Before the Door of God: An Anthology of Devotional Poetry

Description

A diverse and imaginative selection of works from the long tradition of devotional poetry in English Before the Door of God traces the development of devotional English-language poetry from its origins in ancient hymnody to its current twenty-first-century incarnations. The poems in this volume demonstrate not only that devotional poetry—poetry that speaks to the divine—remains in vigorous practice, but also that the tradition reaches back to the very origins of poetry in English. There is a sense in these pages that the tradition of lyric poetry that developed was nearly inevitable, given the inherent concerns of the genre. Featuring the work of poets over a three-thousand-year period, Before the Door of God places the devotional lyric in its cultural, historical, and aesthetic contexts. The volume traces the various influences on this tradition and identifies features that persist in devotional lyric poetry across centuries, cultures, and stylistic differences. To scholars, literary professionals, and general readers who find delight in fine poetry, this anthology offers much to contemplate and discuss.  Cover Contents Editors’ Preface “A Heauenly Poesie”: The Devotional Lyric A Note on the Texts PART ONE: THE ANCIENT ORIGINS OF THE DEVOTIONAL LYRIC The Book of Psalms (C. Seventh Century B.C.E.) Psalm 6 Psalm 8 Psalm 23 Psalm 42 Psalm 98 Sappho (C. 625–C. 570 B.C.E.) Fragment 1 The Book of Jeremiah (Early Sixth Century B.C.E.) Chapter 10.19–24 The Book of Job (C. Sixth–Fourth Centuries B.C.E.) Chapter 10 Anacreon (C. 582–485 B.C.E.) [To Dionysos] [“O Lord, with whom the conqueror Eros”] The Book of Jonah (C. Fifth–Fourth Centuries B.C.E.) Chapter 2: Jonah’s Prayer Homeric Hymn to Ares (C. Third Century B.C.E.) To Ares The Song of Songs (C. Third Century B.C.E.?) Chapter 2 Chapter 4 Lucretius (C. 99–C. 55 B.C.E.) from De rerum natura Lines I-25 Horace (65–8 B.C.E.) Ode 1.31 Ode 3.22 The Gospel According to Luke (C. 60–80 C.E.) Luke 1.46–55 (The Magnificat) PART TWO: EARLY CHRISTIAN LYRICS THROUGH THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY Clement of Alexandria (C. 150–C. 215) Ode to the Saviour Christ Gregory of Nazianzus (C. 329–C. 390) An Evening Hymn Ambrose of Milan (340–397) [“Maker of all, eternal King,”] Prudentius (348–c. 413) Epilogue Cædmon (fl. c. 657) Cædmon’s Hymn Alcuin (C. 735–804) On the Holy Cross Rabanus Maurus (C. 776–856) Come, O Creator Spirit, Come Gottschalk (803?–867?) [“Why do you ask, little boy,”] Bernard of Clairvaux (1090–1153) The Loving Soul’s Jubilation Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274) Lost, All in Wonder Medieval Lyrics (Thirteenth–Sixteenth Centuries) [“Now goes sun under wood”] [“The mind of thy passion, sweet Jesus,”] [“When I see on the cross hung”] [“Winter wakens all my care,”] [“I sigh when I sing”] [“Steadfast cross, among all other”] [“Lord, thou called me”] [“All other love is like the moon”] [“Gold and all this world’s win”] [“Jesu Christ, my beloved sweet,”] [“I Sing of a maiden that is matchless,”] [“Jesus’s wounds so wide”] [“God, that made all things of naught”] [“Jesu, my love, my joy, my rest,”] [“God be in my heed”] PART THREE: PSALM TRANSLATIONS OF THE ENGLISH RENAISSANCE: THE BIBLE AS ART Thomas Sternhold (1500–1549) and John Hopkins (d. 1570) Psalm 3—Domine quid multiplicati. Psalm 70—Deus in adiutorium. Sir Thomas Wyatt the Elder (1503–1542) Psalm 38—Domine ne in furore tuo. Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey (1517–1547) Psalm 55 Anne Askew (Ayscough) (1521–1546) The voice of Anne Askewe out of the 54. Psalme of David, called Deus in nomine tuo. Anne Lok (C. 1530–After 1590) A Meditation of a Penitent Sinner: Written in Maner of a Paraphrase upon the 51 Psalme of Dauid. George Gascoigne (C. 1535–1577) The introduction to the Psalme of De profundis. Gascoignes De profundis. Sir Philip Sidney (1554–1586) and Mary Sidney Herbert (1561–1621) Psalm 13—Usquequo, Domine? Psalm 43—Judica me, Deus Psalm 111—Confitebor tibi Psalm 117—Laudate Dominum Psalm 139—Domine, probasti Psalm 142—Voce mea ad Dominum George Herbert (1593–1633) The 23 Psalme John Milton (1608–1674) Psalm 88 Richard Crashaw (1613–1649) Psalme 23 The Bay Psalm Book (1640) Psalm 141 PART FOUR: THE FLOURISHING OF THE DEVOTIONAL LYRIC IN THE POST-REFORMATION ERA John Skelton (C. 1460–1529) A Prayer to the Father of Heauen William Baldwin (1515–1563?) Christ my Beloved Elizabeth I (1533–1603) A songe made by her Majestie and songe before her at her cominge from white hall to Powles through Fleete streete in Anno domini 1588. Songe in December after the scatteringe of the Spanishe Navy. Richard Stanihurst (1545–1618) A Prayer to the Trinitie Edmund Spenser (1552–1599) from Amoretti Fulke Greville, Lord Brooke (1554–1628) from Calica Sir Philip Sidney (1554–1586) from Certaine Sonets Robert Southwell (1561–1595) Christs bloody sweate A childe my Choyce The Burning Babe William Alabaster (1567–1640) A Divine Sonnet Upon the Ensigns of Christ’s Crucifying: The Sponge The Epiphany A Sonnet on the Resurrection Thomas Campion (1567–1620) 1 [“Avthor of light, revive my dying spright,”] 9 [“Most sweet and pleasing are thy wayes O God,”] Aemilia Lanyer (1569–1645) from Salve Deus Rex Judaeorum Lines 265-328 John Donne (1572–1631) Goodfriday, 1613. Riding Westward. A Hymne to God the Father Hymne to God my God, in my sicknesse. from Holy Sonnets (1635 numbering) Ben Jonson (1572–1637) To Heaven A Hymne to God the Father Sir John Beaumont (1583–1627) In Desolation William Drummond of Hawthornden (1585–1649) from Flowres of Sion Robert Herrick (1591–1674) To His Saviour. The New yeers Gift. His Prayer for Absolution. To God. [“Lord, I am like to Misletoe,”] To God. [“Do with me, God! As Thou didst deal with Iohn,”] His Ejaculation to God. To God. [“I’le come, I’le creep, (though Thou dost threat)”] His Wish to God. Francis Quarles (1592–1644) from Divine Fancies from Emblemes, Book Five George Herbert (1593–1633) The Altar The Reprisall Good Friday The Quidditie Deniall Iesu Love-joy The Pulley A true Hymne Love (III) Christopher Harvey (1597–1663) Confusion The Sabbath. Or Lords day. Invitation. Richard Flecknoe (c. 1600–c. 1678) On the Death of Our Lord Thomas Washbourne (1606–1687) Upon Divine Love John Milton (1608–1674) Sonnet 7—On His Being Arrived at the Age of 23. Sonnet 18—On the late Massacher in Piemont Sonnet 19—On His Blindness Upon the Circumcision from Paradise Lost Book 3, lines I-55 William Cartwright (1611–1643) Confession Anne Bradstreet (1612–1672) Upon a Fit of Sickness, Anno. 1632. Richard Crashaw (1613–1649) The Authors Motto On the still surviving Marks of our Saviour’s Wounds. To our Lord, upon the Water made Wine. Our Lord in His Circumcision to His Father. On the wounds of our crucified Lord. On our crucified Lord, naked and bloody. A Song of divine Love. Andrew Marvell (1621–1678) The Coronet Henry Vaughan (1622–1695) Distraction The Pursuite Unprofitableness The Night The Book Mary Carey (C. 1609–C. 1681) Written by me at the death of my 4th son, and 5th Child, Peregrine Payler Lancelot Addison (1632–1703) The Penitential Declaration A Sigh of Penitential Love; after any Fall Good-Friday Katherine Philips (1632–1664) A Prayer An Collins (fl. 1653) Another Song. Eldred Revett (fl. 1657) Prayer Julia Palmer (C. 1637–C. 1718) from Centuries 2.35—The soull under the distempers of its body releives itself, by eyeing its future glory, and freedome. Thomas Traherne (C. 1637–1674) The Rapture. The Person. Love. Desire. The Return. Edward Taylor (1642–1729) from Preparatory Meditations Huswifery PART FIVE: THE POETIC SUBLIME: THE EIGHTEENTH AND NINETEENTH CENTURIES Hymns of the Long Eighteenth Century Joseph Addison (1672–1719) Elizabeth Singer Rowe (1674–1737) Isaac Watts (1674–1748) Charles Wesley (1707–1788) Jupiter Hammon (1711–C. 1806) John Henry Newton (1725–1807) William Cowper (1731–1800) Phillis Wheatley (1753–1784) Henry Francis Lyte (1793–1847) Sarah Flower Adams (1805–1848) Alexander Pope (1688–1744) The Universal Prayer Christopher Smart (1722–1771) from Jubilate Agno William Blake (1757–1827) The Divine Image from Milton: A Poem Preface from The Gates of Paradise To The Accuser who is The God of This World Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834) My Baptismal Birthday Ralph Waldo Emerson (1802–1892) Grace The Rhodora Gerald Griffin (1803–1840) To the Blessed Virgin Mary Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806–1861) A Child’s Thought of God Bereavement The Soul’s Expression Comfort Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882) My Cathedral Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809–1892) from In Memoriam A.H.H. Charles Harpur (1813–1868) How Full of God Walt Whitman (1819–1892) A Noiseless Patient Spider Emily Dickinson (1830–1886) 49 [“I never lost as much but twice,”] 193 [“I shall know why—when Time is over—”] 249 [“Wild Nights—Wild Nights!”] 437 [“Prayer is the little implement”] 487 [“You love the Lord—you cannot see—”] 564 [“My period had come for Prayer—”] 754 [“My Life had stood—a Loaded Gun—”] 881 [“I’ve none to tell me to but Thee”] 1461 [“‘Heavenly Father’—take to thee”] 1594 [“Immured in Heaven!”] 1751 [“There comes an hour when begging stops,”] Christina Rossetti (1830–1894) A Better Resurrection [Lord, dost Thou look on me] Thomas Hardy (1840–1928) 'AΓΝΩΣΤΩι ΘΕΩι The Bedridden Peasant to an Unknowing God Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844–1889) God’s Grandeur As Kingfishers Catch Fire Spring The Windhover Pied Beauty Hurrahing in Harvest The Lantern Out of Doors Thou Art Indeed Just, Lord To what serves Mortal Beauty? Carrion Comfort That Nature is a Heraclitean Fire and of the comfort of the Resurrection Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) E Tenebris Francis Adams (1862–1893) Prayer PART SIX: THE DEVOTIONAL LYRIC IN THE MODERN ERA William Butler Yeats (1865–1939) A Prayer on Going into My House A Prayer for Old Age Robert Frost (1874–1963) A Prayer in Spring Bereft [Forgive, O Lord] William Carlos Williams (1883–1963) Sunday Ezra Pound (1885–1972) The Lake Isle Marianne Moore (1887–1972) By Disposition of Angels T. S. Eliot (1888–1965) Ash Wednesday e. e. cummings (1894–1962) i thank You God for most this amazing Jean Toomer (1894–1967) Georgia Dusk Hart Crane (1899–1932) Lachrymae Christi The Hurricane Kenneth Slessor (1901–1971) Vesper-Song of the Reverend Samuel Marsden George Oppen (1908–1984) Psalm PART SEVEN: THE TWENTIETH-CENTURY DEVOTIONAL LYRIC AFTER MODERNISM Elizabeth Bishop (1911–1979) Anaphora R. S. Thomas (1913–2000) Kneeling Praise Via Negativa John Berryman (1914–1972) Dream Song 28: Snow Line Eleven Addresses to the Lord Dylan Thomas (1914–1953) from Vision and Prayer Thomas Merton (1915–1968) Trappists, Working Robert Lowell (1917–1977) On the Eve of the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, 1942 Helltime Denise Levertov (1923–1997) Mass for the Day of St. Thomas Didymus Donald Justice (1925–2004) To Satan in Heaven A. R. Ammons (1926–2001) Hymn Hymn IV James K. Baxter (1926–1972) from Jerusalem Sonnets from Autumn Testament Allen Ginsberg (1926–1997) Psalm III Galway Kinnell (1927– ) Prayer First Communion Anne Sexton (1928–1974) In the Deep Museum Praying to Big Jack Geoffrey Hill (1932– ) from Lachrimae: Or Seven Tears Figured in Seven Passionate Pavans Mark Strand (1934– ) Poem After the Seven Last Words Charles Wright (1935– ) Stone Canyon Nocturne As the Trains Roll Through, I Remember an Old Poem Terrestrial Music The Gospel According to Yours Truly Hasta la Vista Buckaroo The Gospel According to Somebody Else The Gospel According to St. Someone Charles Simic (1938– ) Prayer Psalm To the One Upstairs Peter Cooley (1940– ) Poem Choosing to Remain Unfinished Louise Glück (1943– ) Matins [“Forgive me if I say I love you: the powerful”] Matins [“I see it is with you as with the birches:”] Matins [“You want to know how I spend my time?”] Vespers [“More than you love me, very possibly”] Vespers [“I know what you planned, what you meant to do, teaching me”] Ira Sadoff (1945– ) Orphans Jorie Graham (1950– ) Praying (Attempt of May 9 ’03) Marie Howe (1950– ) Prayer James Galvin (1951– ) Prayer Mark Jarman (1952– ) from Questions for Ecclesiastes from Unholy Sonnets Alan Shapiro (1952– ) Prayer on the Temple Steps Gjertrud Schnackenberg (1953– ) Supernatural Love Scott Cairns (1954– ) The Spiteful Jesus Nicholas Samaras (1954– ) Benediction Lucie Brock-Broido (1956– ) The One Theme of Which Everything Else Is a Variation Amy Gerstler (1956– ) A Non-Christian on Sunday Jacqueline Osherow (1956– ) from Scattered Psalms Bruce Beasley (1958– ) Having Read the Holy Spirit’s Wikipedia Michael Chitwood (1958– ) Here I Am, Lord Jane Mead (1958– ) Concerning That Prayer I Cannot Make Carl Phillips (1959– ) from The Blue Castrato Hymn PART EIGHT: THE TWENTY-FIRST-CENTURY DEVOTIONAL LYRIC Peter Sirr (1960– ) A Few Helpful Hints Leslie Harrison (1962– ) [dear god I ask] Olena Kalytiak Davis (1963– ) six apologies, lord D. A. Powell (1963– ) plague year: comet: arc End of Days A. E. Stallings (1968– ) Amateur Iconography: Resurrection G. C. Waldrep (1968– ) Against the Madness of Crowds Kevin Prufer (1969– ) Prayer Apocalyptic Prayer C. Dale Young (1969– ) Paying Attention Or Something Like That Morri Creech (1970– ) Triptych: Christ’s Sermon to God from the Wilderness Maurice Manning (1970– ) from Bucolics Paisley Rekdal (1970– ) Dear Lacuna, Dear Lard: Mary Szybist (1970– ) Hail Kazim Ali (1971– ) Lostness Afternoon Prayer Dear Lantern, Dear Cup Josh Bell (1971– ) Zombie Sunday (A Short Poetical History of Spring) Zombie Sunday [“Gentle handed holy father, or whomever, / we have ways of making you talk,”] Zombie Sunday [“Gentle handed holy father, or whomever, / the stars swing in like buccaneers”] Katharine Jager (1971– ) Vita Brevis, Ars Longa Brett Foster (1973– ) Longing, Lenten Matthea Harvey (1973– ) from Ceiling Unlimited Series Melissa Range (1973– ) Kermes Red Gold Leaf Lampblack Jericho Brown (1975– ) Prayer of the Backhanded Malachi Black (1982– ) from Quarantine Vespers Credits Index A B C D E F G H J K L M N O P Q R S T V W Y