Poems with Bible references

[Sierra Nevada]

Hi all.

I need to do an assignment for University about two poems that somehow use The Bible in them, and modify the original in a creative way. I wish to do it from some poem that I really like, so I ask you of help. If you have in mind any interesting poems that connect to a particular part in the Bible, would you please share with me? Any help is much appreciated :)

[ShoutGrace]

I would recommend "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock." Here are the two excerpts I'm thinking of:



"Though I have seen my head (grown slightly bald) brought in upon a platter,
I am no prophet--and here’s no great matter;
I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker,
And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker,
And in short, I was afraid."




"Would it have been worth while,
To have bitten off the matter with a smile,
To have squeezed the universe into a ball
To roll it toward some overwhelming question,
To say: 'I am Lazarus, come from the dead,
Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all'--
If one, settling a pillow by her head,
Should say: 'That is not what I meant at all;
That is not it, at all.'"


The first more than likely refers to John the Baptist - the second is explicitly obvious. Yeats' Second Coming might work well for you. Samuel Hazo wrote a poem entitled "For Fawzi in Jerusalem," as well . . .

Let us know what poems you're looking at, which ones you choose, and how the assignment goes. ;)

[Whifflingpin]

"The Destruction of Sennacherib" which starts "The Assyrian came down like a wolf on the fold" - you could take the same story, but highlight quite different themes.

"Windhover" by G.M Hopkins - you could take the same theme (when you've worked out what the theme is,) and present it in a different setting.

[Niamh]

John Donnes sonnet "the Round Earth's imagined corners" Is more or less the bibles book of revelations.

At the round earth's imagined corners blow
Your trumpets, angels, and arise, arise
From death, you numberless infinities
Of souls, and to your scattered bodies go,
All whom the flood did, and fire shall, overthrow,
All whom war, dearth, age, agues, tyrannies,
Despair, law, chance, hath slain, and you whose eyes
Shall behold God, and never taste death's woe.
But let them sleep, Lord, and me mourn a space,
For, if above all these my sins abound,
'Tis late to ask abundance of Thy grace,
When we are there. Here on this lowly ground
Teach me how to repent; for that's as good
As if Thou'dst sealed my pardon, with Thy blood.

I love this poem and studied it in secondary school for my leaving cert. hope this helps.

[MikeK]

A few of my favorites that might help:

John Milton's

"When I Consider How My Light Is Spent"

When I consider how my light is spent
Ere half my days in this dark world and wide,
And that one talent which is death to hide
Lodged with me useless, though my soul more bent
To serve therewith my Maker, and present
My true account, lest he returning chide,
"Doth God exact day-labour, light denied?"
I fondly ask. But Patience, to prevent
That murmur, soon replies: "God doth not need
Either man's work or his own gifts: who best
Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best. His state
Is kingly; thousands at his bidding speed
And post o'er land and ocean without rest:
They also serve who only stand and wait."

Robert Frost's

"Never Again Would Bird's Song Be The Same":

He would declare and could himself believe
That the birds there in all the garden round
From having heard the daylong voice of Eve
Had added to their own an oversound,
Her tone of meaning but without the words.
Admittedly an eloquence so soft
Could only have had an influence on birds
When call or laughter carried it aloft.
Be that as may be, she was in their song.
Moreover her voice upon their voices crossed
Had now persisted in the woods so long
That probably it never would be lost.
Never again would birds' song be the same.
And to do that to birds was why she came.

William Blake's

"The Lamb"

Little Lamb who made thee
Dost thou know who made thee
Gave thee life & bid thee feed.
By the stream & o'er the mead;
Gave thee clothing of delight,
Softest clothing wooly bright;
Gave thee such a tender voice,
Making all the vales rejoice!
Little Lamb who made thee
Dost thou know who made thee

Little Lamb I'll tell thee,
Little Lamb I'll tell thee!
He is called by thy name,
For he calls himself a Lamb:
He is meek & he is mild,
He became a little child:
I a child & thou a lamb,
We are called by his name.
Little Lamb God bless thee.
Little Lamb God bless thee.

Thomas Hardy's

"The Oxen"

Christmas Eve, and twelve of the clock,
"Now they are all on their knees",
An elder said as we sat in a flock
By the embers in hearthside ease.

We pictured the meek mild creatures where
They dwelt in their strawy pen,
Nor did it occur to one of us there
To doubt they were kneeling then.

So fair a fancy few would weave
In these years! Yet, I feel,
If someone said on Christmas Eve,
"Come; see the oxen kneel

"In the lonely barton by yonder coomb
Our childhood used to know",
I should go with him in the gloom,
Hoping it might be so.

E.A. Robinson's

"The Sheaves"

Where long the shadows of the wind had rolled,
Green wheat was yielding to the change assigned;
And as by some vast magic undivined
The world was turning slowly into gold.
Like nothing that was ever bought or sold
It waited there, the body and the mind;
And with a mighty meaning of a kind
That tells the more the more it is not told.

So in a land where all days are not fair,
Fair days went on till on another day
A thousand golden sheaves were lying there,
Shining and still, but not for long to stay -
As if a thousand girls with golden hair
Might rise from where they slept and go away.

[MikeK]

Sorry, I also meant to include

Anthony Hecht's

"Naming The Animals"

Having commanded Adam to bestow
Names upon all the creatures, God withdrew
To empyrean palaces of blue
That warm and windless morning long ago,
And seemed to take no notice of the vexed
Look on the young man's face as he took thought
Of all the miracles the Lord had wrought,
Now to be labelled, dubbed, yclept, indexed.

Before an addled mind and puddled brow,
The feathered nation and the finny prey
Passed by; there went biped and quadruped.
Adam looked forth with bottomless dismay
Into the tragic eyes of his first cow.
And shyly ventured, "Thou shalt be called 'Fred.'"

[Ariel Figue]

check out Poemhunter, Jacob Russell's "How Jacob Loved" for Jacob and Rachel in Genesis, and "Purim Spiel" for the book of Esther.

[Ariel Figue]

How Jacob Loved
Jacob Russell

When Jacob wept in Leah's arms,
it was for Rachel's lies, her eyes
her knees, her almost perfect
feet

A stubborn dream that would not let him sleep
when he had rolled aside
from calculating sons

And when he heard
the jackals laughing in the Syrian night
and bore the tricks at Laban's hands
and saw her smile
he knew, as only great deceivers know
the truth
about her idol thieving hands

She wove and wove
a strand of night into her hair
a woolen band
a syrian wolf to guard the fold

Through all those years of waiting he would dream
of Laban's daughters, multiplied like sheep
in lines across the syrian sand

She alone refused
to lay her child at his feet, herself
the gift

It was enough
if he, his face upon her knee
could beg
to hear her tell again her dream of rungs
her spinner's hands to smooth his hair
to brush away at last
the lies he loved