Don Williams’ Blog

Don March 30th, 2009

On Friday evening [the 6th], the faculty were invited to High Table at Christ Church, the largest of the Oxford colleges, whose Great Hall was used as the dining hall at Hogwarts in the Harry Potter films.  Apparently, pumpkin juice is not served on those days when the Muggles are eating there, so I cannot keep my promise to report on its potable potential.  But High Table in Formal Hall is certainly worth reporting on in its own right. 

The students [at the lower tables] all rise while the faculty and their guests process in wearing full formal academic regalia and take their places at the high table on the dais, below the grand portraits of Henry VIII and Cardinal Wolsey, the founders of ‘the house,’ as the locals call Christ Church, the only college in the world whose chapel is also the local cathedral.  Then grace is said in Latin and all are seated and served a three course meal: smoked salmon and cantaloupe salad, lamb chops, and strawberry tart on Friday.  I was seated across from the Canon of Christ Church Cathedral, who was presiding–in Dumbledore’s spot, of course.  The major duty of the presiding member of faculty is to approve the wine before it is served to everyone else, by sniffing it and then giving the butler an ever so subtle nod of the head.  Gowns are not compulsory for guests, but I was wishing mine had not been too bulky to pack.  I was feeling a bit underdressed in a mere suit and tie, though my main feeling was the wish that the University of Georgia’s colors [Go Dawgs] could have been represented there at least that once.  At least I was not the only one in such straits.  But perhaps it helped dissuade me from the folly of arising like Dumbledore to say three words. 

On Saturday we had a field trip to the ruins of Glastonbury Abbey and the very well preserved Wells Cathedral.  According to legend, the first church in Britain was founded at Glastonbury by Joseph of Arimathea, who came there as a missionary in AD 63, dispersed from Jerusalem along with many other Christians by the Neronian persecution.  Oh, yes, and by the way, he brought the Holy Grail with him.  History cannot confirm the Legend, but it does verify a Christian presence going all the way back into the 500’s; so I for one take pleasure in the fact that, if the legendary story cannot be proved, neither has it been disproved.

In the 1100’s, monks exavating for an expansion of the church found a grave containing the bodies of a man and a woman and a plaque that read ‘Hic jacet Arturus, Rex Britannorum.’  Here lies Arthur, King of the Britons.  Though some cynical persons believe that this was just a publicity stunt on the part of monks trying to increase the traffic of pilgrims, the bodies of Arthur and Guinnevere were reinterred with great pomp in a black marble tomb under the high altar before the watchful eyes of Henry I.  If our knowledge of human nature lends some support to the cynics, it should be balanced by the fact that Glastonbury is in fact in the very heart of Arthurian country, and the nearby hill Glastonbury Tor is thought by many to be the historic Isle of Avalon, for during that period the ocean came in and flooded the land around it, so that it was in fact an island.  Topped with a  14th century stone tower, it today reminds you of nothing so much as Weathertop, giving a splendid view of the surrounding countryside.

Glastonbury became the largest and, after Westminster, the second most wealthy monastery in England.  In 1539, it was dissolved and sacked by the gold-ravenous Henry VIII, along with every other monastic foundation in the country.  So insatiable was his greed that he even destroyed the tomb of Arthur.  [The magnificent tomb of St. Thomas a Becket in Canterbury, goal of Chaucer's Canterbury pilgrims, met a similar fate.] Abbot Whiting, 80 years old and frail, was hanged, drawn, and quartered.  The magnificent Gothic buildings fell into ruin and were scavenged for stones that ended up in local houses and barns.  What remains is one of the most beautiful and haunting sites in all of England.   

Nearby Wells Cathedral is one of the most elegant of Gothic churches, soaring heavenward as is the virtue of the Gothic style, but without the over-business on the inside that is sometimes its fault.  It is marked by a unique set of ’scissor arches’ that look as if they were part of the original design, but were actually added later to overcome settling from the excessive weight of the tower, and by the second oldest clock in England, still keeping excellent time after 600 years.  There are two knights on horseback who joust with one another on a circular track whenever the clock strikes.  One has a hinge in his back, and the poor fellow thus always loses, only to be set upright again inside the wall so he can emerge for another go against his ever victorious rival.  It is the medieval version of Lucy and Charlie Brown and the football. 

And so we come to the Lord’s Day, a day of rest and worship that leaves one curiously unsatisfied here.  For one must choose between, it would seem, a traditional Anglican service full of beauty and devoid of the Gospel, or else pay for biblical content in the sermon by enduring something chillingly chummy.  Well, I suppose most people have the same dilemma anywhere, but it seems especially irksome here, where the local pulpits have been filled by the likes of Wycliffe, Latimer, Newman, and even one Jack Lewis a time or two.  Sigh.

From the Dreaming Spires,

Don

Donald T. Williams, PhD, Co-Director
Summit Oxford Summer Studies Program

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Don March 30th, 2009

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.”  

            Here are a couple of short poems that will do to make an entry.  Scriptural paraphrase is a time-honored genre.  I flatter myself that the first of these is better than Sternhold and Hopkins in that mode.  The second piece is a bit of light verse that needs no explanation; it is a perfect commentary on itself. 

 I PETER 1:24-5 All flesh is like the meadow grass, Her glory as its flower.

Sun beats, wind blows, the seasons pass

They wither in an hour.

The petals fade and fall and die;

Their fate, like ours, is sure.

Not so, the Word of God!  For aye

It lives and shall endure.

 THE MUSE  You cannot force the sovereign Muse

To lend her aid to grace your views,

For if you try, she will refuse.

And your foul fate (it cannot miss)

Will be to write a poem like this!

Donald T. Williams, PhD

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Don March 30th, 2009

XXXIII

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.”

            Let the minutes show that before concluding my senior year of college I felt compelled to attempt another short sonnet cycle.  Once again there are only three, and once again the last line of one becomes the first line of the next to tie the whole together.  It is obvious that I then thought that topical references from the recent Sixties would maintain their relevance forever.  It is also obvious that I was reading the metaphysical poets that year and had not yet sufficiently assimilated their exuberantly intellectual example into my own voice.  I hope it is also obvious that I was having loads of fun writing this.  I hope you can have a little reading it.

SONNET VII

If by a deep-voiced stream you chant the “om”

Or beneath carven stone the agnus Dei;

If you humbly bow before the Bomb,

Or if your thoughts turn to Rosemary’s Baby;

Or if you wonder “Why?”, conjecture “Maybe,”

And by Experiment your theories prove;

If noble Reason’s your exalted lady,

And mystic feelings never can you move;

If you say Eros, Amor, or Love,

Nirvana, Shan-ti, sweet Shalom, or Peace;

If to the earth you look, or heaven above,

Or to Da Vinci’s West or Krishna’s East

For answers that can satisfy your soul—

Then ask if they can really make you whole! 

VIII

The physic that can make a patient whole

Must be proportioned to his proper ills,

For letting blood goes not toward that goal

Unless with sanguine humors he’s o’erfilled.

But what if black, blood-mottled, murderous Sin,

Rebellion ‘gainst the Godhead’s rightful reign,

Be that sickness man hath fallen in,

Whose bloody issue flows from pride-swol’n veings?

Aye, then blood-letting shall we want indeed.

But, lest the patients with the treatment die,

Vicarious, perfect, infinite veins must bleed,

As Christ’s once did for us at Calvary.

For thus our cure was bought, at infinite cost,

When Christ was nailed to Calvary’s central cross.

IX

When Christ was nailed to Calvary’s central cross

And his bright blood flowed out, the Sun was pale,

For in the Son’s sunset the Sun was lost,

And thus in mourning, morning’s light was veiled;

And thus in darkness shrouded Phoebus sailed

Until in glory, bursting from his tomb

And having conquered Sin and Death and Hell,

The rising Son broke, shattered, split the gloom,

And at Son’s rising Sun’s light was resumed.

And angels sang, for in that light the day

When Sin and Death would meet their final doom

Was set, ordained, as Holy Scriptures say.

And still the light shines forth, though sometimes dim,

That then was kindled in Jerusalem.

Donald T. Williams, PhD

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Don March 26th, 2009

XL 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 not only the Sonnet that has fallen into undeserved disuse in our modern/postmodern obsession with unstructured stream of consciousness; narrative poetry has lost its proper role in a balanced and healthy poetic art too.  So we’d better do something about that—and besides, there is a lot of intense biblical study going on that needs to be find its place in my verse to be fully assimilated.  Here is one result:

 SOLILOQUY:THE SAMARITAN WOMAN SPEAKS 

I didn’t expect that day to find him there,

His tired legs stretched out along the ground—

For I’d come late, just to avoid the stares,

The winks, the giggled whispers, and the frowns

Of all the other women of the town.

I didn’t expect t find him there that day,

His weary back propped up against the well

(For the burdens of the whole world seemed to weigh

Upon his mighty shoulders), but we fell

To talking.  Who he was, I could not tell.

But he could tell me everything that I

Had ever done.  His words into the core

Of my soul struck, and burned, and made me cry.

And I, who’d known so many men before—

Could I dare think that he was something more?

A prophet, surely—you could see he knew

Things that no ordinary man could know.

And when he spoke of God, his words rang true,

As if he knew firsthand that they were so.

“I know Messiah’s coming, and He will show

Us all things when He comes,” I said, and he

Gave me a look that made my heart stand still

In wonder, fear, and awed expectancy

To hear what he would say.  His words were chill,

Like a drink from the mountain-high spring that refreshes and fills!

And all that he has said was “I am He.”

I ran back to the town to tell the rest,

“Messiah is at the well!  Oh, come and see!”

Some stared at me as if I was possessed

Or the maker (or brunt, perhaps) of some bad jest,

But some there were who did come back with me

To my new master, Jesus, there to be

From all their load of sin and self set free.

Donald T. Williams, PhD

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Don March 24th, 2009

XXXIX Wordsworthrote 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 were no mountains near Chicago, but there was plenty of snow—on rare days enough even to overcome the snowplows of a very prepared Northern city and lock it down like a mere inch or two can do to us in the South.  So the mountains of my Southern memory asked to be added to the observations of my Northern experience, and this poem was the result.

 SNOW(December, 1973) 

See how the snow-fall, the silver shadow

Lies like a blanket upon the low land,

Marches in waves through the fields and the meadows,

Falls soft in the forest where tree-folk stand.

Molded in strange shapes it clings to high mountains,

Twisted and tortured and carved by the wind.

Piled high, it silently smothers the city,

And a rest from the meaningless hurry of men

(Who, knowing not whither nor why they must go,  

Spend all their time running, first to, and then fro)

Is the present of peace we receive from the snow.

Donald T. Williams, PhD

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Don March 17th, 2009

XXXVIII 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.” 

            Growth in skill as a poet is like any other growth.  It often proceeds in fits and starts, and sees three steps forward followed by two steps back.  If the previous poem was my first fully mature sonnet artistically, the next one shows some reversions to the old bad habits.  Various kinds of cheating—using archaic language and inversions to make meter and rhyme work out, for example—reappear.  They did not seem like cheating to that young writer because, of course, the Shakespearean sonnet was, after all, Shakespearean.  But you have not fully learned your master’s lessons as long as you still look like you are imitating him, rather than using the skills he has given you to make something that speaks with your own voice to your own contemporaries—who, unlike me, are not at home in Early Modern English.

            Nevertheless, the poem was worth writing and preserving, because imitation is part of the process of learning those lessons.  And it does use the sonnet form to structure thoughts that I still believe are true and worth saying.  They are worth saying better.  And the young man would still keep trying to do that.  You must judge whether and how often he succeeded.

 SONNET XIX 

Our God reveals himself in Persons three;

His Son incarnate is with natures twain.

From them comes Oneness in diversity

The which hath Holy Spirit for its name.

The Father is the Center and the Head;

The Son, begot before all time, the Heir;

The Spirit doth regenerate the dead

Because the Son hath loosed them from Death’s snare

By being born a man, of humble birth

And living a lowly life of servanthood

And spilling his pure blood upon the earth

When Pilate nailed him to the rough, crossed wood.

He died and rose; his death and life afford

New life to those who bow and call him Lord.

Donald T. Williams, PhD

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Don March 13th, 2009

XXXVII 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.” 

            Grad school asks for a step up in maturity.  Your peers are more uniformly purposeful and serious, and your professors are the masters of your former masters.  Add to that the greater stock of experience of the human condition and empathy in human joy and sorrow that any passing year brings to the attentive.  As I look back into the yellowed pages of the old notebook, I hope I am seeing a new level of maturity as an artist start to emerge.  At any rate, this is the first sonnet that seems to me to reach a level I might call fully satisfactory.  It still has a wee bit of cheating, but it has one well developed central image that flows inexorably toward its climax without any feeling of being contrived.  My first mature sonnet?  See what you think.

 SONNET XI 

The sky was huddled up next to the ground

As if for mutual warmth against the cold.

But that there was no warmth there to be found

Was plain: the earth looked hoar with frost and old.

The wild wind with great pressure swept the land

As though constricted by the louring sky,

And with many a powerful, grasping, unseen hand

Stripped naked all the trees as it swept by

And laid their twisted inner natures bare.

They bent beneath the wind as if with shame

Or some great lostness or despair

Or even greater burdens with no name.

On a day like that no man should e’er be out;

But out I was, and that I could not doubt. 

Doubt is part of faith, and the dark night of the soul a necessary prelude to dawn.  Never doubt that, no matter how cold your own winds blow.

Donald T. Williams, PhD

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Don March 3rd, 2009

XXXVI 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 1973-4, my first year in theological seminary at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School north of Chicago, working on my Master of Divinity degree.  Just as I had been constantly running off to read Augustine, Calvin, Hodge, or Warfield when I was supposed to be studying English literature, so now I was constantly sneaking off to read Dante, Shakespeare, Spenser, or Milton when I was supposed to be studying theology.  I think it is the best possible approach to both subjects.

            But the autumn of 1973 saw a much more portentous event than a new set of studies: the passing of J. R. R. Tolkien, whose Lord of the Rings had helped to awaken me from my prosaic slumbers in high school.  His elegy naturally had to take the form of the laments for Gandalf given by the Company while they rested in Lorien.

 TO J. R. R. TOLKIEN 

On a day when Fall’s first leaves were flying

And the Wind was howling, and Geese were crying,

Word first came, on dark wings riding:

“Tolkien is dead!”

Was all they said,

And left us crying.

He heard by light of star and moon

The Elven-songs, and learned their tunes.

He had longs walks with them, and talks,

Beneath the swaying trees in June.

Dwarf-mines deeply delved he saw

Where Mithril glittered on the walls

And might kings wrought wondrous things

And reigned in hollow, torchlit halls.

To forests wild and deep he went

And many lives of men he spent

Where leaves of years fall soft like tears,

Listening to the speech of Ents.

In lofty halls of men he sat

Or rustic rooms of bar-man fat;

In hobbit holes heard stories told

By an old man in a wizard’s hat.

With magic words of Dark and Light

And days of Doom and coming Night

And magic Rings and hoped for Spring,

He wrought the record of his sight.

In Beowulf’s bold fleet he sailed,

With Gawain the Green Knight beheld;

By Beortnoth’s side he stood and cried,

As scores of pagan Danes he felled,

“Will shall be sterner, heart the bolder,Spirit the greater as our strength fails!” 

On a day when Fall’s first leaves were flying

And the Wind was howling, and Geese were crying,

Word first came, on dark wings riding:

“Tolkien is dead!”

Was all they said,

And left us crying.

Donald T. Williams, PhD

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