Three poems and two songs\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
In 1993, Oxford University Press published Robert Atwan and Laurence Wieder’s two-volume compilation Chapters Into Verse: Poetry in English Inspired by the Bible<\/em>. At the time I got Volume 2: Gospels to Revelation. My books are in storage but to-day, which begins the Bleak Midwinter’s waning as daylight waxes,<\/span>1<\/sup><\/a><\/span> three poems on the theme of the Nativity come to mind.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I like these (the last of which I’ve reprinted before<\/a>) because they speak to the mystery of the Annunciation and this season when, I for one having experienced sixty-seven of them now, can tend to feel about as contemplative as a tin star.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Was this His coming! I had hoped to see \u2014 Oscar Wilde, Vatican Gallery, Rome, 1877<\/p>\n\n\n\n Whence did all that fury come? \u2014 William Butler Yeats, 29 Jul 1938<\/p>\n\n\n\n The threefold terror of love; a fallen flare Had I not found content among the shows What is this flesh I purchased with my pains, \u2014 William Butler Yeats, 03 Sep 1931<\/p>\n\n\n\n Two years ago last month, Rob Berg and I remastered two Christmas carols we’d repurposed back in 1987, posting them on YouTube and offering the digital downloads for sale on Bandcamp<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\nAve Maria Gratia Plena<\/em><\/h4>\n\n\n\n
A scene of wondrous glory, as was told
Of some great God who in a rain of gold
Broke open bars and fell on Danae:
Or a dread vision as when Semele
Sickening for love and unappeased desire
Prayed to see God’s clear body, and the fire
Caught her brown limbs and slew her utterly:
With such glad dreams I sought this holy place,
And now with wondering eyes and heart I stand
Before this supreme mystery of Love:
Some kneeling girl with passionless pale face,
An angel with a lily in his hand,
And over both the white wings of a Dove.<\/p>\n\n\n\nA Stick Of Incense<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
From empty tomb or Virgin womb?
Saint Joseph thought the world would melt
But liked the way his finger smelt.<\/p>\n\n\n\nThe Mother Of God<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
Through the hollow of an ear;
Wings beating about the room;
The terror of all terrors that I bore
The Heavens in my womb.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Every common woman knows,
Chimney corner, garden walk,
Or rocky cistern where we tread the clothes
And gather all the talk?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This fallen star my milk sustains,
This love that makes my heart’s blood stop
Or strikes a Sudden chill into my bones
And bids my hair stand up?<\/p>\n\n\n\nThe Carols<\/h3>\n\n\n\n