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 1981-82, my second and last year as Temporary Lecturer in English at the University of Georgia, teaching a full load of Freshman Composition while writing my dissertation.  The dissertation was on Edmund Spenser.  Can you tell?  Dr. Ewbank was my faculty adviser for my undergraduate degree in English.

On Spenserian Stanza

For Two Teachers: Edmund Spenser and Frances Ewbank.

When Spenser wrote The Faerie Queene, he made

A brand new stanza up in which to frame

The glorious knights and ladies he portrayed

Triumphant over villains full of shame.

Ever different, yet still the same,

It had to hold up through the spacious land

Of Faerie from end to end, and flame

More bright with virtue there than e’er the hand

Of author had achieved, in verses quaint or grand.

Ottava Rima had the flow he needed,

But seemed in live a lady far too light

To shadow forth the gallant knights who heeded

The Code of Maidenheed and served the bright

And gracious Gloriana truly.  Might

A pensive sonnet cycle then avail?

But that would never serve to show the flight

Of narrative events in time.  The tale,

It seemed, must then be dight in wholly different mail.

Yet if the two could somehow be combined—

Could move with supple dignity, but yet

Be not in short, concise quatrains confined

Nor have its forward movement always let,

Caught in the closing couplet’s double net;

And yet still pause for needed contemplation—

With light impediment, enough to whet

The reader’s appetite for exploration—

Now that would truly be a gallant innovation!

Suppose we take Ottava Rima, add,

To slow its headlong plunge, a single line,

Rhyming with the last, but subtly clad

With just one extra foot to be a sign

Of need to sip with care such heady wine—

So came The Fairie Queene.  And there has been

No poem in which the Glory seemed to shine

More brightly since the storied epoch when

The Sweet Singer of Israel wielded the sword and the pen.

And thou, doctor mihi carissima,

Who showed me how to look with eyes undim

Upon the bright, the ars dulcissima

Of sacred Poesy, and thence to skim

Cream, not of just aesthesis, nor of whim,

But of the Truth well imaged forth, displayed,

Filling the cup of wisdom to the brim;

If worthily I now wield Spenser’s blade,

The praise is thine, who long hast labored, taught, and prayed.

Donald T. Williams, PhD

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.”

            John Skelton was an early Sixteenth-Century English poet whose lines are, in some people’s eyes, so bad that they’re good.  He gave his name to the form: iambic dimeter rhyming AAAAA etc. as long as you can keep it up, then switching to B for as long as that will go, etc.  Skeltonics aren’t the right form for many things, but they work well for some kinds of light verse, and also seem strangely appropriate for any phenomenon that just keeps coming back like a Skeltonic rhyme, er, bad penny.

A Skeltonic Upon Sanctification

When in did ride

My foolish pride,

I vainly tried

To run and hide;

But God espied

It, mortified

It, so it died,

Until again

It rose.  So men

Do ever sin.

But God, to win

Them to come in

And save their skin

From burning Hell

Doth in them dwell

And sweetly tell

How from the well

Of Jesus’ blood

A crimson flood

Did drown the Tree

At Calvary

To purchase me

That I might be

Forever free

His slave to be.

Then Godly fear

And holy cheer

Did drive out sin

Until again

Straight in did ride     

My foolish pride,

I vainly tried

To run and hide;

But God espied

It, mortified

It, so it died,

Until again . . .

(This poem, my friend,

Will never end

‘Til Christ comes back,

And that’s a fact!)

Donald T. Williams, PhD

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.”

            Anyone seeing the influence of George Herbert here gets an official brownie point.

The Will

When our Lord chose the Church to be his bride,

                                                He did not chide,

But took her sins as dowry, though it bled

His heart’s blood out to bear them, and he died,

Bequeathing his estate.  The will was read

And published throughout all his kingdoms wide.

“I here leave all to her whom I have wed:

Forgiveness, life, myself no longer dead,”

                                                Was what it said.

Donald T. Williams, PhD

            When everybody else was abandoning iambic pentameter for free verse, Gerard Manley Hopkins dove even deeper into the metrical sea of poetry and came up with creative pearls we still haven’t caught up to.  This tribute was in New Oxford Review, May, 1981.

 To Gerard Manley Hopkins 

Daylight’s dauphin, wanwood, dimaond delves,

Mountain mind-cliffs, lightning, eyes of elves,

Finches’ wings or falcons’, wolfsnow, wet

Weeds wildness by the burn-bank lingering yet,

Thoughts of Scotus, music of Purcell

Ring out like stones rim-tumbled in a well.

All are lead-golden echoes, all a view

Of Eden Garden, fresh when it was new

Or cursed and cacerous, fell with Adam’s fall,

Blasted with death’s dread worst despair—Not all

Is this the tale.  Christ did for that he came,

Grace graces: thus He flings out broad His Name;

The Spirit boods still; brooded over you.

Your firedint, mark on mind is not yet through:

Still in your lines He flings it forth anew.

Donald T. Williams, PhD

            Here I am particularly experimenting with the effects you can achieve with one of the aspects of sprung rhythm, what Hopkins called “clashing accents”:  two monosyllabic stressed feet suddenly coming together in an otherwise flowing line.  See if you can find them.

Commentary, Romans 8:22

And the Sea rises and falls, and the Moon walks,

And the leaves unfold like a scroll rolled each spring,

But no one stops to read them, and the Wind talks

Of the flesh that weeps and the soul that cannot sing.

And the Sun rises and sets, and the Rain falls,

And the leaves achieve a glory of red and gold,

But the long Darkness grows, and the Snow calls,

And the leaves clutch like withered hands, and old.

And the Crone counts the dead leaves in the dark light

And will not tell the numbers that she finds;

And if the child can be born in the hard night,

He’s swaddled in the subtle shroud she winds.

And the Sea rises and falls, and the Moon walks,

And the leaves unfold like a scroll rolled each spring,

But no one stops to read them, and the Wind talks

Of the flesh that weeps and the soul that cannot sing.

Donald T. Williams, PhD

Is this argument valid?  Maybe.  My hunger does not prove that I will get any bread, or that any given loaf exists; but it does prove I was designed to need nourishment.  John Beversluis contends that the argument fails as a syllogistic proof and refuses to consider it as anything else.  I’m not sure he is right on either count, but I’m pretty sure he’s wrong on the latter.   

There are more conclusive proofs for the existence of God than the Argument from Desire; but I do think that the argument has value. It points to a critical difference between human beings and other animals. A cat which is full and warm is perfectly contented. It just curls up and goes to sleep. A human being is mighty ill at ease if he is not full and warm, but when he has satisfied those desires he will pretty soon start asking, “Is that all there is? What’s next?”

I think we can say at minimum that the existence of beings who cannot ever be completely contented by the fulfillment of their physical wants is consistent with Christian Theism and less consistent with Naturalism. By itself it might not be a “proof” in any rigorous sense, but it is an important indicator and helps to confirm the conclusion we are led to by the cosmological, teleological, and moral arguments, by Lewis’s Argument from Reason, and by the historical evidence for the Resurrection of Christ.

One of Lewis’s forerunners in the Theology of Desire, George Herbert, described the human condition well in his poem “The Pulley.” The Argument from Desire in Mere Christianity can at least serve to focus our attention on the reality Herbert describes:

When God at first made Man,
Having a glasse of blessings standing by,
“Let us,” said he, “poure on him all we can;
Let the world’s riches, which dispersed lie,
Contract into a span.”

So strength first made a way;
Then beauty flowed, then wisedome, honour, pleasure.
When almost all was out, God made a stay,
Perceiving that, alone of all his treasure,
Rest in the bottom lay.

“For If I should,” said he,
“Bestow this jewel also on my creature,
He would adore my gifts instead of me
And rest in Nature, not the God of Nature;
So both would losers be.”

“Yet let him keep the rest,
But keep them with repining restlessness.
Let him be rich and wearie, that at least
If goodnesse leade him not, yet wearinesse
May tosse him to my breast.”

If like Lewis we examine our own history of desires and their fulfillment or lack thereof, I believe we will find that the results are consistent with Herbert’s perspective, and are less well explained by Naturalism. The Argument from Desire may not be a proof, then, but it is an indicator and a confirmation.

Longing but not (yet) satisfied,

Donald T. Williams, PhD

LXXII

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.”

            This is in some ways my most ambitious mini sonnet sequence yet—only three sonnets, but they are packed with theological and metaphysical content.  I think I must have been studying the English metaphysical poets about this time: Done, Herbert, Vaughan.  I try to capture some of their compact richness and profundity, but adjusted for a more modern sensibility, or at least set of questions, so that it does not become a mere pastiche.  See how well you think I succeeded.

THE WORD:  Sonnets XXIII-XXV 

Epigraph

And the light shone in darkness and

Against the Word the unstilled world still whirled

About the center of the silent Word.

T. S. Eliot, “Ash Wednesday”

          The void gulped down, but could not hold, the Word.

                                                The formless dark was shattered in a bright

                                                Explosion, flinging out across the night

           A dancing host.  As in a flock, each bird,

           In answer to the music that is heard,

                                                Wheels in unison across the height

                                                Of heaven, one. Though many, in their flight,

          Around the central Singer stars now whirred.

                                  Giving voice to the unspoken Name

                                                That held them with strong bonds of pure desire,

           Burning with reflected, holy flame,

                                                They showed forth the unseen, sustaining Fire.

          And still they sing.  The Center which surrounds

          All circles still supplies their burning sounds.

          His life lit up the world while yet the sun

                                                Was but an idea in her Maker’s mind.

                                                Yet Lucifer the mighty looked upon

                                                His glory greedily and was struck blind,

          Inventing darkness of a different kind

                                                From what had been before.  ‘Til then, the night

                                                Had been left to contrast with that which shined,

                                                In pleasant patters setting off the light

          Which lit each angel’s eyes and gave him sight.

                                                But now, light twisted into what was not,

                                                Swirled in perverse patterns, moved by spite,

                                                Was proclaimed as new vision in a plot

          To unseat God himself.  The flaming Word

                                                Could not be quenched, but seeing eyes were blurred

          And self-willed pits of sightless blackness yawned

                                                Inside the minds of some.  They screamed and fell

                                                Into themselves, pursuing a light that dawned

                                                Outside the Son—but all they found was Hell:

          The self, clenched shut against the light, a shell

                                                Of utter loneliness where once had burned

                                                The singing Fire, the holy Flame, the Well

                                                Of light reflected each to each, returned

          To Him who gave, received again, unearned,

                                                The gift: light which was love, love which was life.

                                                All this was what the falling angels spurned

                                                Because it was not of themselves.  The strife

          Which they began comes back to haunt mankind,

                                                Which, likewise seeking Sonless light, is blind.

 Epilog 

The Word in unchanged harmony still burns

At the world’s heart.  Around it slowly turns

A universe of self-inflicted pain.

Against our orbits, futilely, we strain

In grinding discord.  For the blind depraved

There’s no escape but to be damned or saved.

Donald T. Williams, PhD

There is a bit of Gerard Manley Hopkins’ influence here.  I would not write really good sprung rhythm until later, but there is an exuberance in this celebration of the coming of spring that asked some lightening of the strict iambic pentameter of the traditional sonnet.  I think it works.  See what you think.

 SONNET XVIII 

Today is a day for praising the sun in the meadow

And the high-wind, the sky-wind, that’s blown from snown peaks to our faces;

A day for the swift-gliding races of cloud-cast shadow,

For leaf-wing, bird, all things that move to be put through their paces.

A day for the laughing of maidens, the giving of graces;

A day for the splashing of singing-stream, rock-tumble water

And the blooming of sweet mountain laurel in seldom seen places.

A day for hot sun in the desert to shine even hotter;

A day for clay cliffs to be shaped by the wind-handed Potter.

Today is a day for the thunder and lightning to battle

And roar on high passes until the great stone-boulders totter

And send down the swift –ending rain while the storm windows rattle.

            It’s a day for singing, for telling the oft-told story,

            For praising the ancient, twy-natured enfleshment of Glory.

Donald T. Williams, PhD

            In “Expostulation and Reply” and “The Tables Turned,” Wordsworth defends his practice of mooning around the Lake Country waiting for inspiration against those who think he ought to be doing something more edifying, like reading a book.  Nature, he claims, is a superior teacher.  “One impulse from a vernal wood / Can teach me more of man, / Of moral evil and of good, / Than all the sages can.” 

            Oh, really?

 A REJOINDER TO MR. WORDSWORTH 

“Will” bids us Nature’s students be

And treats book learning with contempt.

We wonder if his poetry

From this fine maxim is exempt?

I think that what we learn from her

Of moral good and ill is fine;

But after all, I must aver,

It’s Man that has a mind!

And God supremely, who doth teach

Truth absolute in Holy Books,

In number sixty-six, and each

A guide to help us look

At Nature’s pages, there to see

Aright and not be sore confused.

For Arrogance, who tries to be

His own guide, is with ease abused.

I do not seek to minimize

That which from Nature we can know;

I only wish to emphasize

We cannot hope to learn it so.

An impulse from a vernal wood

Could never do me half the good

Without long, careful, studious looks

Between the pages of my books.

            Nature does not and cannot teach positive moral content.  Look at her from one angle and she is our benevolent mother; from another and she is red in tooth and claw.  What she can provide is a metaphorical language that gives meaning to our concepts.  That is a great gift.  So we need the Library Carrel and the Lake Country to be whole men and women.

Donald T. Williams, PhD

            Robert Frost shared both inner and outer weather with the tree at his window.  Truly they are connected.  Besides, the outer weather can sometimes just be so much fun!

 WEATHER REPORTDelivered by Radagast the Brown

To the People of Harlindon

What news does the West Wind bring today

From lands undying, far away?

Joy she brings from Westernesse

And comes with ocean waves cavorting,

While tall clouds in gallant dress

Ride on her back to watch the sporting.

                                                Reaching the land

                                                With no less than

A thousand thunder-voices snorting,

                                                She laughs with glee;

                                                Nor hill nor tree

Will be her headlong passage thwarting!

Blowing leaves and blowing paper

With the West wind dance and caper.

Donald T. Williams, PhD