The 25th of May is the day the Church remembers and celebrates the Venerable Bede, who died on that day in 735. Bede was a Saint and Scholar, whose wonderful Ecclesiastical History of the English People, is still the major source for early English History, as well as being, in itself a deeply inspiring book. He is buried in Durham cathedral and set above his tomb, in beautiful shimmering letters, is the text of one of the prayers he wrote. My sonnet in celebration of Bede draws on this prayer so I give its text here in both Latin and English and have posted a photograph of it below the poem.
As always you can hear the poem by clicking on the title or the ‘play’ button. This poem is from my collection of verse ‘The Singing Bowl’, published by Canterbury Press
Bede’s Prayer:
Christus est stella matutina, Alleluia
Qui nocte saeculi transacta, Alleluia
Lucem vitae sanctis promittit, Alleluia;
Et pandit aeternam, Alleluia
(Christ is the morning star who when the night of this world is past brings to his saints the promise of the light of life & opens everlasting day.)
I kneel above your bones and read your words.
Church-Latin letters, shimmering in gold,
A kingdom-glimmer through the dark and cold,
A revelation gleaming on the shards
Of all our broken lives and promises.
Christus est stella matutina
Qui nocte saeculi transacta
Christ is the morning star. He promises
The light of life when this dark night is past…
Lucem vitae sanctis promittit
You speak for all his Wounded witnesses,
The morning star will shine on us at last.
Scholar and saint, illuminate the way
That opens into everlasting day.
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Bede’s Prayer
Malcolm Guite 
Thank you Malcolm for your sonnet for the Ven Bede, and well done with the Latin! – God bless.
Thanks
When we visited friends in Newcastle upon Tyne years ago during my first assignment in England, we visited the Cathedral. It was such a moving experience to be at the graves of Bede and Cuthbert… in the mid ‘90s I was only just beginning to explore Celtic Christianity.
It is indeed a wonderful place
Interesting in the struggles over the “rhymes”. Of course the first stanza–ABBA–is fine, and the final couplet is, also–GG. The C “rhymes” are a repetition. The D rhymes has somewhat of an echo in tina and sancta. The E rhymes are fine: past and last. The F I suppose hangs on an it: promittit and witnesses. Not completely successful but an interesting struggle over all, I’d say.
I’m glad you have paid attention to the rhyme scheme but I think you have misunderstood what I am trying to achieve. If I want to write to a classic rhyme scheme with every rhyme fully chiming and slotting neatly into place I am perfectly capable of doing that as many of my sonnets demonstrate. But here the fracture of rhyme scheme – the use of slant rhyme -the presence of an orphan line, are all deliberate because the theme of the poem is precisely shards, fragments, a pre-dawn glimmer not yet fully realised.
There is no point in introducing a technical discussion of prosody, especially one so condescending in tone, unless you are going to relate it to the meaning of the poem!
Sorry, you’re right that that I sound more negative than I should. I didn’t think of it as a deliberate shard. I stand corrected.
Thanks for the gracious apology that’s all fine M
Your honouring of Bede, recalls my beloved husband, deceased now 7 years, and priest, whom I accompanied for his final sabbatical to Durham – in 2002 – for a month of study and exploration of Celtic Christian roots on Holy Island, Northumberland, and at the Durham Cathedral…in the presence of Bede and Cuthbert (Dirk’s favourite saint, after Francis of Assisi!). I thank you.
Thanks. I’m glad to have summoned that honoured memory
My beloved wife Jeanette lived in Durham for many years. Durham Cathedral was a very special place for her, and she showed me the tomb of the Venerable Bede the first time I visited.
For the last nineteen years of her life she lived with me in New Zealand. She died last year, after a long and harsh journey with dementia and lung cancer. Soon I will come to Durham, bringing her ashes with me. On 31 July 2023, the first anniversary of her death, family and friends and I will hold a ceremony and inter her ashes at Elvet Methodist Church, where one of her sons has a connection.
In Palmerston North (NZ) I sing in a choir called the Renaissance Singers. One item in our September concert will be Will Todd’s setting of “Christus est Stella”. The serendipity is intensely poignant.
That’s moving to hear. Every blessing for the interment service