• Facebook
  • Twitter

Dreaming Beneath the Spires

Anita Mathias's Blog on Faith and Art

  • Home
  • My Books
  • Essays
  • Contact
  • About Me

When Poems are Handed to You Ready Made : The Mysteries of Inspiration

By Anita Mathias


  

I love “The Battle Hymn of the Republic,” by Julia Ward Howe. It has a mysterious perfection: the rhythm, the evocative words, the allusions, the beautiful language create a loveliness  greater than the sum of its parts.
Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord:
He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored;
He hath loosed the fateful lightning of His terrible swift sword:
His truth is marching on.
(Chorus)
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
His truth is marching on.
I have seen Him in the watch-fires of a hundred circling camps,
They have builded Him an altar in the evening dews and damps;
I can read His righteous sentence by the dim and flaring lamps:
His day is marching on.
(Chorus)
I have read a fiery gospel writ in burnished rows of steel:
“As ye deal with my contemners, so with you my grace shall deal;
Let the Hero, born of woman, crush the serpent with his heel,
Since God is marching on.”
(Chorus)
He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call retreat;
He is sifting out the hearts of men before His judgment-seat:
Oh, be swift, my soul, to answer Him! Be jubilant, my feet!
Our God is marching on.
(Chorus)
 In the beauty of the lilies, Christ was born across the sea,
With a glory in His bosom that transfigures you and me:
As He died to make men holy, let us die to make men free,
While God is marching on.
(Chorus)
He is coming like the glory of the morning on the wave,
He is Wisdom to the mighty, He is Succour to the brave,
So the world shall be His footstool, and the soul of Time His slave,
Our God is marching on.
(Chorus)
 On the night of November 18, 1861, Julia Ward Howe awoke with the words of the song in her mind and in near darkness wrote the verses to the “Battle Hymn of the Republic.” 

Of the writing of the lyrics, Howe remembers, “I went to bed that night as usual, and slept, according to my wont, quite soundly. I awoke in the gray of the morning twilight; and as I lay waiting for the dawn, the long lines of the desired poem began to twine themselves in my mind. Having thought out all the stanzas, I said to myself, ‘I must get up and write these verses down, lest I fall asleep again and forget them.’ So, with a sudden effort, I sprang out of bed, and found in the dimness an old stump of a pen which I remembered to have used the day before. I scrawled the verses almost without looking at the paper.”
                                                      * * * 
Wow! To whom are these mysterious gifts of creativity handed out? 
Generally to those who have long trained themselves waiting for the angel. “If the angel comes, it will be because you have wooed him by your grim resolve to be always a beginner,” Rainer Maria Rilke muses. Rilke suffered for most of his life from torturing writers’ block. Beauty, images, art, ideas, poetry filled his mind; he was, however, unable to express them in poetry.
Rilke said that as he was walking, depressed, by the cliffs near Duino Castle, he heard a voice call out to him, “Wer, wenn ich schriee, hörte mich denn aus der Engel Ordnungen?” which became his famous Duino Elegy,
Who, if I cried out, would hear me among the angels’ hierarchies?
And even if one of them pressed me suddenly against his heart:
I would be consumed in that overwhelming existence.

His writers’ block was broken, and The Duino Elegies flowed forth in a torrent.
                                                        * * *
Milton claimed that he was visited nightly by an angel or muse who dictated cantos of Paradise Lost to him. In the morning, his daughters found the blind poet, already up, neatly dressed, and waiting to be “milked” of his verses, which he dictated to them.
Milton however, at the age of 14, had decided to become one of the great poets in English. His goal: “To write something which the world would not willingly let die.” He spent his youth in arduous preparation, so much so that by the time he began writing Paradise Lost at the age of 50, he was blind (the result of the years from his early teens spent reading late into the night by candlelight); had an brain incomparably stocked with poetry and learning, but had written nothing substantial.
But the angel came, and he did indeed write something that the world would not willingly let die. 

My father had memorized the opening of Paradise Lost, and I remember the opening sentence with a thrill of pleasure. It’s so beautiful, so majestic, that reading it now, after some years, I almost cry with pleasure,
    
    Of Man’s first disobedience, and the fruit
    Of that forbidden tree whose mortal taste
    Brought death into the world and all our woe,
    With loss of Eden, till one greater Man
    Restore us and regain the blissful seat,
    Sing, Heav’nly Muse, that on the secret top
    Of Oreb, or of Sinai, didst inspire
    That shepherd who first taught the chosen seed
    In the beginning how the heav’ns and earth
    Rose out of Chaos; or if Sion hill
   Delight thee more, and Siloa’s brook that flow’d
   Fast by the oracle of God, I thence
   Invoke thy aid to my advent’rous song,
   That with no middle flight intends to soar
   Above th’ Aonian mount, while it pursues
   Things unattempted yet in prose or rhyme.
   And chiefly thou, O Spirit, that dost prefer
    Before all temples th’ upright heart and pure,
  Instruct me, for thou know’st; thou from the first
  Wast present, and, with mighty wings outspread,
   Dove-like sat’st brooding on the vast Abyss
   And mad’st it pregnant: what in me is dark
   Illumine, what is low raise and support,
    That to the highth of this great argument
   I may assert Eternal Providence
    And justify the ways of God to men.
Wow! What a long amazing sentence!
Paradise Lost comes, it comes as if dictated by an angel, but it comes to the blind poet who had spent his life preparing to write it. The Duino  Elegies were “overheard” by the poet who also spent a life of sacrifice in preparation.
Poetic inspiration comes suddenly, as if the unconsciously suddenly ripens, to those who had laboured long  and hard,
 for much of their lives to receive it.
                                                   * * *
In contrast is William Blake, an untaught visionary poet 
who was more in touch with Heaven than with our world.  At
 the age of four, the young artist “saw God” when God “put
 his head to the window.”
At the age of eight or ten in Peckham, Blake claimed to have seen “a tree filled with angels, bright angelic wings bespangling every bough like stars.” Do I believe him? Yes, as it happens.
“I know that our deceased friends are more really with us than when they were apparent to our mortal part. Thirteen years ago I 
lost a brother, and with his spirit I converse daily and hourly
 in the spirit, and see him in my remembrance, in the region
 of my imagination. I hear his advice, and even now write
 from his dictate.” Blake wrote.
Blake writes “Felpham is a sweet place for Study, because it 
is more spiritual than London. Heaven opens here on all sides
 her golden Gates; her windows are not obstructed by vapours;
 voices of Celestial inhabitants are more distinctly heard, & 
their forms more distinctly seen.”
  
It was while he lived in Felpham, Sussex, that Blake wrote
 the perfect Jerusalem.

More from my site

  • 365 Project : 68 Semi-precious Stones in Gorgeous Pietre Dure365 Project : 68 Semi-precious Stones in Gorgeous Pietre Dure
  • Generalife in the Alhambra and GranadaGeneralife in the Alhambra and Granada
  • “All I have left is a nuclear bomb”“All I have left is a nuclear bomb”
  • Visiting: When People Were Entertainment (From My Memoir-in-Progress)Visiting: When People Were Entertainment (From My Memoir-in-Progress)
  • Rich Christians and World Poverty. How much should we give?Rich Christians and World Poverty. How much should we give?
Share this...
Share on Facebook
Facebook
Tweet about this on Twitter
Twitter

Filed Under: random

« Previous Post
Next Post »

Sign Up and Get a Free eBook!

Sign up to be emailed my blog posts (one a week) and get the ebook of "Holy Ground," my account of working with Mother Teresa.

Join 634 Other Readers

Follow me on Twitter

Follow @anitamathias1

Anita Mathias: About Me

Anita Mathias

Read my blog on Facebook

My Books

Wandering Between Two Worlds: Essays on Faith and Art

Wandering Between Two Worlds - Amazon.com
Amazon.com

Amazon.co.uk

Francesco, Artist of Florence: The Man Who Gave Too Much

Francesco, Artist of Florence - Amazom.com
Amazon.com

Amazon.co.uk

The Story of Dirk Willems

The Story of Dirk Willems - Amazon.com
Amazon.com

Amazon.co.uk
Premier Digital Awards 2015 - Finalist - Blogger of the year
Runner Up Christian Media Awards 2014 - Tweeter of the year

Recent Posts

  •  On Not Wasting a Desert Experience
  • A Mind of Life and Peace in the Middle of a Global Pandemic
  • On Yoga and Following Jesus
  • Silver and Gold Linings in the Storm Clouds of Coronavirus
  • Trust: A Message of Christmas
  • Life- Changing Journaling: A Gratitude Journal, and Habit-Tracker, with Food and Exercise Logs, Time Sheets, a Bullet Journal, Goal Sheets and a Planner
  • On Loving That Which Love You Back
  • “An Autobiography in Five Chapters” and Avoiding Habitual Holes  
  • Shining Faith in Action: Dirk Willems on the Ice
  • The Story of Dirk Willems: The Man who Died to Save His Enemy

Categories

What I’m Reading

Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance
Barak Obama

Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance- Amazon.com
Amazon.com

Amazon.co.uk

H Is for Hawk
Helen MacDonald

H Is for Hawk - Amazon.com
Amazon.com

Amazon.co.uk

Tiny Habits
B. J. Fogg

  Tiny Habits  - Amazon.com
Amazon.com

Amazon.co.uk

The Regeneration Trilogy
Pat Barker

  The Regeneration Trilogy  - Amazon.com
Amazon.com

Amazon.co.uk

Archive by month

INSTAGRAM

anita.mathias

Writer, Blogger, Reader, Mum. Christian. Instaing Oxford, travel, gardens and healthy meals. Oxford English alum. Writing memoir. Lives in Oxford, UK

Images from walks around Oxford. #beauty #oxford # Images from walks around Oxford. #beauty #oxford #walking #tranquility #naturephotography #nature
So we had a lovely holiday in the Southwest. And h So we had a lovely holiday in the Southwest. And here we are at one of the world’s most famous and easily recognisable sites.
#stonehenge #travel #england #prehistoric England #family #druids
And I’ve blogged https://anitamathias.com/2020/09/13/on-not-wasting-a-desert-experience/
So, after Paul the Apostle's lightning bolt encounter with the Risen Christ on the road to Damascus, he went into the desert, he tells us...
And there, he received revelation, visions, and had divine encounters. The same Judean desert, where Jesus fasted for forty days before starting his active ministry. Where Moses encountered God. Where David turned from a shepherd to a leader and a King, and more, a man after God’s own heart.  Where Elijah in the throes of a nervous breakdown hears God in a gentle whisper. 
England, where I live, like most of the world is going through a desert experience of continuing partial lockdowns. Covid-19 spreads through human contact and social life, and so we must refrain from those great pleasures. We are invited to the desert, a harsh place where pruning can occur, and spiritual fruitfulness.
A plague like this has not been known for a hundred years... John Piper, after his cancer diagnosis, exhorted people, “Don’t Waste Your Cancer”—since this was the experience God permitted you to have, and He can bring gold from it. Pandemics and plagues are permitted (though not willed or desired) by a Sovereign God, and he can bring life-change out of them. 
Let us not waste this unwanted, unchosen pandemic, this opportunity for silence, solitude and reflection. Let’s not squander on endless Zoom calls—or on the internet, which, if not used wisely, will only raise anxiety levels. Let’s instead accept the invitation to increased silence and reflection
Let's use the extra free time that many of us have long coveted and which has now been given us by Covid-19 restrictions to seek the face of God. To seek revelation. To pray. 
And to work on those projects of our hearts which have been smothered by noise, busyness, and the tumult of people and parties. To nurture the fragile dreams still alive in our hearts. The long-deferred duty or vocation
So, we are about eight weeks into lockdown, and I So, we are about eight weeks into lockdown, and I have totally sunk into the rhythm of it, and have got quiet, very quiet, the quietest spell of time I have had as an adult.
I like it. I will find going back to the sometimes frenetic merry-go-round of my old life rather hard. Well, I doubt I will go back to it. I will prune some activities, and generally live more intentionally and mindfully.
I have started blocking internet of my phone and laptop for longer periods of time, and that has brought a lot of internal quiet and peace.
Some of the things I have enjoyed during lockdown have been my daily long walks, and gardening. Well, and reading and working on a longer piece of work.
Here are some images from my walks.
And if you missed it, a blog about maintaining peace in the middle of the storm of a global pandemic
https://anitamathias.com/2020/05/04/a-mind-of-life-and-peace/  #walking #contemplating #beauty #oxford #pandemic
A few walks in Oxford in the time of quarantine. A few walks in Oxford in the time of quarantine.  We can maintain a mind of life and peace during this period of lockdown by being mindful of our minds, and regulating them through meditation; being mindful of our bodies and keeping them happy by exercise and yoga; and being mindful of our emotions in this uncertain time, and trusting God who remains in charge. A new blog on maintaining a mind of life and peace during lockdown https://anitamathias.com/2020/05/04/a-mind-of-life-and-peace/
In the days when one could still travel, i.e. Janu In the days when one could still travel, i.e. January 2020, which seems like another life, all four of us spent 10 days in Malta. I unplugged, and logged off social media, so here are some belated iphone photos of a day in Valetta.
Today, of course, there’s a lockdown, and the country’s leader is in intensive care.
When the world is too much with us, and the news stresses us, moving one’s body, as in yoga or walking, calms the mind. I am doing some Yoga with Adriene, and again seeing the similarities between the practice of Yoga and the practice of following Christ.
https://anitamathias.com/2020/04/06/on-yoga-and-following-jesus/
#valleta #valletamalta #travel #travelgram #uncagedbird
Images from some recent walks in Oxford. I am copi Images from some recent walks in Oxford.
I am coping with lockdown by really, really enjoying my daily 4 mile walk. By savouring the peace of wild things. By trusting that God will bring good out of this. With a bit of yoga, and weights. And by working a fair amount in my garden. And reading.
How are you doing?
#oxford #oxfordinlockdown #lockdown #walk #lockdownwalks #peace #beauty #happiness #joy #thepeaceofwildthings
Images of walks in Oxford in this time of social d Images of walks in Oxford in this time of social distancing. The first two are my own garden.  And I’ve https://anitamathias.com/2020/03/28/silver-and-gold-linings-in-the-storm-clouds-of-coronavirus/ #corona #socialdistancing #silverlinings #silence #solitude #peace
Trust: A Message of Christmas He came to earth in Trust: A Message of Christmas  He came to earth in a  splash of energy
And gentleness and humility.
That homeless baby in the barn
Would be the lynchpin on which history would ever after turn
Who would have thought it?
But perhaps those attuned to God’s way of surprises would not be surprised.
He was already at the centre of all things, connecting all things. * * *
Augustus Caesar issued a decree which brought him to Bethlehem,
The oppressions of colonialism and conquest brought the Messiah exactly where he was meant to be, the place prophesied eight hundred years before his birth by the Prophet Micah.
And he was already redeeming all things. The shame of unwed motherhood; the powerlessness of poverty.
He was born among animals in a barn, animals enjoying the sweetness of life, animals he created, animals precious to him.
For he created all things, and in him all things hold together
Including stars in the sky, of which a new one heralded his birth
Drawing astronomers to him.
And drawing him to the attention of an angry King
As angelic song drew shepherds to him.
An Emperor, a King, scholars, shepherds, angels, animals, stars, an unwed mother
All things in heaven and earth connected
By a homeless baby
The still point on which the world still turns. The powerful centre. The only true power.
The One who makes connections. * * *
And there is no end to the wisdom, the crystal glints of the Message that birth brings.
To me, today, it says, “Fear not, trust me, I will make a way.” The baby lay gentle in the barn
And God arranges for new stars, angelic song, wise visitors with needed finances for his sustenance in the swiftly-coming exile, shepherds to underline the anointing and reassure his parents. “Trust me in your dilemmas,” the baby still says, “I will make a way. I will show it to you.” Happy Christmas everyone.  https://anitamathias.com/2019/12/24/trust-a-message-of-christmas/ #christmas #gemalderieberlin #trust #godwillmakeaway
Look, I’ve designed a journal. It’s an omnibus Look, I’ve designed a journal. It’s an omnibus Gratitude journal, habit tracker, food and exercise journal, bullet journal, with time sheets, goal sheets and a Planner. Everything you’d like to track.  Here’s a post about it with ISBNs https://anitamathias.com/2019/12/23/life-changing-journalling/. Check it out. I hope you and your kids like it!
Load More… Follow on Instagram

© 2020 Dreaming Beneath the Spires · All Rights Reserved. · Cookie Policy · Privacy Policy

»
«