Today I submitted the final piece of work for my two undergrad degrees. I will not deny that it feels absolutely glorious to be done! As I was in a bit of a playful mood, and in honour of the fact that April is National Poetry Month in both the United States and Canada, I wrote the following minor parody of Chaucer’s Prologue to the Canterbury Tales. Enjoy!

Epilogue to the Academic Tales

With Apologies to Chaucer

Mathew Block
April 28, 2010

For your meditation this Ash Wednesday: “Oh my blacke Soule” by John Donne (Holy Sonnet II in the 1633 edition).

Oh my blacke Soule! now thou art summoned
By sicknesse, deaths herald, and champion;
Thou art like a pilgrim, which abroad hath done
Treason, and durst not turne to whence hee is fled,
Or like a thiefe, which till deaths doome be read,
Wisheth himselfe delivered from prison;
But damn’d and hal’d to execution,
Wisheth that still he might be imprisoned;
Yet grace, if thou repent, thou canst not lacke;
But who shall give thee that grace to beginne?
Oh make thy selfe with holy mourning blacke,
And red with blushing, as thou art with sinne;
Or wash thee in Christs blood, which hath this might
That being red, it dyes red soules to white.

Ancient words, chanted once in the depths of Roman catacombs,
Enchant us still and speak for us.
Where we would be speechless,
Be you the words upon our lips.
And let us cry out with fourth century Jerusalem,
Fifth century Rome, sixteenth century Wittenburg,
And twenty-first century Seoul, Abuja and Brasilia,
“Kyrie eleison!”

Ours is one voice, though many tongues;
Altered in form yet unaltered in meaning.
Here the Word speaks over us.
Here the Word speaks into us.
And we in return respond in unison.
With angels and archangels, and all the company of heaven,
With seraphim and cherubim, and all the saints quick and dead,
With the living creatures, and all the holy catholic and apostolic church,
Praise we the Name.

What is this text that survives centuries and cultures and civilizations?
What these words that they grip us still?
Are they not of human origin?
Human-crafted, yes, but drawn from divine logos,
And infused by the Spirit with his message,
A message that bids us come experience grace anew.

We do not speak these ancient words by mere rote.
We speak them by heart:
Reciting, repeating, reiterating changeless truths,
Until we at last we are drawn up from these catacombs
To join in undying worship with the faithful of all generations –
Those with whom we worship even now as we speak ancient words.

Mathew A. Block
November 8, 2009

This is the harvest, the crops full and ready,
Prepared by God’s hands and now given to men.
Render thanksgiving with hearts full of gladness
To God who in mercy brings harvest again.

This is the harvest, how fruitful the labour!
The fields have matured at our Saviour’s command.
Come, gather in all the sheaves and the produce,
The gifts God has brought forth from out of the land.

This is the harvest, the bounty exceeds us,
And we are blessed richly with more than we need.
Move us, O Spirit, to share this abundance,
The weakened to nourish, the hungry to feed.

This is the harvest, give thanks to the Father,
And lift up to Jesus a joyful refrain.
This is the harvest, give thanks to the Spirit,
To God who in mercy brings harvest again.

Mathew A. Block
October 11, 2009

Do you remember when pages had purpose?
     Bought with a price,
          Used sparingly, with great intent and planning?

How monks toiled!
     Candlelit caverns with countless copyists
          Producing manuscripts in unending silence
               (Save the scritch-scritch-scratch of pen on velum).
They quiet themselves that others might speak:
     Ancient texts, preserved for posterity.
A Homer here.
     An Augustine there.
Or greater still, an Illuminated Scripture;
     God’s very breath upon a page!
          The Word made flesh made Word again.

This morning, I sit at the kitchen table,
     Thumbing through the daily mail,
          Picking out the trash.
A flyer here.
     A credit-card offer there.
Pages of words
     and words
          and words
               with trivial purpose and vacuous meaning.

Do you remember when pages had purpose?
     Bought with a price?
          Used sparingly, with great inte

- – -

The poet frowns;
     It had been unnecessary to repeat the third line.
Sighing, he rips the marred sheet from his notebook,
     Crumples it (massacring its feeble body),
          And throws it to the floor.

Then, taking up his pen, he starts anew,
     Spilling ink upon a fresh, blank page.

I have spent a lot of time as of late reading Donne’s poetry. This, combined with my pudding brain and the few essays I have left to work on, resulted a few days ago in the parody below. If you’d like to see what the original poem is (and you should as it’s brilliant), see the previous post where I speak about Holy Sonnet 15.

To his self, upon staying up late working

What if this essay were the last thing I write?
…..Mark on this page, O Pen, the measure of thy worth
…..When set against the journals of the earth,
And say whether mine has any might.
The thesis is obscured by inky plight,
…..Brought on by using words with too much girth.
…..Can I unto this mess have given birth,
…..Which now’is abomination in mine sight?
No, no, but as I claimed in essays past
…..When readers found them hard to understand,
…..Such error entered not by my own hand,
But to the text by audience imputed wast.
…..The teachers say we cannot learn intent;
…..How judge me then, not knowing what I meant?

As of late, my mind is an awful lot like a bowl of pudding. Seriously. As the end of this semester bears down upon me, I realize how much there is to do and how little time I have left in which to complete it all. A fifteen page paper on John Donne, a 20 minute presentation on 20^th Century uses of Donne, a fifteen page paper on Henry James, and a ten page report for my “Language Awareness” class (that one I’m far less concerned about). And did I mention that tomorrow I’ve a 20 minute presentation to give on the morphology of Classical Sumerian, as well as a midterm to write? Pudding – there’s no other word to describe the state of my mind these days.

So don’t be expecting any truly insightful post for a bit (assuming that you’ve found any of the previous at least slightly intelligent in nature). I’ve no time to record such thoughts. Instead, as I’ve been reading the Holy Sonnets of John Donne, I thought I’d share a favourite of mine – albeit with no exegesis or interpretation. I find the poems richly rewarding, both as literary pieces and as devotional material. As to why I have chosen this particular one, I suppose it reminds me to keep my priorities straight. After all, if Christ were to return this very night, what good would my worrying about future papers be? It’s a reminder to make time for God – no matter how busy I am.

So here it is (according to the Westmoreland MS). Oh, and ignore the “…..” It’s just there to provide the proper indentation.

Holy Sonnet 15

What yf this present were the worlds last night?
…..Looke in my Hart, O Soule, where thou dost dwell
…..The picture of Christ crucifyde and tell
Whether that countenance can thee affright?
Teares in his eyes quench the amazing Light,
…..Blood fills his frowns which from his pierc’d head fell.
…..And can that toung adiudge thee vnto hell
Which prayed forgiuenes for his foes ranck spight?
No, No; but as in myne idolatree
…..I sayd to all my prophane Mistressis
…..Bewty of pity, foulness only is
A Signe of rigor; So I say to thee
…..To wicked Sprights are horrid Shapes assignd,
…..This bewteous forme assures a piteous mind.