On Wednesdays the Upper Level students compose poetry in their English classes. We’ll often start by reading a poem, talking about its meaning, and analyzing its meter and rhyme scheme. Then we’ll imitate it, writing poetry in class. One poem we looked at some time ago was “Lament for the Makaris” by William Dunbar (1460-1520). The Scottish word makaris is related to our word “maker,” which is what the word “poet” means. In his poem, Dunbar laments man’s mortality and how many great poets have gone before him and have died. The poem begins:
I that in heil [health] was and gladness,
Am troubled now with great sickness,
And feebled with infirmity:
Timor mortis conturbat me. [Latin: The fear of death disturbs me.]
Our pleasance here is all vain glory,
This false world is but transitory,
The flesh is brukle [brittle], the Fiend is slye:
Timor mortis conturbat me.
Dunbar continues that Latin refrain at the end of each stanza throughout the entire poem. A few years ago, reflecting on his meter and refrain, I wanted to do an imitation with a more hopeful refrain: Timor mortis non terret me [Latin: The fear of death does not frighten me]. Here’s the poem:
Death was a pall o’er every nation
That paid no heed to rank or station,
But Christ has drawn that shroud away.
Timor mortis non terret me.
Death was a gullet gulping down
By day and night, in field and town,
But Jesus has drawn up its prey.
Timor mortis non terret me.
Death was a beast with fearsome sting
That threatened ev’ry living thing,
But Jesus broke its sting for aye.
Timor mortis non terret me.
Death was a valley deep in shade
That darkened life and made it fade,
But Christ dispelled it with His ray.
Timor mortis non terret me.
Now what is death? It is but sleep,
Or soil from which our Lord will reap
Our bodies on His harvest day.
Timor mortis non terret me.
The portal to eternal bliss:
Now death is nothing more than this.
For Jesus lay behind Death’s door
And broke its bolts forevermore,
And so forevermore I’ll say,
Timor mortis non terret me.
After we had read Dunbar’s poem in class, we imitated his meter and wrote Latin refrains for the ends of our stanzas. Now when we compose poetry in class, it’s mostly an exercise in adhering to meter and rhyme scheme. Occasionally I’ll limit the topic to something pious, especially when we’re imitating hymn meters, but more often I’ll let students write on whatever random or silly topic they’d like. Let me tell you, there are some highly amusing poems that come out of those classes! In one of my sillier moods I wrote the following poem, using the refrain Bos, in aeternum amo te! [O cow, I love thee forever!]:
My cow is grazing on the green,
The loveliest you’ve ever seen,
The sun looks on with pleasing ray
Bos, in aeternum amo te.
My cow is eating up her lunch.
I wish I had something to munch.
My eye is hungry, and I say
Bos, in aeternum amo te.
At table I sit down to sup,
And like my cow I eat it up:
Hamburger, steak, and rare filet.
Bos, in aeternum amo te!
Poetry can convey deep thoughts and mysteries extraordinarily well, things like love, or the Incarnation of our Lord. But, as seen at the recent Poetry Recitation Competition, poetry can also be lighthearted and humorous. Sometimes it’s fun to elevate a silly thought or a play on words from prose into verse, simply for the delight of it. Yes, the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking to devour me, and temptation is never far away, and who knows when death may overtake me? And yet Christ is my Deliverer, and so life isn’t dark or threatening or catastrophically serious. It’s like we sing in the Easter hymn, “My heart from care is free, / No trouble troubles me. / Misfortune now is play, / And night is bright as day” (LSB 467:5). In the very midst of life where snares of death surround us, I can write a silly poem about a cow and spend time thinking about what rhymes with the Latin word te, because Jesus has taken care of all the serious stuff. In Him, we can afford to be lighthearted and silly.
It’s wonderful to see the students enjoy poetry: learning poems by heart and composing their own poems. Finding pleasure in words is an art that serves in the holiness of the sanctuary, in the silliness of an hour of leisure, indeed, in all of life.
In Christ,
Pastor Richard
