Looking for pious (spiritual?) poems

[Ruben Meijerink]

Heey,
I'm looking for poems which are about subjecting yourself to something higher (Beauty or God), asceticism, protestant ethic, difficult pleasure instead of too wordly pleasures etc. - you get the idea. It doesn't have to be religious per se, since e.g. Shelley also fits the bill sometimes.

Thanks a lot!

EDIT: I'm new to poetry so feel free to recommend classics too, since I don't know them.

[illiterati]

any particular era you're looking for? (could you narrow it down a bit...)

[Ruben Meijerink]

Victorian era maybe? And I don't know how to narrow it down; though I'm not looking for institution-critical/political poems, just something that is aesthetically strong.

[illiterati]

hmm. i neither know nor care to know much about Victorian era.

but if you're looking for older stuff, try George Herbert.

or St. John of the Cross (it's important to get a good translation--try Barnstone's)

or the Psalms--especially the Psalms

more recently, I'm a fan of Franz Wright's Walking to Martha's Vineyard

I haven't read it, but people like Christian Wiman's Bright Abyss

also, Eliot's Ash Wednesday (http://poetryx.com/poetry/poems/748/)



here, preview of barnstone’s john of the cross, courtesy of google books:

Dark Night


On a dark secret night
starving for love and deep in flame,

O happy lucky flight!

unseen I slipped away,
my house at last was calm and safe.


Blackly free from light,
disguised and down a secret way,

O happy lucky flight!
in darkness I escaped,
my house at last was calm and safe.


On that happy night—in
secret; no one saw me through the dark—

and I saw nothing then,
no other light to mark
the way but fire pounding my heart.


That flaming guided me
more firmly than the noonday sun,

and waiting there was he
I knew so well—who shone
where nobody appeared to come.


O night, my guide!
O night more friendly than the dawn!

O tender night that tied
love and the loved one,
loved one in the lover fused as one!


On my flowering breasts
which I had saved for him alone,

he slept and I caressed
and fondled him with love,
and cedars fanned the air above.


Wind from the castle wall
while my fingers played in his hair:

its hand serenely fell
wounding my neck, and there
my senses vanished in the air.


I lay. Forgot my being,
and on my love I leaned my face.

All ceased. I left my being,
leaving my cares to fade
among the lilies far away.


The Altar
George Herbert

A broken ALTAR, Lord, thy servant rears,
Made of a heart and cemented with tears;

Whose parts are as thy hand did frame;
No workman’s tool hath touch’d the same.

A HEART alone
Is such a stone,
As nothing but
Thy pow’r doth cut.
Wherefore each part
Of my hard heart
Meets in this frame
To praise thy name.
That is I chance to hold my peace,
These stones to praise thee may not cease.
Oh, let thy blessed SACRIFICE be mine,
And sanctify this ALTAR to be thine.

[Ruben Meijerink]

Thanks a lot! Those should keep me occupied for a while. Great. :)

[AuntShecky]

John Donne's Holy Sonnets. Don't forget Milton's sonnets as well, along with Paradise Lost. For more modern poems, try T. S. Eliot, especially Four Quartets.

[English reader]

I recommend Sunday Morning by Wallace Stevens. It's an intellectual look at Christianity

[Nick91]

Give William Blake a try!

[Marbles]

Let's say if you are looking for devotional poetry you may want to give John Donne's sonnets a try.