A Smattering of Poetry – Donne & Hopkins

I took poetry last quarter, and read a great variety. Some poems were interesting, some were boring, some I will avoid for the rest of my life, and some – I care not what the teacher said – made no sense. When things do not make sense I do not want to try to extract a hidden meaning or write an in-class essay about it, thank you very much.

But some poems I really liked. These are two of my favorites – Christian poems. The first one my teacher really did not understand, which makes sense as he was not a believer and the concept of asking God to “take you captive” would make no sense if you did not follow Christ.

Without further ado, here they are -

John Donne, Holy Sonnet #14

Batter my heart, three-person’d God ; for you
As yet but knock ; breathe, shine, and seek to mend ;
That I may rise, and stand, o’erthrow me, and bend
Your force, to break, blow, burn, and make me new.
I, like an usurp’d town, to another due,
Labour to admit you, but O, to no end.
Reason, your viceroy in me, me should defend,
But is captived, and proves weak or untrue.
Yet dearly I love you, and would be loved fain,
But am betroth’d unto your enemy ;
Divorce me, untie, or break that knot again,
Take me to you, imprison me, for I,
Except you enthrall me, never shall be free,
Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me.

Gerard Manley Hopkins, God’s Grandeur

The world is charged with the grandeur of God.
It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;
It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil
Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod?
Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;
And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;
And wears man’s smudge and shares man’s smell: the soil
Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.

And for all this, nature is never spent;
There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;
And though the last lights off the black West went
Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs—
Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.

Jinasena from “The Great Legend”

While flipping through a book (at the library, where else?) I found this quote by a ninth century Indian teacher and poet, Jinasena. I found it very interesting. In most cases I find his arguments paper thin, but that may just be from my inexperienced view. In other cases I laugh at his arguments, as I see so much more the glory of God in them! Indeed, why would God have created the world? Because He loves US? How preposterous! How absurd! And yet it’s true… it nearly makes one giddy in amazement and joy.

But here is the quote, let me know your thoughts.

Some foolish men declare that Creator made the world.

The doctrine that the world was created is ill-advised and should be rejected.

If God created the world, where was he before creation?

If you say he was transcendent then, and needed no support, where is he now?

No single being had the skill to make this world -

For how can an immarterial god create that which is material?

How could God have made this world without any raw material?

If you say that he made this first, and then the world you are face with an endless regression.

If you declare that this raw material arose naturally you fall into another fallacy,

For the whole universe might thus have been its own creator, and have arisen quite naturally.

If God created the world by an act of his own mill, without any raw material,

Then it is just his will and nothing else – and who will believe this silly nonsense?

If He is ever perfect and complete how could the will to create have arisen in him?

If, on the other hand, he is not perfect, he could no more create the universe than a potter could.

If he is formless, actionless, and all-embracing, how could he have created the world?

Such a soul, devoid of all morality, would have no desire to create anything.

If he is perfect, he does not strive for the three aims of man, so what advantage would he gain by creating the universe?

If you say that he created to no purpose, because it was his nature to do so, then God is pointless.

If he created in some kind of sport, it was the sport of a foolish child, leading to trouble.

If he created because of the karma of embodied beings [acquired in a previous creation]

He is not the Almighty Lord, but subordinate to something else…

If out of love for living beings and need of them he made the world, why did he not take creation wholly blissful, free from misfortune?

If he were transcendent he would not create, for he would be free: Nor if involved in transmigration, for then he would not be almighty.

Thus the doctrine that the world was created by God

Makes no sense at all.

And God commits great sin in slaying the children whom he himself created.

If you say that he slays only to destroy evil beings, why did he create such beings in the first place…?

Good men should combat the beliver in divine creatin, maddened by an evil doctrine.

Know that the world is uncreated, as time itself is, without beginning or end,

And it is based on the principles, life and rest.

Uncreated and indestructible, it endures under the compulsion of its own nature.

And there it is. But what do you think?

Child, come home!

Sorry, it’s been a while since I’ve written! But then no one’s reading this =), and it’s really for my benefit. I’ve just got to get used to that idea, like with my diary. Once I stopped apologizing for taking so long to write and only wrote when I felt like it and wrote what I felt like, I wrote a lot more! So be patient.

I don’t have much to say – just wanted to put down a few songs that the Lord gave me. I don’t really have any melodies to go with them…and I’m not sure how to do that (but I will, someday). So I guess right now it’s more like a poem – a really random, vague poem, sorry about that! Anyway, here’s the words.

One day I’m laughing

then I’m crying as before

One moment I feel you –

The next so alone

It just goes on and on, a never-ending circle.

O how I need a Savior.

I wanna stop this cycle of running and coming back

Sometimes You’re near

Sometimes You’re far

Sometimes I see

Sometimes I’m blind

Remind me of what You said

You’re here – with love in Your eyes

You’ll never leave – I am Your joy

You are a God who reveals. A God of mercy.

And You’re calling me to lose myself in You.

And this is a second one -

Child, come home!

You’ve wandered so far

When here in my arms

Is the only  – safe ground

Do you know how I love you?

Do you know how I love you?

Do you know how much I love you?

Just turn and look back

And I’ll be running to meet you

Arms open wide…

Just breathe my name

And I’m there

Give Me your burdens

I’ll lighten your load.

We’ll travel together

Through the valley of death

To an overflowing cup

In the House of the Lord

Child, return! To your Father who groans

To hold you in His arms

He calls you His own…

That’s all I’ve got so far. Thanks for reading, folks! =)