Don Williams’ Blog

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 lea

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

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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

  

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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

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