw from her alike the approving speech,
Or blush, at least. She thanked men, — good! but thanked
Somehow — I know not how — as if she ranked
My gift of a nine-hundred-years-old name
With anybody's gift. Who'd stoop to blame
This sort of trifling? Even had you skill
In speech — (which I have not) — to make your will
Quite clear to such an one, and say, "Just this
Or that in you disgusts me; here you miss,
Or there exceed the mark" — and if she let
Herself be lessoned so, nor plainly set
Her wits to yours, forsooth, and made excuse,--
E'en then would be some stooping, and I choose
Never to stoop. Oh sir, she smiled, no doubt,
Whene'er I passed her; but who passed without
Much the same smile? This grew; I gave commands;
Then all smiles stopped together. There she stands
As if alive. Will't please you rise? We'll meet
The company below, then. I repeat,
The Count your master's known munificence
Is ample warrant that no just pretence
Of mine for dowry will be disallowed;
Though his fair daughter's self, as I avowed
At starting, is my object. Nay, we'll go
Together down, sir. Notice Neptune, though,
Taming a sea-horse, thought a rarity,
Which Claus of Innsbruck cast in bronze for me!

* * *

We read this dramatic monologue in poetics class the other day. The speaker is the Duke of Ferrara, a famous Renaissance noble suspected of poisoning his first wife, who was quite young.

The more deeply you examine the poem, the more the Duke condemns himself out of his own mouth. That's the appeal of a dramatic monologue, but in this one especially -- it makes me want to yell, "You jerk! She was too good for you!" before I remind myself that it's only a poem.

I think "if they durst" is the first sign of the Duke's character. He's a rather fearsome individual, and rather particular about who looks at his pictures. A few lines down we find he was terribly jealous about that first wife of his. He begrudges anyone else even a smile or blush from her. And what is his real problem with her? She's too happy, too easily pleased. He could have had an impossible-to-please wife, but as it is, the very pleasantness and sweetness of her temper is his grudge against her. The fact that she is happy is not enough for him -- she must be made happy by him, and only him.

Not only that, but he considers himself so far superior to her that it would be a stooping even to tell her what it was he minded about her. Even if she consented instantly to his reproof and changed her ways, it still isn't good enough -- he feels he shouldn't have to ask. She ought to just know what he wants and do it.

"And then all smiles stopped together." Was her spirit crushed at his displeasure with her? Or did he do away with her? We don't know, but again it's repeated that she looks as if she were alive. One might imagine he likes her better this way: no one can open the curtain in front of her portrait but him -- she smiles just the same, but now only for him.

The very next thing we realize who he's talking to -- an envoy come to arrange for his second marriage! Perhaps he's really put his foot in his mouth, talking as he has, but he's clearly too proud to realize he's given himself away as a scoundrel. He really doesn't think he's done anything wrong. The next marriage is clearly because of money, we can all see, even though he claims it's the daughter's "fair self."

At the last three lines there's what seems a random comment, but it's a reflection on the rest of the poem. He sees his wife the way he sees the statue: first, as something to be tamed, and second, as a collection piece. Love is clearly beyond his comprehension.

I wish I could say there were no men in real life like this! But it's far more common than it should be for a man to try to mold the woman in his life into his own image, using her to serve his pride instead of loving her for herself. True love has to be much different -- and that's what Browning is saying. Without ever saying a word from his own point of view, he leads us to draw a very clear moral from someone else's life.

Kubla Khan

by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree:
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea.
So twice five miles of fertile ground
With walls and towers were girdled round:
And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills
Where blossom'd many an incense-bearing tree;
And here were forests ancient as the hills,
Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.

But O, that deep romantic chasm which slanted
Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover!
A savage place! as holy and enchanted
As e'er beneath a waning moon was haunted
By woman wailing for her demon-lover!
And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething,
As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing,
A mighty fountain momently was forced;
Amid whose swift half-intermitted burst
Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail,
Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher's flail:
And 'mid these dancing rocks at once and ever
It flung up momently the sacred river.
Five miles meandering with a mazy motion
Through wood and dale the sacred river ran,
Then reach'd the caverns measureless to man,
And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean:
And 'mid this tumult Kubla heard from far
Ancestral voices prophesying war!

The shadow of the dome of pleasure
Floated midway on the waves;
Where was heard the mingled measure
From the fountain and the caves.
It was a miracle of rare device,
A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice!

A damsel with a dulcimer
In a vision once I saw:
It was an Abyssinian maid,
And on her dulcimer she play'd,
Singing of Mount Abora.
Could I revive within me,
Her symphony and song,
To such a deep delight 'twould win me,
That with music loud and long,
I would build that dome in air,
That sunny dome! those caves of ice!
And all who heard should see them there,
And all should cry, Beware! Beware!
His flashing eyes, his floating hair!
Weave a circle round him thrice,
And close your eyes with holy dread,
For he on honey-dew hath fed,
And drunk the milk of Paradise.

* * *

I've got a paper due soon in Poetics class, a poem analysis of one of the poems we were assigned in class. I was thinking I could do this poem. The trouble is, I don't know what to say about it. Of course, everyone knows that it was composed on an opium trip. That doesn't seem to me to be the point, though. I don't know what it is I like so much about it -- maybe the imagery, maybe the meter, and maybe it's just the all-pervasive sense of mystery. We finish the poem still unsure what it's about -- and yet, the way Coleridge has led me to wonder and speculate what it is about leaves me with prickles when I put the poem down. I want to know how he gives me that feeling, and I guess that's why I want to write about this poem.

I hope I haven't bitten off more than I can chew.

The Ragged Wood

by William Butler Yeats

O hurry where by water among the trees
The delicate-stepping stag and his lady sigh,
When they have but looked upon their images -
Would none had ever loved but you and I!

Or have you heard that sliding silver-shoed
Pale silver-proud queen-woman of the sky,
When the sun looked out of his golden hood? -
O that none ever loved but you and I!

O hurry to the ragged wood, for there
I will drive all those lovers out and cry -
O my share of the world, O yellow hair!
No one has ever loved but you and I.

* * *

I don't have time to say much about this poem. At first I thought it was rather selfish to wish that none had ever loved but the two of them. But the last stanza, when it says that no one has ever loved but them, shows something else. This is a poem for the times when the lovers can withdraw from the world and be only with each other. She is his "share of the world" -- the rest of the world is not necessary during these special times.

Lent

by George Herbert

Welcome dear feast of Lent: who loves not thee,
He loves not Temperance, or Authority,
But is composed of passion.
The Scriptures bid us fast; the Church says, now:
Give to your Mother, what you would allow
To every Corporation.

* * *

It 's true, we cannot reach Christ's fortieth day;
Yet to go part of that religious way,
Is better than to rest:
We cannot reach our Savior's purity;
Yet are bid, Be holy ev'n as he.
In both let 's do our best.

Who goes in the way which Christ has gone,
Is much more sure to meet with him, than one
Who travels the by-ways:
Perhaps my God, though he be far before,
May turn, and take me by the hand, and more
May strengthen my decays.

Yet Lord instruct us to improve our fast
By starving sin and taking such repast
As may our faults control:
That ev'ry man may revel at his door,
Not in his parlor; banqueting the poor,
And among those his soul.

* * *

I am not a good faster at all. I would rather do almost any sacrifice than fast. Yet this poem helps me remember that fasting is about banqueting my poor soul. I'm afraid my body tends to get way more attention, just because my stomach growls while my soul sits quietly waiting for me to feed it. Somehow going without food makes me feel more in control of "brother Ass," my body, and more inclined to prayer.

I wish you all a happy and holy Lent, the boot camp of all the year. May we come out of it leaner, stronger, and closer to God.

Lucy

by William Wordsworth

A slumber did my spirit seal;
I had no human fears:
She seem'd a thing that could not feel
The touch of earthly years.

No motion has she now, no force;
She neither hears nor sees;
Roll'd round in earth's diurnal course,
With rocks, and stones, and trees.

* * *

For St. Valentine's Day. Here at Christendom it's been a tad disappointing, so I guess that's why I did a sad poem.

It just reminds me of the way we take people for granted until they're gone. We always imagine the other person will always be there when we want them, but before we know it, they're gone, and we wonder if we were there for them as much as we should have been. I'm not sure that's exactly what Wordsworth meant, but it's certainly a truth: if we knew the hour of our friends' departing, we might have held them more dearly to our hearts.

No Second Troy

by William Butler Yeats

Why should I blame her that she filled my days
With misery, or that she would of late
Have taught to ignorant men most violent ways,
Or hurled the little streets upon the great,
Had they but courage equal to desire?
What could have made her peaceful with a mind
That nobleness made simple as a fire,
With beauty like a tightened bow, a kind
That is not natural in an age like this,
Being high and solitary and most stern?
Why, what could she have done, being what she is?
Was there another Troy for her to burn?

* * *

Taking the Poetry and Poetics course at Christendom (a lovely course; I don't know why people complain about having to take it) is getting me to read a lot more good poetry -- and also to understand what's so great about it.

This poem is almost a sonnet, but not quite: it's only 12 lines, three quatrains each rhyming abab. But Yeats keeps out of the curse that haunts any modern who tries to write in a form -- the curse of sounding stilted and archaic. He doesn't mix up any natural sentence orders, and his use of enjambment contributes to the natural tone of the poem. But the tone isn't casual, either -- it's a noble uplifting of contemporary speech, which is what poetry, in my opinion, does at its best. Phrases like "beauty like a tightened bow," "high and solitary and most stern," give an almost epic sound to the poem. It makes me want to see this woman, who even in "an age like this" possesses an ancient beauty like Helen of Troy.

I started out not liking Yeats at all, but this poem, among a few others I've read in the past year or two, is doing its best to convert me. I will at least admit that Yeats sometimes produced masterpieces.

From St. Agnes' Eve

by John Keats

St. Agnes' Eve—Ah, bitter chill it was!
The owl, for all his feathers, was a-cold;
The hare limp’d trembling through the frozen grass,
And silent was the flock in woolly fold:
Numb were the Beadsman’s fingers, while he told
His rosary, and while his frosted breath,
Like pious incense from a censer old,
Seem’d taking flight for heaven, without a death,
Past the sweet Virgin’s picture, while his prayer he saith.

His prayer he saith, this patient, holy man;
Then takes his lamp, and riseth from his knees,
And back returneth, meagre, barefoot, wan,
Along the chapel aisle by slow degrees:
The sculptur’d dead, on each side, seem to freeze,
Emprison’d in black, purgatorial rails:
Knights, ladies, praying in dumb orat’ries,
He passeth by; and his weak spirit fails
To think how they may ache in icy hoods and mails.

Northward he turneth through a little door,
And scarce three steps, ere Music’s golden tongue
Flatter’d to tears this aged man and poor;
But no—already had his deathbell rung;
The joys of all his life were said and sung:
His was harsh penance on St. Agnes’ Eve:
Another way he went, and soon among
Rough ashes sat he for his soul’s reprieve,
And all night kept awake, for sinners’ sake to grieve.

* * *

It is so cold here today. The highs were supposed to be in the single digits. I don't know if it really got that high or not; my internal thermometer breaks down at these temperatures. All I know is that it wasn't this cold back home . . .

But take a look at the first stanza of this poem especially. The first six lines each have at least one word implying cold. Doesn't it make you feel cold just to read it? Keats is a master of descriptive language.

As well as of other things. This stanza form, borrowed from Spencer, is perfect for narrative poetry, laying down each stanza softly with an extra-long line. Between the imagery and the prosodic mastery, Keats hardly needs to have a meaning to his poems -- but of course he has one all the same.

Reuben Bright

by Edwin Arlington Robinson

Because he was a butcher and thereby
Did earn an honest living (and did right),
I would not have you think that Reuben Bright
Was any more a brute than you or I;
For when they told him that his wife must die,
He stared at them, and shook with grief and fright,
And cried like a great baby all the night
And made the women cry to see him cry.

And after she was dead, and he had paid
The singers and the sexton and the rest,
He packed a lot of things that she had made
Most mournfully away in an old chest
Of hers, and put some chopped-up cedar boughs
In with them, and tore down the slaughter-house.

* * *

Sorry it's been so long since my last post -- it's hard to get back into the rhythm of things at school after so long away.

We read this poem in American literature class. I like it, because it deals with a kind of snobbery very common these days: the sort of snobbery where educated people think that they have more feelings than blue-collar types. A butcher seems a brutish person to us intellectual highbrows, the poet suggests. But what's the truth? He's as sensitive to loss as the rest of us, despite his gory job and the practical things (paying the funeral workers) that he has to think of. He is an honest man making an honest living, and has as tender a heart, if not more, than any well-educated poetry enthusiast.

Gifts

by Juliana Horatia Ewing

You ask me what since we must part
You shall bring back to me.
Bring back a pure and faithful heart
As true as mine to thee.

You talk of gems from foreign lands,
Of treasure, spoil, and prize.
Ah love! I shall not search your hands
But look into your eyes.

* * *

I found this poem in a new anthology. The poet lived in the nineteenth century. I like its simplicity: simple form -- nothing unusual; simple message. It reflects that material things aren't that important; love is everything. If one has that, he wants for nothing else; and if he lacks that, nothing else will be any comfort.