With a lantern that wouldn't burn In too frail a buggy we drove Behind too heavy a horse Through a pitch-dark limitless grove. And a man came out of the trees And took our horse by the head And reaching back to his ribs Deliberately stabbed him dead. The ponderous beast went down With a [...]
At the Annunciation, in a room in Nazareth, the fresh innocence of Eve is recapitulated, but in a new configuration. This is the nature of creation: that all things general, to become real, must become particular. It should therefore not come as a surprise that God Himself should also take particular flesh from a particular [...]
Nothing is so beautiful as Spring – When weeds, in wheels, shoot long and lovely and lush; Thrush’s eggs look little low heavens, and thrush Through the echoing timber does so rinse and wring The ear, it strikes like lightnings to hear him sing; The glassy peartree leaves and blooms, they brush The descending blue; [...]
Evangeline is the spirit of those millions of people in multifarious cultures who have been expelled from their homes through ethnic cleansing or other acts of tyranny. She is the spirit of hope that endures and is patient. She haunts those who believe in ghosts. I believe in ghosts. It’s not that I have any [...]
T.S. Eliot’s “Ash-Wednesday” helps us to consider our earthly transience, just as Ash Wednesday reminds us of this same fact that our time on earth is passing. Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita . . . There is something telling about man’s tendency to view his life as a journey, for journeys convey the [...]
A primary aim of my work is to counter the widespread misconception that Christianity somehow “weakened” or “polluted” the cultures of Europe. It is often claimed by Neo-Pagans that the faith was simply a foreign imposition forced upon an unwilling population. However, a closer examination of contemporary sources reveals a far more nuanced reality. Joseph [...]
O strange awakening to a world of gloom, And baffled moonbeams and delirious stars, Of souls that moan behind forbidden bars, And waving forests swept by wings of doom; […]
Whose woods these are I think I know. His house is in the village though; He will not see me stopping here To watch his woods fill up with snow. My little horse must think it queer To stop without a farmhouse near Between the woods and frozen lake The darkest evening of the year. [...]
Those who turn the pages of Philip C. Kolin's book of poetry, "Evangeliaries," will be going on a pilgrimage of grace. It is necessary, therefore, to slow down. Poetry, especially poetry this suffused with God’s abundant presence, must not be rushed. It must be savoured in silence. I have recently received a copy of Evangeliaries: Poems [...]
Rifles and Rosary Beads You hold on to what you need Vicodin, morphine dreams Rifles and Rosary Beads Yellow smoke orange haze Blowin' into my eyes Whistling sunset bombs I couldn't trust the sky Rifles and Rosary Beads You hold on to what you need Vicodin, morphine dreams Rifles, Rosary Beads White knuckles wrapped around [...]
Some people frolic in the European Middle Age, whereas most people hearing that designation think hair loss and weight gain. And that is too bad, because there and then resided Geoffrey Chaucer, the second greatest poet in English. If only the selective reading public knew better, they would be dazzled by his masterwork, The Book [...]
T.S. Eliot’s “The Journey of the Magi” is as sincere a conversion poem as one can have it: No fancy light shining down from the heavens or a thunderous call to holiness; just one small event that left a Magus perplexed by a new worldview that was unsettling and strange, for it put into question [...]
On the Twelfth Day of Christmas two of my great loves sent to me a couple of great meditations on the mystery of the Nativity. The first and better-known meditation is by T.S. Eliot, whose “Journey of the Magi” places the poet in the entourage of the Three Wise Men as they journey to Bethlehem. [...]
Michael Kurek's English Symphony is his third symphony and perhaps his best, surpassing even the magic and majesty of his second and, as its name suggests, taking the primary world of England as its creative wellspring. When Britain had an Empire The sun would never set, But the sun set over England And Englishmen forget [...]