“God is the perfect poet.”~Robert Browning

The oldest poem on the favorites hit parade is an appropriate fit for this day after Resurrection Day and the week after Passover. Psalm 23 only got three listings as a favorite poem, but I think that’s because many people don’t think of the psalms as poems. They are poetry, though, and poetry that has lasted through the ages, through translation, and through application to the lives of many, many people.

The traditional, King James Version goes:

For the familiar KJV poetic version, half credit must go to the 47 scholars who met, beginning in 1604, to translate the Bible into English. In particular, the First Cambridge Company translated from 1 Chronicles to the Song of Solomon, and was made up of the following scholars and clergy: Edward Lively, John Richardson, Lawrence Chaderton, Francis Dillingham, Roger Andrewes, Thomas Harrison, Robert Spaulding, Andrew Bing. They in turn relied on the work of earlier translators such as William Tyndale and Miles Coverdale.

Thus, the psalms became one of the few examples in the English language of “poetry by committee,” and if you believe, as I do, that all Scripture is God-breathed, then the psalms and other poetry in Scripture are the only poems we have that can boast God himself as Author and Finisher.
Here’s a beautiful musical version of this psalm as performed by the late Keith Green, still my favorite CCM artist:

I grew up a child of the ’70’s, and the version of Psalm 23 that got my attention came from The Living Bible, a Biblical paraphrase by Kenneth Taylor:

Because the LORD is my Shepherd, I have everything I need!
He lets me rest in the meadow grass and leads me beside the quiet streams. He restores my failing health. He helps me do what honors him the most.
Even when walking through the dark valley of death I will not be afraid, for you are close beside me, guarding, guiding all the way.
You provide delicious food for me in the presence of my enemies. You have welcomed me as your guest; blessings overflow!
Your goodness and unfailing kindness shall be with me all of my life, and afterwards I will live with you forever in your home.

The images in the psalm of a bed, a table, a journey, and a final rest at home are universal and comforting in any language. Psalm 23 is traditionally sung by Jews in Hebrew at the third Shabbat meal on Saturday afternoon.

Eugene Peterson’s The Message, takes the psalm into contemporary English usage and phraseology, and Phillip Keller’s classic book explicates the psalm form the point of view of a real shepherd:

God, my shepherd! I don’t need a thing.
You have bedded me down in lush meadows,
you find me quiet pools to drink from.
True to your word,
you let me catch my breath
and send me in the right direction.

Your beauty and love chase after me
every day of my life.
I’m back home in the house of God
for the rest of my life.
The Message by Eugene Peterson.

A metrical version of the psalm is often paired with the hymn tune Crimond, which is usually attributed to Jessie Seymour Irvine. The singers here are a boy’s choir called Libera:

The Lord is My Shepherd: An Anthology.
Listen to Psalm 23 in Hebrew.
Psalm 23 resources, including Spurgeon’s exposition of the psalm.
Psalm 23 commentary and sermon aids
Safe in the Shepherd’s Arms by Max Lucado.
The 23rd Psalm, illustrated by Michael Hague.
Psalm 23, illustrated by Tim Ladwig. Urban, African American setting.
Hebrew poetry explained.
Song: The King of Love My Shepherd Is.
Hymn: The Lord’s My Shepherd, I’ll Not Want.

I had 54 people respond to my classic poetry survey in which I asked you to send me a list of your 10 favorite classic poems. Classic was defined as published before 1923 or no longer copyright protected. Those 54 people had a total of 278 poems listed as favorites in their combined lists. 121 poets were represented in the lists.

The poet with the most poems cited was an American poet (nineteenth century), and the poet with the most total votes was also American (twentieth century). The favorite poems are about evenly divided over the seventeenth, nineteenth, and twentieth centuries with the eighteenth century underrepresented, and only a few poems from before 1600.

103 of the poets represented were men, 14 were women, and four of the favorites were by unknown authors. The poems that readers chose were overwhelming written originally in English, with only a few poems that were translated from another language included.

Because I had far fewer responses to this survey than to last year’s hymn survey, and because many of the respondents did not rank their choices or did not have 10 favorites, but fewer than that, I decided to give each poem on someone’s favorite list just one vote. With that method of tabulation, I ended up with 72 poems that got more than one vote. So I have decided to “count down” the 100 Favorite Poems, not according to number of votes received but rather in chronological order beginning with the oldest poems on the list. To make it an even 100 I’ll intersperse some of my personal favorites that may have been on one person’s list or may not have made any list at all. Some of the newest poems that received multiple votes were borderline as far as copyright protection, published in the 1920’s or even 30’s, but I’m going to post them, too, maybe with just an excerpt to whet your poetic appetite.

So get ready for a Poetry Pilgrimage through the history of (mostly English) poetry and through the old and new favorites of my most loyal readers and of my own family. I hope you discover some new favorites yourself as you look for your own treasured poems on the list. We’ll begin the journey on Monday, April 5th, with the oldest poem to make the list–a few thousand years old, in fact.

Guesses?

Serena at Savvy Verse and Wit is hostessing the National Poetry Month 2010 Blog Tour, of which this post is a part. Read her welcome post for more information, but it’s going to be full of delicious-ness, including reviews of poetry books old and new, poet interviews and features, information on how to read poetry and how to read it aloud, all sorts of poetic revels for Poetry Month, 2010. Read more poetry there, and be sure to come back here on Monday for the beginning of 100 Top Classic Poems at Semicolon.