Poetry

A Poem for the Feast of the Blessed John Duns Scotus

/ Rick Yoder / 1 Comment
Oxford

Scotus preached and prayed at the University Church of St. Mary the Virgin, now an Anglican parish – there is now a plaque commemorating him on one of the walls. I have heard differing accounts of where his house of Greyfriars would have stood, either near St. Aldate’s or in what is now Brasenose College. (Source)

Duns Scotus’s Oxford

Gerard Manley Hopkins SJ

Towery city and branchy between towers;
Cuckoo-echoing, bell-swarmed, lark-charmed, rook-racked, river-rounded;
The dapple-eared lily below thee; that country and town did
Once encounter in, here coped and posed powers;

Thou hast a base and brackish skirt there, sours
That neighbour-nature thy grey beauty is grounded
Best in; graceless growth, thou hast confounded
Rural rural keeping — folks, flocks, and flowers.

Yet ah! this air I gather and I release
He lived on; these weeds and waters, these walls are what
He haunted who of all men most sways my spirits to peace;

Of realty the rarest-veined unraveller; a not
Rivalled insight, be rival Italy or Greece;
Who fired France for Mary without spot.

scotuseyes.jpg

Blessed John Duns Scotus, Pray for Us. (Source)

Mea Culpa, Mea Culpa, Mea Scholastica Culpa

/ Rick Yoder / 5 Comments
BlessedJohnDunsScotus

The Blessed John Duns Scotus (Source).

In my review of Rod Dreher’s The Benedict Option, I wrote the following:

I’m not suggesting that Dreher is necessarily wrong in his various judgments. He may well be correct in accusing the nominalists of a kind of cultural deicide (although it overlooks the Christian nominalist tendency, closely tied to empiricism, that numbers Berkeley, Burke, Hamann, Newman, and Chesterton among its ranks).

I subsequently received some pushback for making such a claim. After all, eminent philosophers and theologians had long made nominalism the villain of their narratives about the rise of an anti-Christian modernity. Others questioned my assertion about Newman in particular.

At that time, I defended myself by suggesting that, while I may be off in ascribing a specifically nominalist tendency to these thinkers, that nevertheless, they all do share, inter alia, a suspicion of universalizing abstraction, a respect for concrete particularity in its various forms, and a trust in prudence gained from experience. I interpreted this tendency as akin to the nominalist rejection of substantively existent universals. I also thought that one of the reasons this way of thinking might matter is in our dialogue with postmodernity, which is itself so suspicious of universals and grand narratives.

Nevertheless, I erred. I was mistaken to use that label of nominalism. I must thank my critics for pointing this out. In the many months since then, I have learned what would be the proper term to tie together these particular thinkers – not to mention Gerard Manley Hopkins and J.R.R. Tolkien.

The “nominalist tendency” is really a Scotist tendency. (The fact that I could make such an ironic error is, perhaps, a sign of my own ignorance. I own that. Scholasticism isn’t really my thing.) Chastened by my previous mistake, I hesitate to delve too deeply into the technical depths of Scotist philosophy. I will state briefly that a belief in the idea of haecceity as the unique thisness of each particular sums up the tendency’s core point. If I had time, I’d like to investigate if any firmer affinities could be found.

However, I believe I am now on much sounder territory. The Franciscan Daniel Horan’s work has focused on a postmodern engagement with Scotus, and the Scotism of Newman and Hopkins have been well-attested in the literature. Tolkien took up the theological note behind Hopkins’s ideas of inscape and instress, themselves poetic derivations of Scotist haecceity. More work still needs to be done in English on Hamann, but the image that is emerging is of a figure passionately devoted to the disruptive nature of ordinary, particular experience. His willingness to contest the established narratives of the Aufklärung predates postmodernism by a century and a half. Chesterton is cut from the same cloth. Bishop Berkeley, though perhaps not quite so colorful as either of these two, stakes his empiricism on the particularity of the thing perceived (ultimately, by God). And Burke transposes the idea into the realm of politics, tempered by a healthy respect for natural law.

Two observations come to mind. The first is that nearly all of these thinkers are English or Anglophone. An enquiry into the reasons behind English Scotism would be useful. In its absence, I will merely note that Scotus, that medieval Oxford theologian, seems to have been directly reintroduced into the life of modern English spirituality by another Oxford theologian, John Henry Newman. It was Newman’s influence that defined intellectual Catholicism in England until the conclusion of Vatican II.

The second is that several of these thinkers are literary figures in their own right. Hopkins is principally remembered as a poet, Chesterton as a journalist, novelist, and poet, and Tolkien as a novelist. Newman was a prolific writer across genres. He exerted a personal influence over Hopkins, Matthew Arnold, and Oscar Wilde. And Hamann’s own deeply bizarre output constantly blurs the rigid lines of 18th century drama (yet another way he foreshadows our own postmodern era).

I must wonder if Scotist thought is particularly apt for the production of theology in a poetic mode, as the Catholic Sophiologists of our own day are seeking to do. I certainly have friends who think so. At the very least, Scotus’s high Mariology accords well with the extremely high Mariology of some Sophiologists.

If I had more time, I should like to dive more deeply into these questions. For now, I seek only to explain myself a bit, and apologize for what was clearly a serious error.

ADDENDUM: I also meant to say that Delleuze’s appropriation of haecceity as a fundamental concept lends support to my own impulse of putting these thinkers in conversation with postmodernism.

A Poem by Richard Crashaw for St. Teresa’s Day

/ Rick Yoder / Leave a comment

 

Giuseppe_Bazzani_-_The_Ecstasy_of_St_Therese_-_WGA01527

“The Ecstasy of St. Teresa,” Giuseppe Bazzani, c. 1747 (Source).

The Flaming Heart

VPON THE BOOK AND PICTURE OF THE SERAPHICAL SAINT TERESA, AS SHE IS VSVALLY EXPRESSED WITH A SERAPHIM BISIDE HER.

Well-meaning readers! you that come as friends
And catch the pretious name this piece pretends;
Make not too much hast to admire
That fair-cheek’t fallacy of fire.
That is a seraphim, they say
And this the great Teresia.
Readers, be rul’d by me; and make
Here a well-plact and wise mistake:
You must transpose the picture quite,
And spell it wrong to read it right;
Read him for her, and her for him,
And call the saint the seraphim.
Painter, what didst thou understand
To put her dart into his hand?
See, even the yeares and size of him
 Showes this the mother seraphim.
This is the mistresse flame; and duteous he
Her happy fire-works here, comes down to see.
O most poor-spirited of men!
Had thy cold pencil kist her pen,
Thou couldst not so unkindly err
To show vs this faint shade for her.
Why, man, this speakes pure mortall frame;
And mockes with female frost Love’s manly flame.
One would suspect thou meant’st to paint
Some weak, inferiour, woman-saint.
But had thy pale-fac’t purple took
Fire from the burning cheeks of that bright booke,
Thou wouldst on her have heap’t up all
That could be found seraphicall;
What e’re this youth of fire, weares fair,
Rosy fingers, radiant hair,
Glowing cheek, and glistering wings,
All those fair and fragrant things
But before all, that fiery dart
Had fill’d the hand of this great heart.
Doe then, as equall right requires,
Since his the blushes be, and her’s the fires,
Resume and rectify thy rude design,
Undresse thy seraphim into mine;
Redeem this injury of thy art,
Give him the vail, give her the dart.
Give him the vail; that he may cover
The red cheeks of a rivall’d lover.
Asham’d that our world now can show
Nests of new seraphims here below.
Give her the dart, for it is she
(Fair youth) shootes both thy shaft, and thee;
Say, all ye wise and well-peirc’t hearts
That live and die amidst her darts,
What is’t your tastfull spirits doe prove
In that rare life of her, and Love?
Say, and bear witnes. Sends she not
A seraphim at every shott?
What magazins of immortall armes there shine!
Heavn’s great artillery in each love-spun line.
Give then the dart to her who gives the flame;
Give him the veil, who gives the shame.
But if it be the frequent fate
Of worst faults to be fortunate;
 If all’s præscription; and proud wrong
Hearkens not to an humble song;
For all the gallantry of him,
Give me the suffring seraphim.
His be the bravery of all those bright things,
The glowing cheekes, the glistering wings;
The rosy hand, the radiant dart;
Leave her alone the flaming heart.
Leave her that; and thou shalt leave her
Not one loose shaft but Love’s whole quiver.
For in Love’s field was never found
A nobler weapon then a wound.
Love’s passives are his activ’st part,
The wounded is the wounding heart.
O heart! the æquall poise of Love’s both parts
 Bigge alike with wound and darts.
Live in these conquering leaves; live all the same,
And walk through all tongues one triumphant flame.
Live here, great heart; and love and dy and kill;
And bleed and wound; and yield and conquer still.
Let this immortall life wherere it comes
Walk in a crowd of loves and martyrdomes.
Let mystick deaths wait on’t; and wise soules be
The love-slain wittnesses of this life of thee.
O sweet incendiary! shew here thy art,
Upon this carcasse of a hard, cold hart;
Let all thy scatter’d shafts of light, that play
Among the leaves of thy larg books of day.
Combin’d against this brest at once break in
And take away from me my self and sin;
This gratious robbery shall thy bounty be,
And my best fortunes such fair spoiles of me.
O thou undanted daughter of desires!
By all thy dowr of lights and fires;
By all the eagle in thee, all the dove;
By all thy lives and deaths of love;
By thy larg draughts of intellectuall day,
And by thy thirsts of love more large then they;
By all thy brim-fill’d bowles of fierce desire,
By thy last morning’s draught of liquid fire;
By the full kingdome of that finall kisse
That seiz’d thy parting soul, and seal’d thee His;
By all the Heau’n thou hast in Him
(Fair sister of the seraphim!)
By all of Him we have in thee;
Leave nothing of my self in me.
Let me so read thy life, that I
Unto all life of mine may dy.

(Richard Crashaw, Carmen Deo Nostro, with some orthographic editing).

 

Crashaw on Our Lady of Sorrows

/ Rick Yoder / Leave a comment

Our-Lady-of-Oxford

Yesterday, we celebrated the Feast of the Holy Cross. Today, naturally, we follow that sorrowful glory of Jesus with the sorrowful glory of Mary. And Crashaw remains our companion. Here is his “Sancta Maria Dolorum; or The Mothers of Sorrows, A Pathetical Descant upon the Devout Plainsong of Stabat Mater Dolorosa.” You can also find the text over here.

1.

In shade of Deaths sad Tree
Stood doleful she,
Ah she! now by no other
Name to be known, alas, but Sorrow’s Mother.

Before her Eyes
Her’s and the whole World’s joyes,
Hanging all torn she sees; and in his woes
And Pains, her pangs and throes.
Each wound of his, from every part,
All, more at home in her own heart.

2.

What kind of Marble than
Is that cold man
Who can look on and see,
Nor keep such Noble sorrows company?
Sure even from you
(My Flints) some drops are due
To see so many unkind swords contest
So fast for one soft Brest.
While with a faithful, mutual, floud
Her Eyes bleed Tears, his wounds weep blood.

3.

O costly intercourse
Of deaths, and worse
Divided Loves: while Son and Mother
Discourse alternate wounds to one another;
Quick Deaths that grow
And gather, as they come and go:
His Nails write swords in her; which soon her heart
Pays back, with more then their own smart;
Her swords, still growing with his pain,
Turn Spears, and straight come home again;

4.

She sees her Son, her God,
Bow with a load
Of borrow’d sins; and swim
In woes that were not made for him.
Ah hard Command
Of Love! Here must she stand
Charg’d to look on, and with a stedfast Eye
See her life dye:
Leaving her only so much Breath
As serves to keep alive her death.

5.

O Mother Turtle-dove!
Soft sourse of Love,
That these dry Lids might borrow
Somthing from thy full seas of Sorrow!
O in that Brest
Of thine (the noblest Nest
Both of Love’s Fires and Flouds) might I recline
This hard, cold, Heart of mine!
The chil lump would relent, and prove
Soft Subject for the siege of Love.

6.

O teach those wounds to bleed
In me; me, so to read
This Book of Loves, thus writ
In lines of death, my life may copy it

With Loyal cares.
O let me here claim shares;
Yield something in thy sad prerogative
(Great Queen of griefs) and give
Me to my Tears; who, though all stone,
Think much that thou shouldst mourn alone.

7.

Yea let my life and me
Fix here with thee,
And at the Humble Foot
Of this fair Tree take our Eternal Root.
That so we may
At least be in Loves way;
And in these chaste wars while the wing’d wounds flee
So fast ‘twixt him and thee,
My Brest may catch the kiss of some kind Dart,
Though as at second hand, from either Heart.

8.

O you, your own best Darts,
Dear doleful hearts!
Hail; and strike home and make me see
That wounded bosomes their own weapons be.
Come Wounds! come Darts!
Nail’d hands! and pierced hearts!
Come your whole selves, Sorrow’s great Son and Mo∣ther.
Nor grudge a younger Brother
Of grief’s his portion, who (had all their due)
One single wound should not have left for you.

9.

Shall I set there
So deep a share
(Dear wounds) and onely now
In sorrows draw no dividend with you!
O be more wife,
If not more soft, mine Eyes!
Flow, tardy Founts! and into decent showrs
Dissolve my Days and Hours.
And if thou yet (faint soul!) defer
To bleed with him, fail not to weep with her.

10.

Rich Queen, lend some relief;
At least an alms of Grief
To’ a heart who by sad right of sin
Could prove the whole sum (too sure) due to him.
By all those stings
Of Love, sweet bitter things,
Which these torn hands transcrib’d on thy true Heart;
O teach mine too, the Art
To study him so, till we mix
Wounds, and become one Crucifix.

11.

O let me suck the Wine
So long of this chaste Vine,
Till, drunk of the dear wounds, I be
A lost thing to the World, as it to me.
O faithful friend
Of me and of my end!
Fold up my life in Love; and lay’t beneath
My dear Lord’s vital death.
Lo, heart, thy hopes whole Plea! her precious breath
Powr’d out in Prayers for thee; thy Lord’s in death.

Crashaw on the Holy Cross

/ Rick Yoder / 1 Comment
ExaltationoftheHolyCrossBaroque

The veritable Tree of Life. (Source)

Today’s feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross deserves some poetic note…as will tomorrow’s Feast of Our Lady of Sorrows. Richard Crashaw, whose deeply somatic, extravagantly Baroque spirituality made him somewhat distasteful to an older generation of critics, fits our purpose for both days admirably. My source is the 2013 University of Minnesota Edition of The English Poems of Richard Crashaw, pages 204-05.

Here is his “Upon the Bleeding Crucifix, a Song.” I’d like to add as accompaniment my favorite English rendition of the Vexilla Regis.

Upon the Bleeding Crucifix, a Song

1.
Jesu, no more! It is full tide.
From thy head and from thy feet,
From thy hands and from thy side
All the purple rivers meet.

2.
What need thy fair head bear a part
In show’rs, as if thine eyes had none?
What need they help to drown thy heart,
That strives in torrents of its own?

3.
Thy restless feet now cannot go
For us and our eternal good,
As they were ever wont. What though?
They swim. Alas, in their own flood.

4.
Thy hands to give, thou canst not lift;
Yet will thy hand still giving be.
It gives but O, itself’s the gift.
It gives though bound; though bound ’tis free.

5.
But O thy side, thy deep-digged side!
That hath a double Nilus going.
Nor ever was the Pharian tide
Half so fruitful, half so flowing.

6.
No hair so small, but pays his river
To this red sea of thy blood,
Their little channels can deliver
Something to the general flood.

7.
But while I speak, whither are run
All the rivers named before?
I counted wrong. There is but one,
But O that one is one all o’er.

8.
Rain-swoll’n rivers may rise proud,
Bent all to drown and overflow.
But when indeed all’s overflowed
They themselves are drownèd too.

9.
Thy blood’s deluge, a drie chance
Dear Lord to thee, to us is found
A deluge of deliverance;
A deluge lest we should be drowned.

Ne’er wast thou in a sense so sadly true,
The well of living waters, Lord, till now.

 

Some Saints on the Holy Name of Mary

/ Rick Yoder / 1 Comment
name-of-Mary

The Holy Name of Mary in a church mural. (Source)

The feast we celebrate today has moved around a bit. It only came to the kalendar in 1683, when Pope Innocent XI wished to commemorate the liberation of Vienna from the Ottoman siege. He originally placed it on the 17th, the Octave Day of Our Lady’s Nativity. The feast was later transferred to the 15th, and then done away with altogether by Archbishop Bugnini in one of his more obnoxious acts of liturgical vandalism. Pope St. John Paul II restored it in 2002, and now we celebrate it as an optional memorial on September 12th.

Accordingly, it behooves us to ponder the writings of the saints. For as it is a maxim in theology that we are led by lower things to higher, so we may pursue the heights of Our Lady’s throne only by the steps which our closer contemporaries have tread before us. Besides, while the feast may be relatively new in the life of the Church, the devotion it honors is much older. There is consequently much to choose from.

Consider the words of St. Bernard of Clairvaux.

Z_CAP005_052

Apparition of the Virgin to St. Bernard, Detail. Filippino Lippi, 1480. (Source)

“And the Virgin’s name was Mary.” Let us speak a little about this name, which is said to mean “star of the sea,” and which so well befits the Virgin Mother. Rightly is she likened to a star. As a star emits a ray without being dimmed, so the Virgin brought forth her Son without receiving any injury. The ray takes naught from the brightness of the star, nor the Son from His Mother’s virginal integrity. This is the noble star risen out of Jacob, whose ray illumines the whole world, whose splendor shines in the heavens, penetrates the abyss, and, traversing the whole earth, gives warmth rather to souls than to bodies, cherishing virtues, withering vices. Mary is that bright and incomparable star, whom we need to see raised above this vast sea, shining by her merits, and giving us light by her example.

All of you, who see yourselves amid the tides of the world, tossed by storms and tempests rather than walking on the land, do not turn your eyes away from this shining star, unless you want to be overwhelmed by the hurricane. If temptation storms, or you fall upon the rocks of tribulation, look to the star: Call upon Mary! If you are tossed by the waves of pride or ambition, detraction or envy, look to the star, call upon Mary. If anger or avarice or the desires of the flesh dash against the ship o f your soul, turn your eyes to Mary. If troubled by the enormity of your crimes, ashamed of your guilty conscience, terrified by dread of the judgment, you begin to sink into the gulf of sadness or the abyss of despair, think of Mary. In dangers, in anguish, in doubt, think of Mary, call upon Mary. Let her name be even on your lips, ever in your heart; and the better to obtain the help of her prayers, imitate the example of her life:  “Following her, thou strayest not; invoking her, thou despairest not; thinking of her, thou wanderest not; upheld by her, thou fallest not; shielded by her, thou fearest not; guided by her, thou growest not weary; favored by her, thou reachest the goal. And thus dost thou experience in thyself how good is that saying: ‘And the Virgin’s name was Mary.'”

alphonsus_cross

St. Alphonsus Liguori, author of The Glories of Mary. (Source)

St. Alphonsus Liguori, that Mariologist who so scrupulously records the thoughts of prior saints, affirms the antiquity and holiness of this devotion.

To begin with life, the holy anchorite, Honorius, says, that the name of Mary is [full] of all divine sweetness. And the glorious St. Anthony of Padua attributes to the name of Mary the same sweetness as St. Bernard attributed to the name of Jesus. The name of Jesus, said the latter, the name of Mary, said the former, is joy to the heart, honey to the mouth, melody to the ear of their devoted servants. It is related in the life of the venerable Father John Ancina, Bishop of Saluzzo, that when he pronounced the name of Mary, he experienced so great a sensible sweetness that he even tasted it on his lips. We also read that a certain woman in Cologne told the Bishop Marsillius, that whenever she pronounced the name of Mary she perceived in her mouth a taste sweeter than honey. Marsillius made the trial, and he also experienced the same sweetness. We read in the holy Canticles, that at the Assumption of the Virgin, the angels three times asked her name: “Who is she that goeth up by the desert as a pillar of smoke?” “Who is she that cometh forth as the morning rising?” And in another: “Who is this that cometh up from the desert, flowing with delights?” Richard of St. Laurence inquires why the angels so often asked the name of this queen, and answers: The sound of the name of Mary was so sweet to the angels, and they repeated the question that they might hear it repeated also.

But I do not hear speak of this sensible sweetness, since it is not commonly granted to all, but I speak of the salutary sweetness of consolation, love, joy, confidence, and strength, which the name of Mary universally gives to those who, with devotion, pronounce it. Speaking on this subject, Francone the Abbot says, that next to the holy name of Jesus, the name of Mary is so rich in blessings, that no other name is uttered on earth or in heaven from which devout souls receive so much grace, hope, and sweetness. For the name of Mary, he goes on to say, contains in itself something admirable, sweet, and divine, which, when it meets a friendly heart, breathes into it an odor of holy sweetness. And the wonder of this great name is, he concludes, that if heard a thousand times by the lovers of Mary, it is always heard as new, the sweetness they experience in hearing it spoken being always the same.

The blessed Henry Suso, also speaking of this sweetness, says, that in pronouncing the name of Mary, he felt his confidence so much increased, and his love so joyfully enkindled, that amidst the joy and tears with which he pronounced the beloved name, he thought his heart would have leaped from his mouth ; and he affirmed that this most sweet name, as honeycomb, melted into the depths of his soul. Whereat he exclaims: Oh most sweet name! oh Mary, what must thou thyself be, if thy name alone is so lovely and sweet?

Nor is this devotion entirely absent outside the Church of Rome. One of George Herbert’s better epigrams runs as follows:

HerbertAnagram

“Anagram,” from The Temple. (Source)

Incidentally, the aforementioned Bishop of Saluzzo, Bl. John Juvenal Ancina, was a founder of the Naples Oratory and a personal disciple of St. Philip Neri. Can there be any doubt that the bishop learned his devotion at the side of his spiritual father?

img-Blessed-Giovanni-Giovenale-Ancina

Bl. Juvenal Ancina of the Oratory. (Source)

And we should learn it in turn from the saints who have gone before us, those holy men and women who now stand rejoicing in an eternal contemplation of Our Lady’s beatific name.

StPhilipNeriExhortinghtheYouth

St. Philip Neri Exhorting the Youth to Pray to the Virgin, Pala Pietro. A good metaphor for how the saints instruct us in Marian devotion. (Source)

 

Poem/Song: “On the Strange and Lamentable Tale of the Witches of Saluda”

/ Rick Yoder / 1 Comment
Bonham_House_1

The Bonham House, Saluda, SC (Source).

It’s been a while since I posted any original wordcraft, so here’s a poem I wrote recently. The last part is a song. I wanted to hearken to the Scotch-Irish traditions of the poor folks who settled the Carolinas. You can hear me sing it on the embedded audio I have included.

On the Strange and Lamentable Tale of the Witches of Saluda

I. The Town

I saw them dancing at the old waterworks
with torchlight in their eyes, huge
gates to unseen countries
of the damned and dying.
Off in the woods, the fog
snaked through like a hungry hound bent
low over the scent
of some lesser beast.
The pines keep our secrets from us,
so we can forget.
Didn’t you know that even the
goats and horses have eyes, ears,
loose lips muttering imprecations
under their breath? Never
look over your shoulder
at a crossroads. Men have died,
petrified, for less.
Or else they shoot into space
and freeze in the rictus of their fathers,
grinning madly at the dead sun
below. I have drawn
salt from the shadow of your footsteps,
I have planted rows of teeth in my head.
What dragons will come
when I bring a scythe
to the harvest?

II. The Purlieu

You hardly know how dark
the young pine woods can be.
Not a patch of tall trees, mind you,
but ones that stand
just about twice your size.
Still plenty of silent life ahead of them.
You can see them at the edge of evening,
surrounding a field surrounding
a low crop of tombstones
all asunder and blurred
by the rain’s improvident hand.
The trees wait there, wordless,
dusk-bleached, lined up like so many
carious teeth. But they are not
what draws my eye—
the fathomless
dark that spreads behind
like a growling and
hungry gullet.

III. The Back Yard

It will not go away.

Momma said to come to the table,
no use passing your life
by the back window
daydreaming.

But I could see it pacing the lawn as I ate.

Huge, black,
unblinking, white
of tooth.
I don’t think it ever sleeps.
The heat of the noonday and the
shadow that flies by night
do not afflict it—
the stones in its shoes
and the rancid water it sips
out of our traschan lids
do not injure it—
the play of the neighbors
and the tumult of the street
do not distract it.
I have not yet seen it blink.
I have not yet seen it turn its gaze
from the house.
It watches.
I don’t think it ever sleeps.

Momma says
daddy woudn’t have tolerated
any such foolishness.
I don’t know.

It makes not a sound.
I think it knows what we talk about
in the house.
I think it knows when we rise and fall
to our prayers.
I think it listens to what we confess,
to our fights, to the whisper of the rain.

I don’t want to go out there.
I don’t want it to get it.
I don’t think it ever sleeps.

IV. Found in a Buried Notebook, Written in Red Ink

Don’t turn your back to the trees
or walk up the weed-cracked pavement
beneath the sign that reads
CAR  ASH CO N LAUNDRY
and don’t keep the pottery you dig up
in your garden
bonewhite under the red
clay and grey sand. Don’t
venture to the edge of the field that
smells like salt
and don’t keep your teeth in a shoebox
(it might become a skull)
and don’t knock on walls
where there should be a door
or take down the portraits
of the nameless.
Don’t ponder what might have
broken the sign from the fencepost
or written its replacement
in an unknown script.
Don’t let your children go to the post office alone.
Don’t let your daughter play with the dolls
she doesn’t remember receiving.

V. The Song of the Lost Daughters


The young girls singing thread silk in their hair
Io Hymen Hymenaee
Io Hymen Hymenaee
Discarding the rest of the clothes that they wear
Io Hymen Hymenaee
Io Hymen Hymenaee

They join with the voices of the torchbearing throng
Io Hymen Hymenaee
Io Hymen Hymenaee
And soon they forget every other sweet song
Io Hymen Hymenaee
Io Hymen Hymenaee

Songs that illumine the queer, darkened lands
Io Hymen Hymenaee
Io Hymen Hymenaee
Like the water you pour over bloody hands
Io Hymen Hymenaee
Io Hymen Hymenaee

Her lace crown covers her eyes as they lead
Io Hymen Hymenaee
Io Hymen Hymenaee
Her into a thicket that smells of ripe seed
Io Hymen Hymenaee
Io Hymen Hymenaee

To hide from the angels that watch in the trees
Io Hymen Hymenaee
Io Hymen Hymenaee
And teach her the sacred rites of the bees
Io Hymen Hymenaee
Io Hymen Hymenaee

“An will ye cam back to yer mother so fine?”
Io Hymen Hymenaee
Io Hymen Hymenaee
“Ah will ye return to me, daughter of mine?”
Io Hymen Hymenaee
Io Hymen Hymenaee

“Ah mother, dear mother, I can’t come at all”
Io Hymen Hymenaee
Io Hymen Hymenaee
“Until I’ve repeated our first mother’s fall”
Io Hymen Hymenaee
Io Hymen Hymenaee

“The Sabbath is waiting, the dance oh so dear”
Io Hymen Hymenaee
Io Hymen Hymenaee
“To teach us the meaning behind every fear”
Io Hymen Hymenaee
Io Hymen Hymenaee

They never did see her again in the day
Io Hymen Hymenaee
Io Hymen Hymenaee
But once on a new moon, as old people say
Io Hymen Hymenaee
Io Hymen Hymenaee

Seven years waiting and seven years won
Io Hymen Hymenaee
Io Hymen Hymenaee
Seven years burning, but far from the Sun
Io Hymen Hymenaee
Io Hymen Hymenaee

Beware, all me daughters, what hides in the air
Io Hymen Hymenaee
Io Hymen Hymenaee
And never thread silks so fine in your hair
Io Hymen Hymenaee
Io Hymen Hymenaee

The Catholic Poems of Oscar Wilde

/ Rick Yoder / Leave a comment
OscarWildeBook

Oscar Fingal O’Flahertie Wills Wilde (Source).

As I mentioned in my last post, during the month of August, I am dedicating myself to daily acts of creativity in honor of Mary’s Immaculate and Sophianic Heart. As Providence would have it, the Holy Father’s intentions for August include prayers for artists. Thus, I’m going to make my blog especially aesthetic for the rest of the month.

And what better way to start than examining work by one of the modern era’s great philosophers of art, Oscar Wilde? It is not often remembered today that Oscar Wilde was a Catholic. True, he was only formally received on his death bed. But Wilde maintained a lifelong flirtation with the faith. Catholicism infused his imagination from very early on in his productive career. When he was a student at Oxford, he visited Rome and wrote quasi-Catholic poetry that even Cardinal Newman admired. In some of the work, the influence of Dante is manifest. The aesthetics and romance of Catholicism appealed to Wilde, and he was nearly converted by Fr. Sebastian Bowden of the London Oratory. Only much later did he definitively turn to the Lord, in his last hour. However, many members of his circle also converted…a topic I shall, perhaps, explore some other day.

Ave Maria Gratia Plena

Was this His coming! I had hoped to see
A scene of wondrous glory, as was told
Of some great God who in a rain of gold
Broke open bars and fell on Danae:
Or a dread vision as when Semele
Sickening for love and unappeased desire
Prayed to see God’s clear body, and the fire
Caught her white limbs and slew her utterly:
With such glad dreams I sought this holy place,
And now with wondering eyes and heart I stand
Before this supreme mystery of Love:
A kneeling girl with passionless pale face,
An angel with a lily in his hand,
And over both with outstretched wings the Dove.

Sonnet on Approaching Italy

I reached the Alps: the soul within me burned
Italia, my Italia, at thy name:
And when from out the mountain’s heart I came
And saw the land for which my life had yearned,
I laughed as one who some great prize had earned:
And musing on the story of thy fame
I watched the day, till marked with wounds of flame
The turquoise sky to burnished gold was turned,
The pine-trees waved as waves a woman’s hair,
And in the orchards every twining spray
Was breaking into flakes of blossoming foam:
But when I knew that far away at Rome
In evil bonds a second Peter lay,
I wept to see the land so very fair.

Urbs Sacra Æterna

Rome! what a scroll of History thine has been
In the first days thy sword republican
Ruled the whole world for many an age’s span:
Then of thy peoples thou wert crownèd Queen,
Till in thy streets the bearded Goth was seen;
And now upon thy walls the breezes fan
(Ah, city crowned by God, discrowned by man!)
The hated flag of red and white and green.
When was thy glory! when in search for power
Thine eagles flew to greet the double sun,
And all the nations trembled at thy rod?
Nay, but thy glory tarried for this hour,
When pilgrims kneel before the Holy One,
The prisoned shepherd of the Church of God.

Sonnet on Hearing the Dies Irae Sung in the Sistine Chapel

Nay, Lord, not thus! white lilies in the spring,
Sad olive-groves, or silver-breasted dove,
Teach me more clearly of Thy life and love
Than terrors of red flame and thundering.
The hillside vines dear memories of Thee bring:
A bird at evening flying to its nest
Tells me of One who had no place of rest:
I think it is of Thee the sparrows sing.
Come rather on some autumn afternoon,
When red and brown are burnished on the leaves,
And the fields echo to the gleaner’s song,
Come when the splendid fulness of the moon
Looks down upon the rows of golden sheaves,
And reap Thy harvest: we have waited long.

Holy Week at Genoa

I wandered through Scoglietto’s far retreat,
The oranges on each o’erhanging spray
Burned as bright lamps of gold to shame the day;
Some startled bird with fluttering wings and fleet
Made snow of all the blossoms; at my feet
Like silver moons the pale narcissi lay:
And the curved waves that streaked the great green bay
Laughed i’ the sun, and life seemed very sweet.
Outside the young boy-priest passed singing clear,
‘Jesus the son of Mary has been slain,
O come and fill His sepulchre with flowers.’
Ah, God! Ah, God! those dear Hellenic hours
Had drowned all memory of Thy bitter pain,
The Cross, the Crown, the Soldiers and the Spear.

San Miniato

See, I have climbed the mountain side
Up to this holy house of God,
Where once that Angel-Painter trod
Who saw the heavens opened wide,

And throned upon the crescent moon
The Virginal white Queen of Grace,–
Mary! could I but see thy face
Death could not come at all too soon.

O crowned by God with thorns and pain!
Mother of Christ! O mystic wife!
My heart is weary of this life
And over-sad to sing again.

O crowned by God with love and flame!
O crowned by Christ the Holy One!
O listen ere the searching sun
Show to the world my sin and shame.

Madonna Mia

A lily-girl, not made for this world’s pain,
With brown, soft hair close braided by her ears,
And longing eyes half veiled by slumberous tears
Like bluest water seen through mists of rain:
Pale cheeks whereon no love hath left its stain,
Red underlip drawn in for fear of love,
And white throat, whiter than the silvered dove,
Through whose wan marble creeps one purple vein.
Yet, though my lips shall praise her without cease,
Even to kiss her feet I am not bold,
Being o’ershadowed by the wings of awe.
Like Dante, when he stood with Beatrice
Beneath the flaming Lion’s breast, and saw
The seventh Crystal, and the Stair of Gold.

E Tenebris

Come down, O Christ, and help me! reach thy hand,
For I am drowning in a stormier sea
Than Simon on thy lake of Galilee:
The wine of life is spilt upon the sand,
My heart is as some famine-murdered land,
Whence all good things have perished utterly,
And well I know my soul in Hell must lie
If I this night before God’s throne should stand.
‘He sleeps perchance, or rideth to the chase,
Like Baal, when his prophets howled that name
From morn to noon on Carmel’s smitten height.’
Nay, peace, I shall behold before the night,
The feet of brass, the robe more white than flame,
The wounded hands, the weary human face.

At Verona

How steep the stairs within Kings’ houses are
For exile-wearied feet as mine to tread,
And O how salt and bitter is the bread
Which falls from this Hound’s table,–better far
That I had died in the red ways of war,
Or that the gate of Florence bare my head,
Than to live thus, by all things comraded
Which seek the essence of my soul to mar.

‘Curse God and die: what better hope than this?
He hath forgotten thee in all the bliss
Of his gold city, and eternal day’–
Nay peace: behind my prison’s blinded bars
I do possess what none can take away,
My love, and all the glory of the stars.

On the Massacre of the Christians in Bulgaria

Christ, dost Thou live indeed? or are Thy bones
Still straitened in their rock-hewn sepulchre?
And was Thy Rising only dreamed by her
Whose love of Thee for all her sin atones?
For here the air is horrid with men’s groans,
The priests who call upon Thy name are slain,
Dost Thou not hear the bitter wail of pain
From those whose children lie upon the stones?
Come down, O Son of God! incestuous gloom
Curtains the land, and through the starless night
Over Thy Cross a Crescent moon I see!
If Thou in very truth didst burst the tomb
Come down, O Son of Man! and show Thy might
Lest Mahomet be crowned instead of Thee!

Queen Henrietta Maria

In the lone tent, waiting for victory,
She stands with eyes marred by the mists of pain,
Like some wan lily overdrenched with rain:
The clamorous clang of arms, the ensanguined sky,
War’s ruin, and the wreck of chivalry,
To her proud soul no common fear can bring:
Bravely she tarrieth for her Lord the King,
Her soul a-flame with passionate ecstasy.
O Hair of Gold! O Crimson Lips! O Face
Made for the luring and the love of man!
With thee I do forget the toil and stress,
The loveless road that knows no resting place,
Time’s straitened pulse, the soul’s dread weariness,
My freedom and my life republican!

On Easter Day

The silver trumpets rang across the Dome:
The people knelt upon the ground with awe:
And borne upon the necks of men I saw,
Like some great God, the Holy Lord of Rome.
Priest-like, he wore a robe more white than foam,
And, king-like, swathed himself in royal red,
Three crowns of gold rose high upon his head:
In splendor and in light the Pope passed home.
My heart stole back across wide wastes of years
To One who wandered by a lonely sea,
And sought in vain for any place of rest:
“Foxes have holes, and every bird its nest,
I, only I, must wander wearily,
And bruise My feet, and drink wine salt with tears.”

Wilde did just that until he lost his duel with the wallpaper on November 30th, 1900. But having received the last rites of the Church, perhaps he is already in heaven as a saint. One can only imagine what he would think of his portrait bedecked with a golden halo.

A Challenge in Honor of the Sophianic Heart of Mary

/ Rick Yoder / 1 Comment
ImmaculateHeartofMarySophianic

Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary, pray for us sinners. (Source).

August is consecrated to the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary. Thus, it is a month in which the Church invites us to peer into the profound and luminous abyss of light at the very center of the Mother of God’s Sophianic life. In celebration of this occasion, I’ve decided to dedicate myself to producing or working on something creative every day for the rest of the month. Today, I have already written one poem and started an art project. The latter is especially exciting for me, as it’s been years since I last produced any real art. Too long, really. Pray for me in this sophiological endeavor! I would recommend the same challenge to any Catholic hoping to redeem this particular time.

Poem: “Passing a Cemetery Seen From a Train”

/ Rick Yoder / 1 Comment
BellefonteCemetery

One of my ancestral cemeteries in Pennsylvania. (Source).

Alright, here’s another original piece. I think I’ve decided that I might as well publish a few things every now and then, since I seem to be getting a good response.

Passing a Cemetery Seen From a Train

We are not to count them,
the ones we make rare.
Nor should we come too close—
stepping in would strip
the varnish from our eyes,
making us like them
too soon. No, let this hill
rise away from me,
spangled with the dead
and watered with the whispers
of those not yet able to speak.