Today’s poem recognises the work of Augustine of Canterbury and the monks sent by Pope Gregory in the 6th century to convert England. Augustine (not to be confused with his more famous African namesake) is perhaps most famous for converting King Ethelbert of Kent, a king significant both for having a marvellous name and also for later becoming a saint himself. Since the conversion took place on Pentecost, and today is the eve of Pentecost Sunday, I felt this was a fitting subject for a poem.

Pentecost, 597 (For Augustine of Canterbury)

And after certain days coming into the island, [Ethelbert] chose a place to meet them under the open sky, possessed with an old persuasion, that all spells, if they should use any to deceive him, so it were not within doors, would be unassailable. They on the other side called to his presence, advancing for their standard a silver cross, and the painted image of our Saviour, came slowly forward, singing their solemn litanies…

(John Milton, The History of England)

With silver standard came Augustine’s

Monks to Britain’s singing shores,

Silver voices singing songs

Of Christ the Sovereign, Saving King.

Meeting them there on the beach,

Ethelbert the King of Kent

Heard them preach the Word because

Their brave, long voyage had impressed him;

And though he did not then believe

He gave them leave to share with him

And with his people that which they

Believed to be the best to share;

So under open sky they shared

With Ethelbert, his heart prepared

To stand against the spells they’d cast,

And hearing them, he thought it fair,

But still too strange, too new to take yet

To his heart. Their spell, it seemed,

Had that day failed. Yet he prevailed

On them to stay and live in peace.

And so they dwelt in Canterbury,

The stronghold of the Kentish king,

And there set up their sacred See,

Their silver songs still ringing there,

Although the king could not yet hear,

His holds too strong; but when it came

To Pentecost, the story goes, that

He believed, the sovereign king,

Upon his sinful, shaking knees.

Undone. What silver words did they

Speak, these monks of silver tongue?

None that carried their own power.

A solemn painting sternly shows

A dove above the monks preaching,

Their hands didactically raised and there

Behind them Pentecost’s red clouds.

No spell but this could fell the king:

The fire that in Peter burned,

Burning through the stronghold and

Blazing saving-silver bright.

Today is the day when the Anglican Church remembers the great medieval historian Bede of Jarrow, or the Venerable Bede. I found myself inspired by my reading on him today to write two poems about him, one silly, one serious. Here, for good measure, are they both.

I.

The Venerable Bede, we know,

Was ignorant, but no more so

Than other men of his dim day;

He was too quick inclined to say

That miracles or other such

Had taken place (we moderns blush),

And yet we, on the other hand,

Can say about this tricky man,

His history of the English peoples

Is still today without its equals,

And he was a learned man.

(Thus we find it hard to stand

The ignorance of miracles

And wish he was more skeptical!)

He did some work to make wide known

What the church preferred to own.

He put the Gospel of Saint John

Into the Anglo-Saxon tongue,

And though we moderns don’t much care

For Gospels we have to declare

(Changing the song we usually sing)

That this was probably a good thing,

If we, in our modern way,

Still reserve the right to say

That God should be accessible

(Though miracles improbable).

And so though his veneration

Is not without reservation,

We feel that we can truly say,

Happy Bede of Jarrow Day!

II.

I will not have my pupils read what is untrue, nor labour on what is profitless after my death.

(Saint Bede the Venerable, in Christina Rossetti, Time Flies: A Reading Diary)

He told the stories of a land half-converted;

His tales brimmed with the rising dead,

Tongs for the taunting demons and conversions

Of many, and martyrdoms too.

Though careful, precise, he took as a given

That which our modern minds struggle to digest.

Was his mind clouded with delusion?

Did he not read his notes before he published them?

We now know much better; of that we are sure.

Yet he was faithful in the tales he passed on,

Whatever the contents. A reporter, he gave

Careful accounts while we buried the evidence.

Did bodies rise? Did demons haunt England?

Bede, in his calmness, considered what we

Would hurl to the furnace of empiricist cant.

But outside the presentist parlour of straw men

And medieval horror tales, Bede sits patiently,

Eyes open, history sitting on his lap.

“That being rooted and grounded – That is, deeply fixed and firmly established, in love. Ye may comprehend – So far as an human mind is capable. What is the breadth of the love of Christ – Embracing all mankind. And length – From everlasting to everlasting. And depth – Not to be fathomed by any creature. And height – Not to be reached by any enemy.”

(John Wesley, from Wesley’s notes on the letter to the Ephesians)

I.

As it is, I quake inside

When Perfection stands before me.

It has a face I do not know,

So far removed from me, although

Bearing features – one or two –

Which resemble parts of me.

Despite these faint comparisons,

I cannot find the place which you

Declared I should soon dwell within.

Although I beat and beat and ex-

Communicate myself from Self,

The distance is a mocking gap.

It fails to assure.

II.

And yet, before the throne of God,

I, child-like, unquestioning, stand,

More like the beggar picking crumbs

Than a confident, assured son.

I know my plea; it bears the mark

Of that perfection which I still

Can only look at, cannot hold.

It holds me; it declares my name,

Written on His heart. It stands

In my defence, a name which neither

Tongue nor hell can take from me,

Nor bid me thence depart from Him.

I rest in the depth of this.

III.

And should we look into our minds

For knowledge which can save us, we

Will find there just the debris of

A war which waged where Eden stood.

And should we cling to reason to

Mark our way to saving grace,

Our thoughts – if they, like mine, behave

In patterns the deceiver taught us –

Will conspire to throw us off

The scent and hurl us, spitefully,

At a false perfection which

Can only hope to make us cry.

Aside from Him, I cannot know.

IV.

And yet we have this love’s High Priest

Who shows us what we cannot know.

When in my shame my every look

Is downward cast and inward blaming,

Upwards I look and see Him there,

Perfection’s face which kills my shame.

So I approach that lofty throne,

All splattered with the filth of me,

And in Perfection’s face I see

The God of grace revealed to me,

And see in all dimensions love

Which pulls me upwards and beyond:

In four directions, mercy.

 

The number diminishes:

First twelve, then two,

The rest far gone,

Consumed into

The enemy, the juggernaut.

Promises of restoration

Dangle awkwardly in the wind.

Yet the time will come; it won’t

Delay. It surely is soon here.

The time will come when

From the winds of all directions,

Men will come and worship in

The city where we will all dwell,

Complete once more, all restored.

The number is diminished:

First twelve, now one has

Left us. And so we wait,

Our limbs all numb,

Our head ascended;

Waiting for the time to come,

The time that dangles in the wings.

The time will come; it won’t delay;

The Comforter will be here soon.

Though broken, soon you’ll be made whole.

Lift up your heads; take to your number

One more to make yourselves complete.

Though wounded, you’ll be comforted;

Await the coming Paraclete.

(After The Golden Legend by Jacobus de Voragine)

The historical St. Dunstan will benefit us if we study his career with an impartial love of right, and hatred of wrong, wheresoever found.

But the legendary St. Dunstan? He and such as he will do us no good if, overlooking the grave lesson of self-conquest and sin-conquest, we assimilate nothing but tongs and a devil.

(Christina Rossetti, Time Flies: A Reading Diary)

Hear, O Church, of how

On Candlemas day when,

With child, his mother held a taper

With all the church, and all

The tapers were that night quenched,

Save hers.

Hear, O Church, of how

The child then contained in her

Was prophesied to grow

Into a great and holy light

Unto all England.

Hear and learn.

Hear, O Church, of the man

Who worked with his hands

When they were tired of prayer,

Who shaped fiery metal with tongs

Made chalices to stave off

The devil of idleness.

Hear, O Church, of how

The devil one night came

To him in likeness of a woman,

Spoke unto him of vanities, and

Though charming him with her speech,

Could not fool Dunstan.

Hear, O Church, of Dunstan who,

Knowing her for what she was,

Took his fiery tongs in hand,

Caught the devil’s nose with them,

And foiled her with righteous fire.

Hear, O Church, and learn.

Hear, O you who are ashamed,

All of you who cannot tell
The devil from the beautiful,

Who cannot by yourselves kill him

With your own weak handiwork:

Hear and weep; hear and learn.

Hear, O Church, of broken wings,

Smold’ring wicks and bruisèd reeds.

Hear of spirits foiled and scolded,

And of the Servant who alone

Can take the devil’s nose and scold it

With the fire of His only Good.

Hear, O church, and learn this lesson:

Hear of fire and stronger hands,

Which save us in our brokenness.

Learn to listen not to myths:

We cannot learn from, cannot be

The Golden Legend’s Dunstan.

On Sundays, I base my poems on the set readings for the day in the Anglican Liturgical calendar. One of today’s readings is Psalm 98, a very joyful psalm and one that can, perhaps, be hard to say with all integrity when not joyful oneself. Here is my approach to the problem. I hope, as with all the writings here, that it can be a source of comfort and consolation, as writing it has been to me.

Broken Praise (Sixth Sunday of Easter)

Sing for joy, you who are not joyful;

Strike your instruments in song;

Open hands of desperate clutching,

Open your sore hearts and praise.

Lift the dead-strings of your heart;

Let them tune again to praise.

Let your memory recall

All the good that’s gone before,

Though in your mind there is no tune

Of remembered joys or peace,

Though you have misplaced the key

To the rusty chest of memories,

Though your bones have ossified

And your joints refuse to bend,

Though your voice crackles and cracks

And your throat denies all song,

Praise! There is no other answer.

Though it feels like an open wound

Anointed with the oil of pain,

Praise – for He is good – and you,

Far though it is from you right now,

Will praise again. This is the truth.

And when you cannot praise at all,

Sit beside the rivers and

The seas, the mountains; let them praise.

And hear the songs of joyful earth

Celebrating what you can’t.

Let that soundtrack be your praise,

And wash your brokenness in grace.