by hilzoy
Rise, heart, thy lord is risen. Sing his praise
Without delays,
Who takes thee by the hand, that thou likewise
With him may’st rise:
That, as his death calcinèd thee to dust,
His life may make thee gold, and, much more, just.Awake, my lute, and struggle for thy part
With all thy art,
The cross taught all wood to resound his name
Who bore the same.
His stretchèd sinews taught all strings what key
Is best to celebrate this most high day.Consort, both heart and lute, and twist a song
Pleasant and long;
Or, since all music is but three parts vied
And multiplied
Oh let thy blessèd Spirit bear a part,
And make up our defects with his sweet art.”— George Herbert
Another Herbert fan! Best.poet.ever. Thanks.
Easter Communion
Pure fasted faces draw unto this feast:
God comes all sweetness to your Lenten lips.
You striped in secret with breath-taking whips,
Those crooked rough-scored chequers may be pieced
to crosses meant for Jesus; you whom the East
With draught of thin and pursuant cold so nips
Breathe Easter now; you serged fellowships,
You vigil-keepers with low flames decreased,
God shall o’er-brim the measures you have spent
With oil of gladness; for sackcloth and frieze
And the ever-fretting shirt of punishment
Give myrrhy-threaded golden folds of ease.
Your scarce-sheathed bones are weary of being bent:
Lo, God shall strengthen all the feeble knees.
Gerard Manley Hopkins
From Yeats’ Easter 1916:
Too long a sacrifice
Can make a stone of the heart.
O when may it suffice?
That is Heaven’s part, our part
To murmur name upon name,
As a mother names her child
When sleep at last has come
On limbs that had run wild.
What is it but nightfall?
No, no, not night but death;
Was it needless death after all?
For England may keep faith
For all that is done and said.
We know their dream; enough
To know they dreamed and are dead;
And what if excess of love
Bewildered them till they died?
I write it out in a verse –
MacDonagh and MacBride
And Connolly and Pearse
Now and in time to be,
Wherever green is worn,
Are changed, changed utterly:
A terrible beauty is born.
The play is done, the crowds depart; and see
That twisted tortured thing hung from a tree,
Swart victim of a newer Calvary.
Yea, he who helped Christ up Golgotha’s track,
That Simon who did not deny, was black.
–Countee Cullen, poet of the Harlem Renaissance
Cold Iron, Rudyard Kipling
“Gold is for the mistress—silver for the maid—
Copper for the craftsman cunning at his trade.”
“Good!” said the Baron, sitting in his hall,
“But Iron—Cold Iron—is master of them all.”
So he made rebellion ’gainst the King his liege,
Camped before his citadel and summoned it to siege.
“Nay!” said the cannoneer on the castle wall,
“But Iron—Cold Iron—shall be master of you all!”
Woe for the Baron and his knights so strong,
When the cruel cannon-balls laid ’em all along;
He was taken prisoner, he was cast in thrall,
And Iron—Cold Iron—was master of it all!
Yet his King spake kindly (ah, how kind a Lord!)
“What if I release thee now and give thee back thy sword?”
“Nay!” said the Baron, “mock not at my fall,
For Iron—Cold Iron—is master of men all.”
“Tears are for the craven, prayers are for the clown—
Halters for the silly neck that cannot keep a crown.”
“As my loss is grievous, so my hope is small,
For Iron—Cold Iron—must be master of men all!”
Yet his King made answer (few such Kings there be!)
“Here is Bread and here is Wine—sit and sup with me.
Eat and drink in Mary’s Name, the whiles I do recall
How Iron—Cold Iron—can be master of men all!”
He took the Wine and blessed it. He blessed and brake the Bread,
With His own Hands He served Them, and presently He Said:
“See! These Hands they pierced with nails, outside My city wall,
Show Iron—Cold Iron—to be master of men all:
“Wounds are for the desperate, blows are for the strong.
Balm and oil for weary hearts all cut and bruised with wrong.
I forgive thy treason—I redeem thy fall—
For Iron—Cold Iron—must be master of men all!”
“Crowns are for the valiant—sceptres for the bold!
Thrones and powers for mighty men who dare to take and hold.”
“Nay!” said the Baron, kneeling in his hall,
“But Iron—Cold Iron—is master of men all!
Iron out of Calvary is master of men all!”
I like this poem as an Easter poem partly because on first reading (certainly when I first read it) you don’t know it is an Easter poem: it turns into one, slightly unexpectedly, like finding a chocolate egg in a bird’s nest.
I very nearly posted “Pilate’s Dream” from Jesus Christ Superstar instead… well, I suppose that would have been shorter. 🙂
Easter Ode To Robert Ingersoll
If there is a God
(tho don’t bet the house on it, Mabel)
especially if it’s a manifestation of Jesus
(or versa-visa)
don’t you think it would be savvy
for him
to do a repeat performance on Easter day?
Wouldn’t it make sense out of nonsense
to reappear for the multitudes
(now billionatudes)
and dispel doubt into certainty
by revealing himself again?
Like on TV for instance
on Dancing With The Stars-
(but during a commercial
so as not to offend
the faithful)
Or maybe just broadcast
his own words
simultaneously
in every known language
in every human ear
worldwide
that, Yo
it’s me
and I want you all to be good.
Now wouldn’t that be
a genuine resurrection –
a shared revelation
direct from the inner ear
to the intellect? one that any
GodSaviorProphetIineffableYHWH
with unlimited powers could effectuate
if – that it – he/she/it/them wanted to get
the WORD out?
from the Agnostics Anonymous Prayer Book
the “rise, heart” and four other of herbert’s poems are wonderfully set in ralph vaughn-williams’ “five mystical songs”. i chose one of them for an audition for a national choral competition in my school days. it was hard to sing, largely because i kept getting a lump in my throat during the upper glissandos. it’s the kind of music that can make a grown person cry. if you can find a recording of it, buy it.
A day late, but this (Victorian-era words, set to an older French tune) is what my little one sang with the children’s choir yesterday:
Now the green blade rises from the buried grain,
Wheat that in dark earth many days has lain;
Love lives again, that with the dead has been;
Love is come again like wheat arising green.
In the grave they laid him, love by hatred slain,
Thinking that he would never wake again,
Laid in the earth like grain that sleeps unseen;
Love is come again like wheat arising green.
Forth he came at Easter, like the risen grain,
Thinking that he would never wake again,
Raised from the dead my risen Lord is seen;
Love is come again like wheat arising green.
When our hearts are wintry, grieving, or in pain,
Your touch can call us back to life again,
Fields of our hearts that dead and bare have been;
Love is come again like wheat arising green.
The words are a bit different from what I remember singing at a friend’s wedding in Wales a few years ago, but just as pretty …
From ‘Christ’s Triumph After Death’ by Giles Fletcher (1610)
But now the second Morning, from her bow’r,
Began to glister in her beams, and now
The roses of the day began to flow’r
In th’ eastern garden; for Heav’ns smiling brow
Half insolent for joy begun to show:
The early Sun came lively dancing out,
And the brag lambs ran wantoning about,
That heav’n, and earth might seem in triumph both to shout.
Th’ engladded Spring, forgetfull now to weep,
Began t’ eblazon from her leafy bed,
The waking swallow broke her half-year’s sleep,
And every bush lay deeply purpured
With violets, the wood’s late-wintry head
Wide flaming primroses set all on fire,
And his bald trees put on their green attire,
Among whose infant leaves the joyous birds conspire.
And now the taller Sons (whom Titan warms)
Of unshorn mountains, blown with easy winds,
Dandled the morning’s childhood in their arms,
And, if they chanc’d to slip the prouder pines,
The under Corylets did catch the shines,
To gild their leaves; saw never happy year
Such joyfull triumph, and triumphant cheer,
As though the aged world anew created were.
Hard to beat George Herbert for devotional poetry.
But I do love William Dunbar
Done is a battell on the dragon blak;
Our campioun Chryst coufoundit hes his force:
The 3ettis of hell ar brokin with a crak,
The signe triumphall rasit is of the croce,
The divillis trymmillis with hiddous voce,
The saulis ar borrowit and to the bliss can go,
Chryst with his blud our ransonis dois indoce:
SURREXIT DOMINUS DE SEPULCHRO.
Dungin is the deidly dragon Lucifer,
The crewall serpent with the mortall stang,
The auld keen tegir with his teith on char
Quhilk in a wait hes lyne for us so lang
Thinking to grip us in his clowis strang:
he merciful lord wald nocht that it wer so;
He maid him for to fel3e of that fang:
SURREXIT DOMINUS DE SEPULCHRO.
He for our saik that sufferit to be slane
And lyk a lamb in sacrifice wes dicht
Is like a lyone rissin up agane
And as a gyane raxit him on hicht;
Sprungin is Aurora radius and bricht,
On loft is gone the glorious Appollo,
The blissful day depairtit fro the nycht:
SURREXIT DOMINUS DE SEPULCHRO.
The grit victour agane is rissin on hicht
That for our querrell to the deth was woundit;
The sone that wox all paill now schynis bricht,
And dirknes clerit, our fayth is now refoundit;
The knell of mercy fra the hevin is soundit,
The Cristin ar deliverit of their wo,
The Jowis and thair errour ar confoundit:
SURREXIT DOMINUS DE SEPULCHRO.
The fo is chasit, the battell is done ceis,
The presone brokin, the jevellouris fleit and flemit;
The weir is gon, confermit is the peis,
The fetteris lowsit and the dungeoun temit,
The ransoun maid, the presoneris redemit;
The feild is win, ourcumin is the fo,
Dispulit of the tresur that he 3emit:
SURREXIT DOMINUS DE SEPULCHRO.
Politically incorrect, I suppose.