Don Williams’ Blog

XXX

Don December 11th, 2008

XXX

Wordsworth wrote an endless poem in blank verse on” the growth of a poet’s mind.” I shall attempt a more modest feat for a more distracted age: a blog, “Things which a Lifetime of Trying to Be a Poet has Taught Me.”

There was a guest lecturer once. I do not remember whom nor where nor when nor on what subject, but I do remember one question he asked us. “On you way to class, how many leaves did you actually see?” We had all passed a profusion of them in all their autumn glory, but no one could recall a single one.

This poem did not flow from that lecture, which I believe was from a much later date, but from a particular finely veined maple leaf whose memory would make me think the lecturer had asked a very good question.

TO A LEAF

I’ll press you now in this great book

And then, years later, I will look

At your color and design

Preserved in such a fragile form!

And still with power my heart to warm

And prod my weary mind

To think of Him who made you

And your kind.

Donald T. Williams, PhD

XXIX

Don December 8th, 2008

XXIX Wordsworth wrote an endless poem in blank verse on” the growth of a poet’s mind.” I shall attempt a more modest feat for a more distracted age: a blog, “Things which a Lifetime of Trying to Be a Poet has Taught Me.”

By now I have made good progress as an English Major in discovering something of the range of what poetry can do. The English Romantics—Wordsworth, Coleridge, Shelley, Keats—teach us how effectively Nature can mirror our own moods back to us and help us to explore them, and they showed how poetry could mirror that mirror. They thought (see Wordsworth in “Expostulation and Reply” and “The Tables Turned”) that Nature could do more than that, that it had positive content, and so an impulse from a vernal wood could teach us more of moral evil and of good than all the sages can. From this critical distance it is easy to see that they imported their own propositional content into those experiences, content they got somewhere else. So must we all do, and find other ways of testing the validity those beliefs than how well they fit Nature’s moods. What Nature—and nature poetry—can do is to help us find the perfect language for expressing them.

MEDITATION XIV

The music of the dripping leaves,

A booming frog, a cricket’s song,

The night-owl’s call to one who grieves

Remind me of that of which I’m bereaved

And that I don’t belong.

And often when the brittle stars

Flame out in Midnight’s deep, dark dome,

Their pristine light, remote, unmarred,

Reminds me of how small men are

And that I’m not at home.

But when I turn, Lord, to your Book

And read the things that you have done:

How although Man your law forsook

You pity on your creatures took

And gave your only Son

To die for an undeserving race,

My stubborn heart’s bowed down

To think of how you took my place

That my weak eyes might see your face

And I, your sheep, be found.

Then Nature has different things to say:

Your handiwork in wood and stone,

In starlit night and rainy day

Remind me of the price you paid,

And that I’m not alone.

Donald T. Williams, PhD

XXVIII

Don November 28th, 2008

XXVIII

Wordsworth wrote an endless poem in blank verse on” the growth of a poet’s mind.” I shall attempt a more modest feat for a more distracted age: a blog, “Things which a Lifetime of Trying to Be a Poet has Taught Me.”

It is now time for my senior year at Taylor University. At Taylor in those days we had a winterim session which in your junior year was devoted to a course called “Junior Practicum.” I got to serve mine working with Dr. C. S. Kilby in the then fledgling Wade Center for the study of the Inklings at Wheaton College in Illinois. Getting to know Kilby, then the dean of American Lewis scholars, was a great blessing. He was already advanced in years, and his elderly head with its bright eyes is still my personal picture of Bilbo in his declining years at Rivendell. We kept in touch, and this poem was the result.

TO CLYDE S. KILBY

I

I wandered through the silent trees

Of fair Loth Lorien;

At Cerin Amroth, saw the leaves

Blow o’er the tomb of Arwen.

I wandered north to Rivendell,

To Elrond’s homely halls,

And watched as evening shadows fell

On long deserted walls.

And West I turned, past hill and tree,

‘Till I stood by the shore.

But Cirdan was gone, and elves to the sea

Down Anduin sail no more.

II

And I have stood as tall as a king

On a hilltop windy and bare

And drunk the air of a Narnian spring

When no one else was there.

And I have seen Cair Paravel

And stood by Aslan’s Howe;

But where the king was none could tell,

For no one goes there now.

III

And homeward I my feet have turned,

But home I never came,

For in my soul a fire burned

And “home” was not the same.

And human eyes I seldom find

Who seem to understand

The longing of a pilgrim mind

For distant Faerie lands.

But when I find such eyes, I call

The man who owns them “friend.”

And together we wander in leafy halls

In fair Loth Lorien.

Donald T. Williams, PhD

XXVII

Don November 25th, 2008

XXVII

Wordsworth wrote an endless poem in blank verse on” the growth of a poet’s mind.” I shall attempt a more modest feat for a more distracted age: a blog, “Things which a Lifetime of Trying to Be a Poet has Taught Me.”

Part of a poet’s ongoing quest is to match form to mood and content. The Sonnet is good for certain things, Ballad Stanza for others, etc. Those who have only one form at their disposal—whether it be Free Verse or the Royal Couplet or the Sonnet—must perforce have a limited range of thought or sentiment, however good they might be within that range. I was learning the pensive, meditative nature poem from the Romantics, and found this form congenial to that mood. The way the repetition of the A rhyme sets up the return of the B rhyme in the shortened trimeter last line of the stanza seems to echo the feel of a tentative thought meandering slowly toward its conclusion.

MEDITATION XIII

I wandered by a restless sea

As western lights were going out,

And mingled with the deep my tears,

And let the salt spray soothe my fears

And wash away my doubt.

For few things cleanse a mind so well

From shreds of hanging gloomy dark

As the spray that’s blown from the ocean’s swell

And the rhythm of surf and the rough sea-bell:

Such, Nature’s healing art.

But though she washes fresh and clean,

She will not leave you light or gay,

But melancholy, though serene,

With a pensive peace that’s deep, unseen,

And lasts perhaps a day.

But there’s a peace that’s deeper still

And will not flee with coming night.

It warms the heart amidst the chill

Of winter’s death, when all is still

And covered with deadly white.

It comes when captive earthly lives

Are joined to the one Life that transcends

The earth and all that in her lies:

Her oceans, continents, and skies,

Her beginning and her end.

For the door is opened to him who knocks;

The seeker is the one who finds

The deepest down, most solid Rock

And roots his soul firm in the Rock

And finds true peace of mind.

Yet all who seek won’t walk the Way.

Not finding but accepting Light

Is that which turns the night to day

And brings the deep, calm joy that stays

Forever pure and bright.

Donald T. Williams, PhD

XXVI

Don November 12th, 2008

XXVI

Wordsworth wrote an endless poem in blank verse on” the growth of a poet’s mind.” I shall attempt a more modest feat for a more distracted age: a blog, “Things which a Lifetime of Trying to Be a Poet has Taught Me.”

Not only did I hit a better stride with the sonnet, but, inspired by Sidney and Spenser, I began to wonder if the sonnet cycle might be revived for modern readers. There are only three in this one, not a hundred or so, but they are interlocked by the repetition of last lines as first ones, coming full circle back to the very first sonnet in the last line of the third. Since the one in the last entry got it started, I will repeat it here so you can get the full effect.

SONNET IV

A new-born leaf and an ancient, lofty star

Converge in space and time before my eye;

The one as near as is the other far,

And both are wondrous things—but both will die.

The leaf will wither in the summer sun

Or else be blasted by chill winter air

And wither just the same—it all is one;

But while it lives, it lives, and it is fair.

Before man woke to see, this star was bright,

And when the last man sleeps it will remain.

But someday there will be a starless night,

And nothing, ever again, will be the same.

And yet we pray to Him who outlives all

And know that He will hear us when we call!

SONNET V

We know that He will hear us when we

Because of who He is and what He is:

Creator, Master, Savior, Lord of all,

Whose laughter is the thunder; dew, his kiss.

He feeds his children with a varied feast

That He grows from soil and sun and summer rain.

His Word shines out like lightning from the East

And flashes to the West, and back again.

And hark! The piercing, clarion trumpet’s cry

That cuts the still night air, unbearably sweet:

It is the signal of His passing by

Some lowly, maybe mortal man to meet.

And at His name, the planets, Venus, Mars,

Bow in joyful silence with the stars.

SONNET VI

The planets bow in silence and the stars,

With one exception: Earth, the haughty, proud

Kingdom of Lucifer, shackled with iron bars,

Who neither Joy nor Love nor Peace allows

To pass the warlike borders of his realm.

He fails! For he cannot keep out the dew

Nor still the thunder, nor the wind-in-elm,

Nor blot out the lightning! Not a few

Slaves’ hearts’ bonds have been shattered, charged with light

As bright as noonday sun, and made to live

A new life by this mystic lightning’s strike.

Redemption sure it offers; life it gives.

This wonder we proclaim as Lord of all,

And He it is who hears us when we call!

Donald T. Williams, PhD

XXV

Don October 10th, 2008

XXV Wordsworth wrote an endless poem in blank verse on” the growth of a poet’s mind.” I shall attempt a more modest feat for a more distracted age: a blog, “Things which a Lifetime of Trying to Be a Poet has Taught Me.”

Finally by my junior year I was starting to hit my stride in the sonnet. Here’s the first one with no blatant cheating, no use of archaisms to make the rhyme and meter work. Not that I would not descend to such expedients again. They are OK if one has some excuse for them justified by the topic. But merely using Shakespeare’s form does not give one carte blanche to use his language when one is not addressing his contemporaries.

SONNET IV

A new-born leaf and an ancient, lofty star

Converge in space and time before my eye;

The one as near as is the other far,

And both are wondrous things—but both will die.

The leaf will wither in the summer sun

Or else be blasted by chill winter air

And wither just the same—it all is one;

But while it lives, it lives, and it is fair.

Before man woke to see, this star was bright,

And when the last man sleeps it will remain.

But someday there will be a starless night,

And nothing, ever again, will be the same.

And yet we pray to Him who outlives all

And know that He will hear us when we call!

Donald T. Williams, PhD

XXIV

Don October 7th, 2008

XXIV Wordsworth wrote an endless poem in blank verse on” the growth of a poet’s mind.” I shall attempt a more modest feat for a more distracted age: a blog, “Things which a Lifetime of Trying to Be a Poet has Taught Me.”

Just to prove that I did eventually learn to write real alliterative meter, we have the following paraphrase of the first Psalm. Metrical paraphrases of the Psalms is a venerable poetic habit that has attracted talents as diverse as Sternhold and Hopkins or Sir Philip Sidney and the Countess of Pembroke. I was ambitious enough to conceive this at the time as a project to do the whole Psalter in alliterative meter—but since that form is not terribly useful for modern hymnody, I never got any further with it. Still, it was a useful exercise.

PSALM I

Happy is he who has not walked

In godless roads nor gone to stand

In stile of sinners, seeking evil.

Sit he hath not in scorner’s seat

Beguiling the witless. But his delight

Is in his liege-Lord, the Law, moreover,

The words of his mouth. Whatsoever

Words Lord speaketh will thane heed:

These thoughts he thinketh than all others more,

By sunlight and moonlight searching their meanings,

Adding to word-hoard and to his stature.

A tree shall he be, towering, strong,

Watered by rivers of water sweet.

Fruit shall he bring forth in his season,

Precious produce, pleasing his master.

His leaf shall be green, his life shall not wither,

And all that he doeth ever shall prosper,

Blessed by his Lord. But the ungodly

So shall not be. Sifted are they

Like chaff in the wind; chastisement just

Is then their lot. Thus in the judgment

Down shall they fall, nor dare they approach

The chosen people, church of fair jesu.

The brightness of glory would blind their eyes,

So long used to darkness. The Lord doth know

The Way of the righteous, and walketh himself

Therein with his servants, than all lords ever

The noblest of noble, knowing his thanes

As if they were sons. But in the way

Where tread the ungodly He turns not his face;

They will not receive him and thus walk in darkness,

Servants of serpents and sick to the death,

Forever they perish. Forsake not these words!

Donald T. Williams, PhD

XXIII

Don September 27th, 2008

XXIII

Wordsworth wrote an endless poem in blank verse on” the growth of a poet’s mind.” I shall attempt a more modest feat for a more distracted age: a blog, “Things which a Lifetime of Trying to Be a Poet has Taught Me.”

The limerick is perhaps the most universally recognized form of light verse used for comic effect. It consists of two lines of (usually) iambic or anapestic trimeter, two of dimeter, and one more of trimeter, rhyming AABBA. Something about the two short rhyming lines returning to the longer line with the original rhyme lends itself to the comedic effect, perhaps by helping to set up the last line as a “punch line.” Here is my first attempt at one, justly mocking the false pretensions of negative biblical criticism and the “assured results of modern scholarship.”

LIMERICK # 1

A high-critical biblical scholar

Wrote books that all caused quite a holler.

He claimed that St. Paul

Wrote The Campaigns of Gaul,

And he made about three million dollars.

The assonance and consonance in the first line, the contrast of scholarly phrases like higher criticism with a colloquial vocable like holler, and the use of the rhymes in lines three and four to highlight the ironic discrepancy between the biblical author and a work he had nothing to do with all contribute to the humorous effect, one hopes. Unfortunately, the likes of Dan Brown and Bart Ehrman can now make much bigger piles of money for the same kind of nonsense than what was intended as a hyperbole back in the seventies. For that reason alone, the poem is, alas, now somewhat dated.

Donald T. Williams, PhD

XXII

Don September 25th, 2008

XXII

Wordsworth wrote an endless poem in blank verse on” the growth of a poet’s mind.” I shall attempt a more modest feat for a more distracted age: a blog, “Things which a Lifetime of Trying to Be a Poet has Taught Me.”

Any growing poet needs to be nurtured by the great poetry (and other literature, too) of the past, both for the sake of learning technique and of deepening his own soul. I wasn’t the first to find the Psalter essential for both. The Psalms are a catalog of the full gamut of religious emotion. Not just exercises in pious ejaculations, they sometimes show impiety wrestled with and overcome. David and his fellow psalmists were not afraid to question God; they were not afraid to ask the hard questions. They were not afraid to reveal their own doubts and their own sufferings. But they always win through to peace in the end. Oh, yes, there are some good lessons there!

ON DAVID WRITING THE PSALMS

Such words were never uttered unless by

Some battered brain’s true trial- and tear-taught try

To cry the thing, heart’s clearly seen lament

Before insight intense is spent

Diffused, dispersed, immersed and rent

By hurried passing Time.

Holy Spirit stooping, molding,

Prodding, soothing, moving, goading,

Guiding, forming in this writing

Sword or torch of Truth abiding,

Made to smite complacence in its nest,

To bore into the soul, unbidden guest,

And wake the wound that slumbers in man’s breast:

A memory of the universe at rest.

Donald T. Williams, PhD

XXI

Don September 18th, 2008

XXI

Wordsworth wrote an endless poem in blank verse on” the growth of a poet’s mind.” I shall attempt a more modest feat for a more distracted age: a blog, “Things which a Lifetime of Trying to Be a Poet has Taught Me.”

It is now the Fall of 1971, the beginning of my junior year of college. Realizing that I do not have the talent to be principal clarinetist with the Atlanta Symphony, and loving music too much to subject myself to the dreary fate of being a junior high band director, I change my major from music to English. Giving up one lifelong dream, I realize another and enroll in Koine Greek class to satisfy my new foreign language requirement. But these upheavals are minor events compared to the annual changing of the seasons.

ODE TO A SHIRT

I could never wear this shirt in summer;

Winter, spring, were just as bad:

This is a shirt for wearing in autumn,

Full with autumn colors plaid.

Bright the glory of the leaf-host,

Brown the windblown stalks of corn,

Chill the frost on pumpkin orange

Seen while walking, early morn.

The spirits of these things lie sleeping,

Woven deep among the threads.

Tomorrow will be time for wearing;

Indian summer now has fled.

I could never wear this shirt in summer;

Winter, spring, were just as bad:

This is a shirt for wearing in autumn,

Full with autumn colors plaid.

I miss that shirt.

Donald T. Williams, PhD

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The Road Not Taken: a Journal of Formal Poetry