Early Easter Lyrics
By Doug Talley

To our great misfortune, devotional poetry is quite out of favor these days in most academic and literary circles.  With April designated as our National Poetry Month and with so much to celebrate during the Easter holiday, we make the season poorer with so little reference in our modern poetry to the Atonement of Jesus Christ, his crucifixion and resurrection. 

Centuries have passed, but no poet has improved upon the devotional verse of George Herbert.  The greater shame is so few have tried.  One might point to William Blake and Emily Dickinson and Gerard Manley Hopkins, together with a few others, as exceptions.  Herbert’s verse is little read and little cited, and it must be for no other reason than his subject matter, which is exclusively religious, because otherwise his literary technique remains fresh and innovative.  Consider the following, perhaps the finest example in the English language of concrete poetry, the technique of shaping stanzas into a visual image:

EASTER WINGS

Lord, who createdst man in wealth and store,
         Though foolishly he lost the same,
              Decaying more and more
                     Till he became
                        Most poor:
                        With thee
                     O let me rise
              As larks, harmoniously,
         And sing this day thy victories;
Then  shall  the fall  further the  flight in  me.

My    tender    age    in    sorrow     did    begin;
        And still with sicknesses and shame
              Thou didst so punish sin,
                     That I became
                        Most thin.
                        With thee
                     Let me combine,
              And feel this day thy victory;
         For,  if  I  imp  my  wing  on  thine,
Affliction   shall   advance   the   flight   in   me.

The wings of the lark, the shaped wings of the stanzas, the wings of the Lord’s resurrection, all serve to “advance the flight” of the poet, and the reader as well, as we imp our own wing on the wing of this exultant prayer.  It is a lovely, festive lyric, worthy of the season. 

The Long Slow Death of a Glorious Tradition

The Easter lyric of the English tradition, now an almost dying genre seemingly ignored by the modern “serious” poet, rose from rich origins preceding even the birth of the language itself.  Space and time do not allow an exhaustive study, but the following excerpts hopefully suggest something of what was once a glorious tradition.

Sedulius Scottus was an Irishman driven from his native shores by Norse invaders during the mid ninth century.  With two friends he blew in with a sleeting wind to the gates of Bishop Hartgar of Liège, France.  Recognized immediately as the finest of scholars, Sedulius found thereafter a warm and hospitable home with the Bishop.  A Greek text of St. Paul’s Epistles, with an interlinear Latin translation, has survived in what is believed to be Sedulius’ own handwriting.  A number of his lyrics have survived as well, including the following Easter “hymn” which caps a letter in verse to a fellow cleric.  The terrific medieval scholar, Helen Wadell, rendered the original Latin into the simple and compelling English that follows.

Surrexit Christus sol verus vespere noctis,
  surgit et hinc domini mystica messis agri.
Nunc vaga puniceis apium plebs laeta labore
  floribus instrepitans poblite mella legit.
Nunc variae volucfres permulcent aethera cantu,
  temperat et pernox nunc philomena melos.
Nunc chorus ecclesiae cantat per cantica Sion,
  alleluia suis centuplicatque tonis.
Tado, pater patriae, caelestis guadia paschae
  percipias meritis limina lucis: ave.

Last night did Christ the Sun rise from the dark,
  The mystic harvest of the fields of God,
And now the little wandering tribes of bees
  Are brawling in the scarlet flowers abroad.
The winds are soft with birdsong; all night long
  Darkling the nightingale her descant told,
And now inside church doors the happy folk
  The Alleluia chant a hundredfold.
O father of thy folk, be thine by right
  The Easter joy, the threshold of the light.

By the time George Herbert was writing in the early seventeenth century, a long history of devotional poetry in English had already developed.  A common convention found in Middle English lyrics of the thirteenth, fourteenth and fifteenth centuries was the cross of Christ, commonly referred to in the image of “wood” or a “tree”.  A multitude of anonymous lyrics on this theme have survived.  Test your linguistic intuition on the following poems and try to decipher them before referring to their modernized versions.

Stedefast crosse, inmong alle other
  Thou art a tree mickle of prise;
In braunche and flore swilk another
  I ne wot non in wode ne rys.
Swete be the nales,
  And swete be the tree,
And sweter be the birden that hanges upon thee!

Steadfast cross, among all others,
   Thou art a tree great of price;
In branch and flower such another
    I know not neither in wood nor brush.
Sweet be the nails,
    And sweet be the tree,
And sweeter be the burden that hangs upon thee!

            ************

Senful man, bethink and see
What peine I thole for love of thee.
Night and day to thee I grede,
Hand and fotes on rode isprede.
Nailed I was to the tree,
Ded and biried, man, for thee;
All this I drey for love of man.
But werse me dot, that he ne can
To me turnen onis his eye
Than all the peine that I drye.

Sinful man, think and see
What pain I suffered for love of thee.
Night and day to thee I cried,
Hand and foot on cross outspread.
Nailed I was to the tree,
Dead and buried, man, for thee;
All this I endured for love of man
But worse it does me that he cannot
To me turn even once his eye
Than all the pain that I endured.

            ************

Nou goth sonne under wode –
Me reweth, Marie, thi faire rode.
Nou goth sonne under tre –
Me reweth, Marie, thi sonne and the.Now goes the sun under wood –
I pity, Mary, thy fair face.
Now goes the sun under tree –
I pity, Mary, thy son and thee.

            ************

A god and yet a man?
    A maid and yet a mother?
Wit wonders what wit can
    Conceive this or the other.

A god and can he die?
    A dead man, can he live?
What wit can well reply?
    What reason reason give?

God, truth itself, doth teach it.
    Man’s wit sinks too far under
By reason’s power to reach it.
    Believe and leave to wonder.

The Tradition Deserves its own Resurrection

The best poems are not yet written.  When they are, they most certainly will be devotional in nature, because they will be celestial.  They will celebrate our exalted relationships with one another and with God in a language that is pure and undefiled.  When our millennial art finally dawns, everything else will fade in comparison.  With an increased understanding of the resurrection of Christ, when we see and know face to face, the tradition of great devotional poetry will be resurrected as well.  Our poets will finally understand there is nothing greater to extol. 

Until that day comes, we can labor for the resurrection of the devotional tradition by looking to the models of an earlier day.  This Easter season, we lose nothing if we turn from the sad chorus of classical literature, with all its tragedy, and consider instead the devotional poetry of George Herbert and his predecessors. 

THE DAWNING
by George Herbert

Awake sad heart, whom sorrow ever drowns;
   Take up thine eyes, which feed on earth;
Unfold thy forehead gathered into frowns:
   Thy Savior comes, and with him mirth:
                                         Awake, awake:
And with a thankful heart his comforts take.
    But thou dost still lament, and pine and cry;
    And feel his death, but not his victory.

Arise sad heart, if thou dost not withstand,
     Christ’s resurrection thine may be:
Do not by hanging down break from the hand
     Which as it riseth, raiseth thee:
                                           Arise, arise:
And with his burial-linen dry thine eyes:
     Christ left his grave-clothes, that we might, when grief
     Draws tears, or blood, not want an handkerchief.