Three Poems for October

This is the third blog in a series. For those of you who wish to attend poetry readings or wish to attend more poetry readings than you already have, but are hindered by time, distance and a lack thereof, here are a few poem recommendations from Lori Hershberger.

 

“In No Strange Land” by Francis Thompson

O world invisible, we view thee,

O world intangible, we touch thee,

O world unknowable, we know thee,

Inapprehensible, we clutch thee!

Does the fish soar to find the ocean,

The eagle plunge to find the air—

That we ask of the stars in motion

If they have rumour of thee there?

Not where the wheeling systems darken,

And our benumbed conceiving soars!—

The drift of pinions, would we hearken,

Beats at our own clay-shuttered doors.

The angels keep their ancient places;—

Turn but a stone and start a wing!

’Tis ye, ’tis your estrangèd faces,

That miss the many-splendoured thing.

But (when so sad thou canst not sadder)

Cry;—and upon thy so sore loss

Shall shine the traffic of Jacob’s ladder

Pitched betwixt Heaven and Charing Cross.

Yea, in the night, my Soul, my daughter,

Cry,—clinging to Heaven by the hems;

And lo, Christ walking on the water,

Not of Genesareth, but Thames!

 

Lori Hershberger writes:

The seeming contradictions in the first verse catch the reader’s attention: “invisible, we view,” “intangible, we touch,” “unknowable, we know.” How can these contradictions work? In the second verse, Thompson uses the apt illustration of the fish soaring to find the sea, or the eagle plunging to find the air. When I read this illustration, it suddenly makes sense that God is all around me and not some distant mirage in space that I should be striving to know. The poem states that we are striving blindly to feel God when, if we would look with the right eyes, we could see Him. In “The Seeing Eye,” C.S. Lewis says: “The Russians, I am told, report that they have not found God in outer space.” Looking for God—or Heaven—by exploring space is like reading or seeing all Shakespeare’s plays in the hope that you will find Shakespeare as one of the characters or Stratford as one of the places. Space-travel really has nothing to do with the matter. To some, God is discoverable everywhere; to others, nowhere. Those who do not find Him on earth are unlikely to find Him in space. (Hang it all, we’re in space already; every year we go a huge circular tour in space.) But send a saint up in a spaceship and he’ll find God in space as he found God on earth. Much depends on the seeing eye.

I love the biblical allusions, that are not too subtle to miss, but not too obvious to be boring. “Turn but a stone and start a wing,” gives one the feel of Psalms 91, while “clinging to heaven by the hems” suggests the woman with the issue of blood that touched the hem of Jesus’ skirt to be healed. “Jacob’s ladder” and “Christ walking on the water” are not as subtle but well done nonetheless. The entire poem brings to life the biblical and spiritual narrative in our ordinary lives, nudging the reader to see how God is a present God, not just the stuff of a legend, fairy tale, or myth, but a God who walks on the Thames River, the Arkansas River, or the Salawin River.

 

“Desert Places” by Robert Frost

Snow falling and night falling fast, oh, fast

In a field I looked into going past,

And the ground almost covered smooth in snow,

But a few weeds and stubble showing last.

The woods around it have it – it is theirs.

All animals are smothered in their lairs.

I am too absent-spirited to count;

The loneliness includes me unawares.

And lonely as it is, that loneliness

Will be more lonely ere it will be less –

A blanker whiteness of benighted snow

With no expression, nothing to express.

They cannot scare me with their empty spaces

Between stars – on stars where no human race is.

I have it in me so much nearer home

To scare myself with my own desert places.

 

Frost uses outer imagery to convey inner landscapes in this poem. Snow carries a sense of the solitary, and he uses it effectively to portray his inward emptiness. These phrases especially show this: “snow falling, and night falling, fast, oh fast,” (note the snow and night coupled together) “covered smooth in snow, except for a few weeds and stubble,” and “a blanker whiteness of benighted snow.” Despite the loneliness of the woods and the loneliness of the stars, “empty spaces/between stars- on stars where no human race is,” Frost goes on to say that he has just as much desolation within him.

Frost also uses alliteration and repetition which works extremely well. “falling… falling, fast oh fast,” “smooth…snow,” “lonely….. loneliness,” “lonely…less,” “blanker….benighted,” “no expression, nothing to express,” “stars- on stars.” What makes it even better is listening to a recording of Frost reading it himself. (available on Spotify)

 

 “Psalm 126” by Elizabeth Riall

Why laugh they like men still dreaming?

I wake in a rain of tears.

Why sing they of sweet springs streaming?

My back in the raw sun sears.

Why shout they of captives homing?

I wander strange ways alone.

Why joy they in sheaves at gloaming?

I faint in a field ungrown.

Why cheer so the crowds about us?

Why speak they God’s great things?

Because there is a doubtless

Between the weeps and brings.

 

I love it when a biblical passage or allusion is well done. This passage does this well because it restates Psalm 126 personally, while alluding to the original passage in a way that makes readers connect the dots themselves. It is an honest lament in the middle of the cheers of Psalms 126, the raw lament of the one whose hopes are yet unfulfilled while the crowd around rejoices. Yet, in the end, the author still clings to the promise of the KJV translation, “there is a doubtless between the weeps and brings.” Bright, living imagery pulls the reader into the poem, into that barren field with the sun beating down, weeping in an ungrown field. This poem was a personal encouragement when I read it in a Pathway magazine over ten years ago during a difficult, exhausting time.

 

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Works Cited 

“Reflections: The Seeing Eye.” C.S. Lewis Institute, 3 May 2022, www.cslewisinstitute.org/resources/reflections-january-2017/.

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Artwork: Pieter Jansz 1597-1665 Interior of the Church of St Bavon at Haarlem