John Keble and Sounding the Seasons

Rebecca Merry’s beautiful cover design for my book Sounding the Seasons

Today is the day the Church of England remembers John Keble, a priest, scholar and poet who was part of the Oxford Movement which so enriched the church’s mission and liturgy. He has a special place for me in my own calendar of saints because, almost exactly 200 years ago he began a cycle of poems going through every Sunday in the Christian Year and celebrating its distinctive mysteries which was eventually published as ‘The Christian Year” and proved immensely popular and helpful to many Christians all over the world, and went through 50 editions in Keble’s own lifetime. Keble’s book, together with George Herbert’s The Temple was one of the inspirations for my own book of poems for the liturgical year: Sounding The Seasons. So on Keble’s day I am reposting the opening sonnet from that book, simply called Sounding the Seasons, a sonnet which meditates on what we hope to achieve by keeping the seasons, keeping holy and memorial days. Of course the truths on which we meditate over the course of the liturgical year, from the mystery of Christmas to the all-transforming drama of Good Friday and Easter, are true all the time! But we do not remember or think of them all the time, for time itself, ‘the subtle thief’, can so easily take even the memory of truth from us. So it was a deep wisdom that led the early church to turn ‘Time the thief’ into ‘Time the messenger’, to make the very medium that might have taken the truth away from us become the medium that restores it, as Time brings round and renews each Holy Day.

As usual you can hear me read the poem by pressing the ‘play’ button if it appears, or else by clicking on the title. This recording was made early in the project before the sequence was finished, or the book was published.

Sounding The Seasons

Tangled in time, we live with hints and guesses
Turning the wheel of each returning year,
But in between our failures and successes
We sometimes glimpse the Love that casts out fear,
Sometimes the heart remembers its own reasons
And breathes a Sanctus as we tell our story,
Tracing the tracks of grace, sounding the seasons
That lead at last through time to timeless glory.

From the first yearnings for a Saviours birth
To the full joy of knowing sins forgiven
We gather as His church on Gods’s good earth
To share an echo of the choirs of heaven
I share these hints, returning what was lent,
Turning to praise each ‘moment’s monument’.

 

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John Keble and The Christian Year

On the 14th of July the Church of England remembers with thanksgiving the life and work of the priest-poet John Keble. Keble who was part of the Oxford Movement, a  revival of depth and sanctity in the church’s ritual life, was ordained in 1815 and in 1827 published, anonymously, a little volume of poetry which gave a poem for every Sunday of the Church Year, called’ The Christian Year. It was quite simply the most popular book of verse in the nineteenth century and went through 95 editions in Keble’s life time! Some of its poems, for example ‘New Every morning is the love’ have become well known hymns. Whilst I haven’t written an individual sonnet for Keble, my entire volume ‘Sounding the Seasons; seventy sonnets for the Christian Year’, was, as the title suggests, partly inspired by Keble’s example. So here, on his day, is the opening poem of that book which  meditates on what we hope to achieve by keeping the seasons, keeping holy and memorial days. Of course the truths on which we meditate over the course of the liturgical year, from the mystery of Christmas to the all-transforming drama of Good Friday and Easter, are true all the time! But we do not remember or think of them all the time, for time itself, ‘the subtle thief’, can so easily take even the memory of truth from us. So it was a deep wisdom that led the early church to turn ‘Time the thief’ into ‘Time the messenger’, to make the very medium that might have taken the truth away from us become the medium that restores it, as Time brings round and renews each Holy Day.

 

 

Sounding The Seasons

Tramelled in time, we live with hints and guesses
Turning the wheel of each returning year,
But in between our failures and successes
We sometimes glimpse the Love that casts out fear,
Sometimes the heart remembers its own reasons
And breathes a Sanctus as we tell our story,
Tracing the tracks of grace, sounding the seasons
That lead at last through time to timeless glory.

From the first yearnings for a Saviours birth
To the full joy of knowing sins forgiven
We gather as His church on Gods’s good earth
To share an echo of the choirs of heaven
I share these hints, returning what was lent,
Turning to praise each ‘moment’s monument’.

John Keble and The Christian Year

On the 14th of July the Church of England remembers with thanksgiving the life and work of the priest-poet John Keble. Keble who was part of the Oxford Movement, a  revival of depth and sanctity in the church’s ritual life, was ordained in 1815 and in 1827 published, anonymously, a little volume of poetry which gave a poem for every Sunday of the Church Year, called’ The Christian Year. It was quite simply the most popular book of verse in the nineteenth century and went through 95 editions in Keble’s life time! Some of its poems, for example ‘New Every morning is the love’ have become well known hymns. Whilst I haven’t written an individual sonnet for Keble, my entire volume ‘Sounding the Seasons; seventy sonnets for the Christian Year’, was, as the title suggests, partly inspired by Keble’s example. So here, on his day, is the opening poem of that book which  meditates on what we hope to achieve by keeping the seasons, keeping holy and memorial days. Of course the truths on which we meditate over the course of the liturgical year, from the mystery of Christmas to the all-transforming drama of Good Friday and Easter, are true all the time! But we do not remember or think of them all the time, for time itself, ‘the subtle thief’, can so easily take even the memory of truth from us. So it was a deep wisdom that led the early church to turn ‘Time the thief’ into ‘Time the messenger’, to make the very medium that might have taken the truth away from us become the medium that restores it, as Time brings round and renews each Holy Day.

 

 

Sounding The Seasons

Tramelled in time, we live with hints and guesses
Turning the wheel of each returning year,
But in between our failures and successes
We sometimes glimpse the Love that casts out fear,
Sometimes the heart remembers its own reasons
And breathes a Sanctus as we tell our story,
Tracing the tracks of grace, sounding the seasons
That lead at last through time to timeless glory.

From the first yearnings for a Saviours birth
To the full joy of knowing sins forgiven
We gather as His church on Gods’s good earth
To share an echo of the choirs of heaven
I share these hints, returning what was lent,
Turning to praise each ‘moment’s monument’.

Sounding the Seasons

tramelled in time...sounding the seasons

In my last post I set out the overall plan for my sonnet sequence Sounding The Seasons. Now here, as promised, is the sonnet which will open the whole sequence, a sonnet which meditates on what we hope to achieve by keeping the seasons, keeping holy and memorial days. Of course the truths on which we meditate over the course of the liturgical year, from the mystery of Christmas to the all-transforming drama of Good Friday and Easter, are true all the time! But we do not remember or think of them all the time, for time itself, ‘the subtle thief’, can so easily take even the memory of truth from us. So it was a deep wisdom that led the early church to turn ‘Time the thief’ into ‘Time the messenger’, to make the very medium that might have taken the truth away from us become the medium that restores it, as Time brings round and renews each Holy Day.

Anyway here is my poetic reflection on these things. As always you can hear the poems by clicking on the ‘play’ buton or the title, and as always I m grateful to Margot Krebs Neale for the images which accompany and reflect on aspects of the poem. Margot has kindly sent me the following comments on the two images she has chosen for this poem; the bell which you see above, and the shaft of light you will see at the end of the sonnet:

Margot writes: “In a comment on his blog Malcolm mentioned the title to a series of “sonnets for the whole ‘churchyear” “Sounding the seasons” the first image I saw in my head, was the bells calling, bells and seasons, bells and time. I was talking about it and then I thought “sounding” is also “sounding the depth” and I could see the lead weight. English is not my mother-tongue and words are not “mine” they are very much themselves.

So I looked for the most impressive set of bells I have seen, in Rostov, Russia. I so wanted to go and take a beautiful powerful picture. Then I remembered that I had been given 3 Russian bells, small but beautiful when I left Russia. They have accompanied every Easter and Christmas in my house.  And I set this picture modestly in my kitchen, sounding the New Year in.

Malcolm sent me the sonnet and I then wanted to illustrate sentences which were not visual, those who touched me: “Sometimes the heart remembers its own reasons”. I also loved “We sometimes glimpse the Love that casts out fear,” and Malcolm suggested  it as something visual, “glimpse”. OK, but we needed to see love and fear…

I browsed through month and month of my pictures without a clear purpose. Then this picture, which was a failed attempt or so I thought. I had kept it because that light, I wanted to remember how I had tried many small holes, the smaller the hole the brighter the light was, camera obscura effect. Still my camera was struggling with the contrast too much light and too much dark. Many attempts, many failures. I liked that sense of a passage, I tried readjusting the light and it brought back the “path” on the foreground and the sense of a cross in the webs. We had the fear and the light.”

Sounding The Seasons

Tramelled in time, we live with hints and guesses
Turning the wheel of each returning year,
But in between our failures and successes
We sometimes glimpse the Love that casts out fear,
Sometimes the heart remembers its own reasons
And breathes a Sanctus as we tell our story,
Tracing the tracks of grace, sounding the seasons
That lead at last through time to timeless glory.

From the first yearnings for a Saviours birth
To the full joy of knowing sins forgiven
We gather as His church on Gods’s good earth
To share an echo of the choirs of heaven
I share these hints, returning what was lent,
Turning to praise each ‘moment’s monument’.

We sometimes glimpse the Love that casts out fear