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Lines Written in a Time of Illness
My body is weak, and this reflects my soul,
Who baser pleasures is obsessed to know;
For the mind, of late, has been filled with resentment
And not contented by mere sentiment
Which, however piously it’s offered,
Relief from pain has never, ever, proffered.
Just like the blessed Nazarene in Jordan
I’d hoped to heap up blessings rich, still more than
My fellows who, in their simplicity,
Put on a face some call duplicity:
Praising their God in church, but when at home
They’d rather scroll for days on their smartphone;
And for the shame of this false consternation
I have been sent a kind of revelation,
Albeit formed as a fresh humiliation;
Since, in my sickness I am far too weak
To think of prayer, or try to abstain from meat.
For even as noxious things flow in my blood,
God grants me to contemplate that sacred Good:
A mind turned off from all our worldly business
Is strength made perfect in our weakness.
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Bishop Tikhon
What emotions did you feel then
On those dark and frozen evenings,
Light reducing, heart-rate soaring,
All the while the Lord imploring,
Overwhelmed by thoughts and feelings?
In the morning you would stand there
Praying at the Lord God’s altar,
Hands outstretched in earnest prayer,
Yet still the mind not truly there;
Not in the flesh, but soul, you faltered.
Opening the book of rubrics
You found its words too much to offer
Unto God to heal your sorrow
Stalking you by eve and morrow,
Evil chanting, “Why d’you bother?”
“Lord, have mercy! Send me succour!”
Stretched across the frigid floor
Crosswise, or your head bowed low,
Wordless, to your Saviour know.
Truly, does God will for more?
Bishop Tikhon, dear vladika,
Now you dwell celestially.
Joy is slow to visit here
Amidst life’s trouble and its fear;
Since you gained sought-for serenity:
Take the time to look and smile on me.
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Poet’s Note: This poem addresses the Russian Saint Tikhon of Zadonsk (1724-1783). St. Tikhon was bishop of Voronezh until his retirement in 1769 to the monastery of Zadonsk. St. Tikhon was a profound spiritual writer, best known for his magnum opus On True Christianity. St. Tikhon experienced prolonged periods of melancholy which both interrupted and informed his spiritual works, and it is these moments of his life that this poem brings into focus. The term “vladika” is a title of respect for a bishop in the Church Slavonic language meaning “master.”
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A.J. Illingworth is an English philosopher. He studied Philosophy and Theology at the University of Oxford, and now works as a teacher of philosophy. His interests include virtue ethics and the philosophy of religion, as well as the aesthetics of music.
These poems are both lovely. I especially love the final lines of the first. Thank you for them, dear Poet. I hope you are feeling better.
The address to Bishop Tikhon makes it read as if the saint and the speaker are so closely united in thought that they share spirituality and the melancholy that interferes with prayer. This creates a tender mood the reader is invited to enter as he discovers the personality of the good bishop, and thus he too easily joins in prayer. An effective devotional work.
I found Lines Written in a Time of Illness particularly interesting, the narrator being punished for doubting his fellow churchgoers’ sincerity and taking comfort in his punishment of ill health.
As Margaret mentions, the tender mood created in Bishop Tikhon, really carries this piece forward.
Thank you all for the kind comments. The first poem especially is inspired by my recent readings of John Donne, even down to the squeezing in of some extra/blended syllables into the pentameters… But more especially in the idea of being thankful for spiritual hardships. The second is one probably my best attempt at trochaic metre yet, in honour of a favourite writer and saint. Still, I shall keep trying!