Showing posts with label Poetria. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Poetria. Show all posts

Monday, April 29, 2013

Dialog in Heaven



Below is one of my favorite scenes from Milton’s Paradise Lost.  It’s known as the “dialog in Heaven.” It comes from book 3, almost immediately after the first two books expound a major dialog in Hell between Satan and other demons who were cast there as punishment for their rebellion after their defeat in battle against Almighty God. Just before this dialog in Heaven begins, Satan and the other demons agree to exact revenge upon God by finding a way to entice Adam and Eve to rebel against God as well, and Satan freely offers to lead that rebellion. Satan then embarks on a cosmic voyage from Hell to Earth in order to exact his revenge.

In the heavenly dialog which follows, there are five distinctive sections. First, the narrator speaks, introducing the Heavenly Council in a glorious manner. Second, the Almighty Father speaks to His Son, followed by the narrator again. Third, the Only Begotten Son speaks in return to His Father, followed by a brief comment of the narrator again. Fourth, the Father replies to His Son, followed by an expression of silence among the angelic hosts (for the Father asks who, in all of heaven, would love mortal man and Divine justice enough to become moral themselves and satisfy man’s mortal crime with redeeming death). 

Last of all, the Son speaks in response to the Father, offering Himself as the redemption of the human race. Below is Milton’s sketch of that epic dialog in Heaven:

Now had the Almighty Father from above,
From the pure Empyrean where he sits
High Thron'd above all highth, bent down his eye,
His own works and their works at once to view:
About him all the Sanctities of Heaven
Stood thick as Starrs, and from his sight receiv'd
Beatitude past utterance; on his right
The radiant image of his Glory sat,
His onely Son; On Earth he first beheld
Our two first Parents, yet the onely two
Of mankind, in the happie Garden plac't,
Reaping immortal fruits of joy and love,
Uninterrupted joy, unrivald love
In blissful solitude; he then survey'd
Hell and the Gulf between, and Satan there
Coasting the wall of Heav'n on this side Night
In the dun Air sublime, and ready now
To stoop with wearied wings, and willing feet
On the bare outside of this World, that seem'd
Firm land imbosom'd without Firmament,
Uncertain which, in Ocean or in Air.
Him God beholding from his prospect high,
Wherein past, present, future he beholds,
Thus to his onely Son foreseeing spake:

Onely begotten Son, seest thou what rage
Transports our adversarie, whom no bounds
Prescrib'd, no barrs of Hell, nor all the chains
Heapt on him there, nor yet the main Abyss
Wide interrupt can hold; so bent he seems
On desparate reveng, that shall redound
Upon his own rebellious head. And now
Through all restraint broke loose he wings his way
Not farr off Heav'n, in the Precincts of light,
Directly towards the new created World,
And Man there plac't, with purpose to assay
If him by force he can destroy, or worse,
By some false guile pervert; and shall pervert
For man will heark'n to his glozing lyes,
And easily transgress the sole Command,
Sole pledge of his obedience: So will fall,
Hee and his faithless Progenie: whose fault?
Whose but his own? ingrate, he had of mee
All he could have; I made him just and right,
Sufficient to have stood, though free to fall.
Such I created all th' Ethereal Powers
And Spirits, both them who stood and them who faild;
Freely they stood who stood, and fell who fell.
Not free, what proof could they have givn sincere
Of true allegiance, constant Faith or Love,
Where onely what they needs must do, appeard,
Not what they would? what praise could they receive?
What pleasure I from such obedience paid,
When Will and Reason (Reason also is choice)
Useless and vain, of freedom both despoild,
Made passive both, had servd necessitie,
Not mee. They therefore as to right belongd,
So were created, nor can justly accuse
Thir maker, or thir making, or thir Fate,
As if predestination over-rul'd
Thir will, dispos'd by absolute Decree
Or high foreknowledge; they themselves decreed
Thir own revolt, not I: if I foreknew,
Foreknowledge had no influence on their fault,
Which had no less prov'd certain unforeknown.
So without least impulse or shadow of Fate,
Or aught by me immutablie foreseen,
They trespass, Authors to themselves in all
Both what they judge and what they choose; for so
I formd them free, and free they must remain,
Till they enthrall themselves: I else must change
Thir nature, and revoke the high Decree
Unchangeable, Eternal, which ordain'd
Thir freedom, they themselves ordain'd thir fall.
The first sort by thir own suggestion fell,
Self-tempted, self-deprav'd: Man falls deceiv'd
By the other first: Man therefore shall find grace,
The other none: in Mercy and Justice both,
Through Heav'n and Earth, so shall my glorie excel,
But Mercy first and last shall brightest shine.

Thus while God spake, ambrosial fragrance fill'd
All Heav'n, and in the blessed Spirits elect
Sense of new joy ineffable diffus'd:
Beyond compare the Son of God was seen
Most glorious, in him all his Father shon
Substantially express'd, and in his face
Divine compassion visibly appeerd,
Love without end, and without measure Grace,
Which uttering thus he to his Father spake:

O Father, gracious was that word which clos'd
Thy sovran sentence, that Man should find grace;
For which both Heav'n and Earth shall high extoll
Thy praises, with th' innumerable sound
Of Hymns and sacred Songs, wherewith thy Throne
Encompass'd shall resound thee ever blest.
For should Man finally be lost, should Man
Thy creature late so lov'd, thy youngest Son
Fall circumvented thus by fraud, though joynd
With his own folly? that be from thee farr,
That farr be from thee, Father, who art Judg
Of all things made, and judgest onely right.
Or shall the Adversarie thus obtain
His end, and frustrate thine, shall he fulfill
His malice, and thy goodness bring to naught,
Or proud return though to his heavier doom,
Yet with revenge accomplish't and to Hell
Draw after him the whole Race of mankind,
By him corrupted? or wilt thou thy self
Abolish thy Creation, and unmake,
For him, what for thy glorie thou hast made?
So should thy goodness and thy greatness both
Be questiond and blaspheam'd without defence.

To whom the great Creatour thus reply'd:

O Son, in whom my Soul hath chief delight,
Son of my bosom, Son who art alone
My word, my wisdom, and effectual might,
All hast thou spok'n as my thoughts are, all
As my Eternal purpose hath decreed:
Man shall not quite be lost, but sav'd who will,
Yet not of will in him, but grace in me
Freely voutsaft; once more I will renew
His lapsed powers, though forfeit and enthrall'd
By sin to foul exorbitant desires;
Upheld by me, yet once more he shall stand
On even ground against his mortal foe,
By me upheld, that he may know how frail
His fall'n condition is, and to me ow
All his deliv'rance, and to none but me.
Some I have chosen of peculiar grace
Elect above the rest; so is my will:
The rest shall hear me call, and oft be warnd
Thir sinful state, and to appease betimes
Th' incensed Deitie while offerd grace
Invites; for I will cleer thir senses dark,
What may suffice, and soft'n stonie hearts
To pray, repent, and bring obedience due.
To Prayer, repentance, and obedience due,
Though but endevord with sincere intent,
Mine ear shall not be slow, mine eye not shut.
And I will place within them as a guide
My Umpire Conscience, whom if they will hear,
Light after light well us'd they shall attain,
And to the end persisting, safe arrive.
This my long sufferance and my day of grace
They who neglect and scorn, shall never taste;
But hard be hard'nd, blind be blinded more,
That they may stumble on, and deeper fall;
And none but such from mercy I exclude.
But yet all is not don; Man disobeying,
Disloyal breaks his fealtie, and sinns
Against the high Supremacie of Heav'n,
Affecting God-head, and so loosing all,
To expiate his Treason hath naught left,
But to destruction sacred and devote,
He with his whole posteritie must dye,
Dye hee or Justice must; unless for him
Som other able, and as willing, pay
The rigid satisfaction, death for death.
Say Heav'nly Powers, where shall we find such love,
Which of ye will be mortal to redeem
Mans mortal crime, and just th' unjust to save,
Dwels in all Heaven charitie so deare?

He ask'd, but all the Heav'nly Quire stood mute,
And silence was in Heav'n: on mans behalf
Patron or Intercessor none appeerd,
Much less that durst upon his own head draw
The deadly forfeiture, and ransom set.
And now without redemption all mankind
Must have bin lost, adjudg'd to Death and Hell
By doom severe, had not the Son of God,
In whom the fulness dwells of love divine,
His dearest mediation thus renewed:

Father, thy word is past, man shall find grace;
And shall grace not find means, that finds her way,
The speediest of thy winged messengers,
To visit all thy creatures, and to all
Comes unprevented, unimplor'd, unsought,
Happie for man, so coming; he her aide
Can never seek, once dead in sins and lost;
Attonement for himself or offering meet,
Indebted and undon, hath none to bring:
Behold mee then, mee for him, life for life
I offer, on mee let thine anger fall;
Account mee man; I for his sake will leave
Thy bosom, and this glorie next to thee
Freely put off, and for him lastly dye
Well pleas'd, on me let Death wreck all his rage;
Under his gloomie power I shall not long
Lie vanquisht; thou hast givn me to possess
Life in my self for ever, by thee I live,
Though now to Death I yield, and am his due
All that of me can die, yet that debt paid,
Thou wilt not leave me in the loathsom grave
His prey, nor suffer my unspotted Soule
For ever with corruption there to dwell;
But I shall rise Victorious, and subdue
My Vanquisher, spoild of his vanted spoile;
Death his deaths wound shall then receive, and stoop
Inglorious, of his mortal sting disarm'd.
I through the ample Air in Triumph high
Shall lead Hell Captive maugre Hell, and show
The powers of darkness bound. Thou at the sight
Pleas'd, out of Heaven shalt look down and smile,
While by thee rais'd I ruin all my Foes,
Death last, and with his Carcass glut the Grave:
Then with the multitude of my redeemd
Shall enter Heaven long absent, and returne,
Father, to see thy face, wherein no cloud
Of anger shall remain, but peace assur'd,
And reconcilement; wrauth shall be no more
Thenceforth, but in thy presence Joy entire.






Monday, December 24, 2012

G.K. Chesterton: The House of Christmas


There fared a mother driven forth
Out of an inn to roam;
In the place where she was homeless
All men are at home. 
The crazy stable close at hand, 
With shaking timber and shifting sand,
Grew a stronger thing to abide and stand
Than the square stones of Rome.
For men are homesick in their homes, 
And strangers under the sun,
And they lay their heads in a foreign land
Whenever the day is done.
Here we have battle and blazing eyes,
And chance and honour and high surprise,
But our homes are under miraculous skies
Where the yule tale was begun. 
A Child in a foul stable, 
Where the beasts feed and foam;
Only where He was homeless
Are you and I at home;
We have hands that fashion and heads that know,
But our hearts we lost -- how long ago!
In a place no chart nor ship can show
Under the sky's dome.
This world is wild as an old wives' tale,
And strange the plain things are,
The earth is enough and the air is enough
For our wonder and our war;
But our rest is as far as the fire-drake swings
And our peace is put in impossible things
Where clashed and thundered unthinkable wings
Round an incredible star.
To an open house in the evening
Home shall men come,
To an older place than Eden
And a taller town than Rome.
To the end of the way of the wandering star,
To the things that cannot be and that are,
To the place where God was homeless
And all men are at home.

-- G.K. Chesterton

Thursday, December 13, 2012

Earth felt the wound


I recently started studying John Milton's classic work, Paradise Lost, in detail, and today I came across that famous depiction of the Serpent tempting and deceiving Eve to eat of the fruit forbidden by God in the Garden. Perhaps there is no more vivid scene in the history of poetic literature which portrays the subtlety of Satan at his best; and so I had to share:
...the Tempter, all impassioned, thus began: 
O sacred, wise, and wisdom-giving Plant, mother of science, now I feel thy power within me clear; not only to discern things in their causes, but to trace the ways of highest agents, deemed however wise. Queen of this universe, do not believe those rigid threats of death: ye shall not die. How should you? By the fruit? It gives you life to knowledge; By the threatener? Look on me; me who have touched and tasted, yet both live, and life more perfect have attained than Fate meant me, by venturing higher than my lot. Shall that be shut to Man, which to the Beast is open? Or will God incense his ire for such a petty trespass? And not praise rather your dauntless virtue, whom the pain of death denounced, whatever thing death be, deterred not from achieving what might lead to happier life, knowledge of good and evil; Of good, how just? Of evil, if what is evil be real, why not known, since easier shunned? God therefore cannot hurt ye, and be just; Not just, not God; not feared then, nor obeyed: Your fear itself of death removes the fear. Why then was this forbid? Why, but to awe; Why, but to keep ye low and ignorant, His worshippers? He knows that in the day ye eat thereof, your eyes that seem so clear, yet are but dim, shall perfectly be then opened and cleared, and ye shall be as Gods, knowing both good and evil, as they know. That ye shall be as Gods, since I as Man, internal Man, is but proportional meet; I, of brute, human; ye, of human, Gods. So ye shall die perhaps, by putting off Human, to put on Gods; Death to be wished, though threatened, which no worse than this can bring. And what are Gods, that Man may not become as they, participating God-like food? The Gods are first, and that advantage use on our belief, that all from them proceeds: I question it; for this fair earth I see, warmed by the sun, producing every kind; Them nothing: if they all things, who enclosed knowledge of good and evil this tree, that whoso eats thereof, forthwith attains wisdom without their leave? And wherein lies the offense, that Man should thus attain to know? What can your knowledge hurt him, or this tree impart against his will, if all be his? Or is it envy? And can envy dwell in heavenly breasts? These, these, and many more causes import your need of this fair fruit. Goddess humane, reach then, and freely taste!  
Paradise Lost by William Blake, 1808
He ended; and his words, replete with guile, into her heart too easy entrance won: Fixed on the fruit she gazed, which to behold might tempt alone; and in her ears the sound yet rung of his persuasive words, impregned with reason, to her seeming, and with truth: Mean while the hour of noon drew on, and waked an eager appetite, raised by the smell so savoury of that fruit, which with desire inclinable now grown to touch or taste, solicited her longing eye; yet first pausing a while, thus to herself she mused: 
Great are thy virtues, doubtless, best of fruits, though kept from man, and worthy to be admired; Whose taste, too long forborn, at first assay gave elocution to the mute, and taught the tongue not made for speech to speak thy praise: Thy praise he also, who forbids thy use, conceals not from us, naming thee the tree of knowledge, knowledge both of good and evil; Forbids us then to taste! But his forbidding commends thee more, while it infers the good by thee communicated, and our want: For good unknown sure is not had; or, had and yet unknown, is not had at all. In plain then, what forbids he but to know, forbids us good, forbids us to be wise? Such prohibitions bind not. But, if death bind us with after-bands, what profits then our inward freedom? In the day we eat of this fair fruit our doom is we shall die! How dies the Serpent? He hath eaten and lives, and knows, and speaks, and reasons, and discerns, irrational till then. For us alone was death invented? Or to us denied this intellectual food, for beasts reserved? For beasts it seems: yet that one beast which first hath tasted envies not, but brings with joy the good befallen him, author unsuspect, friendly to man, far from deceit or guile. What fear I then? Rather, what know to fear under this ignorance of good and evil, of God or death, of law or penalty? Here grows the cure of all, this fruit divine, fair to the eye, inviting to the taste, of virtue to make wise: What hinders then to reach, and feed at once both the body and mind?  
So saying, her rash hand in evil hour forth reaching to the fruit, she plucked, she ate. Earth felt the wound; and Nature from her seat, sighing through all her works, gave signs of woe, that all was lost. Back to the thicket slunk the guilty Serpent. 

Friday, November 9, 2012

Evolutionary Hymn



Lead us, Evolution, lead us
Up the future's endless stair:
Chop us, change us, prod us, weed us.
For stagnation is despair: 
Groping, guessing, yet progressing, 
Lead us nobody knows where.

To whatever variation 
Our posterity may turn
Hairy, squashy, or crustacian, 
Bulbous-eyed or square of stern,
Tusked or toothless, mild or ruthless,
Towards that unknown god we yearn.


Ask not if it's god or devil,
Brethren, lest your words imply
Static norms of good and evil
(As in Plato) throned on high;
Such scholastic, inelastic, 
Abstract yardsticks we deny.

On then! Value means survival-
Value. If our progeny
Spreads and spawns and licks each rival,
That will prove its deity
(Far from pleasant, by our present
Standards, though it well may be).1


C. S. Lewis
"Evolutionary Hymn"





1.  C. S. Lewis, Poems [Harvest/HBJ; 1977] pp. 55-56


Sunday, October 28, 2012

Perfected in Weakness



He giveth more grace when the burdens grow greater
He sendeth more strength when the labors increase
To added affliction He addeth His mercy
To multiplied trials, His multiplied peace

When we have exhausted our store of endurance
When our strength has failed ere the day is half done
When we reach the end of our hoarded resources
Our Father's full giving is only begun

Fear not that thy need shall exceed His provision
Our God ever yearns His resources to share
Lean hard on the arm everlasting, availing
The Father both thee and thy load will upbear

His love has no limit; His grace has no measure
His power has no boundary known unto men
For out of his infinite riches in Jesus
He giveth and giveth and giveth again

"He Giveth More Grace"


And He said unto me, 
     'My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness.' 
     Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me.

Paul of Tarsus 





Sunday, October 21, 2012

By the Brook Cherith




                                                   "...hide thyself by the brook Cherith... 
thou shalt drink of the brook...
                                                            And it came to pass after a while, that the brook dried up..."
  
                                                                                                                   (1 Kings 17:3-7)




When flowed the brook of Cherith, God sent Elijah there,

And fed him by its waters, though all the land was bare.

While flower the brook of Cherith, Elijah rested there,
No drought could touch his fountains, nor blight his soul with care.

When failed the brook of Cherith, beside its channel bare,
What thought Jehovah's prophet?  Did faith become despair?

But God had long provided new sources of supply,
The morsel that should waste not, the cruse that should not dry.

When fails some brook of Cherith that long for us availed,
Do we recall His promise and think that too has failed?

Nay, He has other rivers whose waters will not dry;
His love is ever meeting new need with new supply.

When dries our brook of Cherith and leaves its channel bare,
The cruse, long since made ready, is waiting.  He knows where.


                                                                       -- Annie Johnson Flint
                                                                       "By the Brook Cherith"



Thursday, October 18, 2012

Eden's Courtesy


One of my favorite poems by C. S. Lewis:


Such natural love twixt beast and man we find
That children all desire an animal book, 
And all brutes, not perverted from their kind, 
Woo us with whinny, tongue, tail, song, or look;
So much of Eden's courtesy yet remains.
But when a creature's dread, or mine, has built
A wall between, I think I feel the pains
That Adam earned and do confess my guilt.
For till I tame sly fox and timorous hare
And lording lion in my self, no peace
Can be without; but after, I shall dare
Uncage the shadowy zoo and war will cease;
Because the brutes within, I do not doubt,
Are archetypal of the brutes without.1






1.  C. S. Lewis, Poems [Harvest/HBJ edition; 1977] p. 98


Monday, September 3, 2012

Not Ever




"...He hath said, 'I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee.'"
(Hebrews 13:5; Deuteronomy 31:8)



God hath not promised
Skies always blue
Flower-strewn pathways
All our life through
God hath not promised 
Sun without rain
Joy without sorrow
Peace without pain

But God hath promised 
Strength for the day
Rest for the labor
Light for the way
Grace for the trials
Help from above
Unfailing sympathy
Undying love

                      -- Annie Johnson Flint
                    "What God Has Promised"




Saturday, September 1, 2012

O Love That Will Not Let Me Go


O Love that wilt not let me go,
I rest my weary soul in thee;
I give thee back the life I owe,
That in thine ocean depths its flow
May richer, fuller be.

O Light that followest all my way
I yield my flickering torch to thee;
My heart restores its borrowed ray,
That in thy sunshine’s blaze its day
May brighter, fairer be.

O Joy that sleekest me through pain,
I cannot close my heart to thee;
I trace the rainbow through the rain,
And feel the promise is not vain
That morn shall tearless be.

O cross that liftest up my head,
I dare not ask to fly from thee;
I lay in dust life’s glory dead,
And from the ground there blossoms red
Life that shall endless be.
                                             -- George Matheson, 1882
                                            “O Love That Wilt Not Let Me Go