“Who writes poetry imbibes honey from the poisoned lips of life.”~William Rose Benet

One day I wrote her name upon the strand,
But came the waves and washed it away:
Again I wrote it with a second hand,
But came the tide, and made my pains his prey.
Vain man, said she, that doest in vain assay
A mortal thing so to immortalize,
For I myself shall like to this decay,
And eek my name be wiped out likewise.
Not so (quoth I), let baser things devise
To die in dust, but you shall live by fame:
My verse your virtues rare shall eternize,
And in the heavens write your glorious name.
Where whenas Death shall all the world subdue,
Our love shall live, and later life renew.

Ah! the poet will immortalize his love in poetry, and her virtues will in turn make his poetry immortal. ‘Tis a consummation devoutly to be wished!

Edmund Spenser’s most famous poem is probably his epic, The Faerie Queen, but does anyone really read it anymore? Even for an Elizabethan poetry class, it’s way too long, and everyone’s ready to get on to Shakespeare and Donne, right? Carrie, Reading to Know, started with Book 1 and Book 2 of The Faerie Queen, but hasn’t finished as far as I can tell. Mental Multivitamin recommends The Questing Knights of the Faerie Queen by Geraldine McCaughrean, an illustrated retelling of the poem.
C.S.Lewis: “”Beyond all doubt, it is best to have made one’s first acquaintance with Spenser in a very large — and preferably illustrated — edition of The Faerie Queen, on a wet day, between the ages of twelve and sixteen.””

Sonnet 75 is from Spenser’s Amoretti, a series of sonnets he wrote during his courtship of his second wife. He also wrote another poem called Epithalmion for his wedding to the object of his desire in the sonnets of Amoretti. Anthony Esolen contrasts Spenser’s view of marriage with contemporary “pseudogamy” in this post at Mere Comments.

Other famous Spenserian lines from sundry poems:

“I was promised on a time – to have reason for my rhyme;
From that time unto this season, I received nor rhyme nor reason.”

”Make haste therefore, sweet love, whilst it is prime,
For none can call again the passed time.”

“What is poetry? Not quite getting what you want, and thereby getting something better.”~Robert Peake, explaining The Pleasures of Frustration in Poetry

Skipping over several centuries between poem #3 and poem #4, we come to Christopher Marlowe’s impassioned invitation from a romantic shepherd to his lady love:

I must be un-romantic because the poem immediately made me think of this scene from It’s a Wonderful Life. The scene I’m thinking about starts at about the four minute mark:

Isn’t Mr. Stewart aka George Bailey the epitome of the Passionate Shepherd? Sir Walter Raleigh was about as skeptical as Violet in the movie, and he wrote a poem in which the “nymph” responds to Marlowe’s shepherd.

Other responses to/parodies of Marlowe’s poem:
The Bait by John Donne, in which the beloved becomes a fishy sort of bait for unwary poor fishies. “That fish, that is not catch’d thereby/Alas! is wiser far than I.”

Love Under the Republicans (or Democrats) by Ogden Nash, in which economic necessity cramps true love’s song. “Come, live with me and be my love/And we will all the pleasures prove/Of a marriage conducted with economy/In the Twentieth Century Anno Donomy.”

Invitation by W.D. Snodgrass.

Raleigh Was Right by William Carlos Williams. “We cannot go to the country/for the country will bring us no peace.” Listen to this poem at PennSound.

“Marlowe was killed in 1593 at the age of twenty-nine. There is something in the meteor-like suddenness of his appearance in the skies of poetry, and in the swift flaming of his genius through its course, that seems to make inevitable his violent end. He sums up for us the Renaissance passion for life, sleepless in its search and daring in its grasp after the infinite in power, in knowledge, and in pleasure.” ~A History of English Literature, Seventh Edition by William Vaughn Moody, Robert Morss Lovett, and Fred B. Millett.

The Passionate Shepherd was written in about 1588 or 1589, but published posthumously in 1599.

This powerful poem/prayer of blessing and invocation is supposed to have been composed by St. Patrick himself both in Latin and in Gaelic. It has at least three titles: The Lorica, The Deer’s Cry, and St. Patrick’s Breastplate. This version is one translation that I found here.

I arise today through a mighty strength, the invocation of the Trinity, through belief in the Threeness, through confession of the Oneness of the Creator of creation.

I arise today through a mighty strength, the invocation of the Trinity,
through belief in the Threeness,
through confession of the Oneness of the Creator of creation.
Salvation is of the Lord. Salvation is of the Lord.
Salvation is of Christ. May Thy Salvation, O Lord, be ever with us.

I thought this musical version was lovely, both the singer and the scenery:

St. Patrick himself, the poet/missionary to whom the poem is attributed, was an interesting character. Read more about him at Wikipedia or at History.com.

“Poets have, indeed, often communicated in their own mode of expression truths identical with the theologians’ truths; but just because of the difference in the modes of expression, we often fail to see the identity of the statements.”~Dorothy Sayers, The Mind of the Maker

To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:
A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted;
A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up;
A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance;
A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;
A time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away;
A time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace.

Like father, like son. David wrote psalms; his son, Solomon recorded proverbs and the love poem of the Songs of Songs, and Ecclesiastes, an extended meditation on the futility of a life lived without meaning, without God. (Or maybe someone else just wrote Ecclesiastes and put the words into Solomon’s mouth. Scholars are unsure.)

This particular passage from Ecclesiastes talks about the seasons of our lives: the seemingly banal idea, that we are finite beings caught in Time and only able to live as creatures within time, turns out to be quite profound when you think about it. For we live in seasons and times, and yet we have this desire to transcend time and apprehend eternity. Where does this longing for eternity come from? Why do so many writers play with the ideas of time travel and speeding up and slowing down time? Why, if we are creatures of time, does time seem so limiting and foreign to us? Why did Solomon go on to write in verse eleven of this same chapter: “He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also He has put eternity in their hearts, except that no one can find out the work that God does from beginning to end?”

‘Tis a puzzlement, and meant in some sense for poetry rather than prose.

In traditional Judaic practice, Ecclesiastes is read on Sukkot as a reminder to not get too caught up in the festivities of the holiday and the cares of this life.

“Turn! Turn! Turn! (to Everything There is a Season)” is a folk version of Solomon’s poem put to music by folk singer Pete Seeger with some of the phrases rearranged. Seeger also added the words “turn, turn, turn” and at the end “a time for peace; I swear it’s not too late.” The Byrds then had a number one hit with the song in 1965, riding on the crest of anti-war sentiment.

Judy Collins and Johnny Cash sing the same song:

If you’re looking for something a little more classical, you could try this piece: Meditations on Ecclesiastes: XI. Con brio (…a time of hate and of war…)
by The Philharmonia Orchestra, Hugh Bean, David Jones, David Amos.

“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.