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When I was writing my book-length poem, The Hundredfold, I set myself a task that shouldn’t surprise our readers here at Word and Song. Now then, The Hundredfold is made up of 100 poems, but they’re not of the same kind. Twelve are dramatic monologues, six from before the Passion and the Resurrection of Jesus, and six from the time immediately after or in the apostolic age. There are 66 lyrics, in some of which I speak in my own voice, plus a 67th lyric set apart at the end as the final and crowning poem, with 100 lines, in Dante’s terza rima, and there I most certainly am speaking right from the heart. But numbered along with the twelve monologues, I’ve written 21 hymns, making 33 in all; so we have a total of 100 poems. That’s just to scratch the surface of the architecture of it all. I figured that if Dante and the Pearl-poet and Spenser and a whole lot of other poets and artists and composers did such things, they’ve got to be of considerable value.
But to the task: I asked myself, “Can you write traditional hymns in English, without syntactic inversions, and without sounding as if you’re mugging Shakespeare, at most availing yourself of the musically and poetically convenient and powerful old second-person singular pronouns (thou, thy and thine, thee)? And by “traditional,” I meant what I said in the strictest sense. See, I would choose from beforehand the melody I wanted to write the hymn to, a traditional melody, so that the words would rise up out of the music, rather than be stuffed and tucked into it. I also knew, from beforehand, exactly how many stanzas each hymn was going to have, and that also meant that I’d have to compose the poem to fit precisely, with what poems ought to have, just as stories do — a beginning, a middle, and an end. When I started, it really was an experiment, and I found that it can certainly be done. You can’t do it really well, though, unless you have English poetry, hymnody, many centuries of hymns, in your mind and heart. A poem that is going to be sung has to be singable, right? Nobody sings an office memorandum. Nobody sings a quarterly earnings report. Nobody even sings the thesis for a theology essay. Some words in English will simply sound ridiculous if you try to sing them; they will sound the way a hippopotamus in a ballet dress would look. But other words almost cry out to be sung: such as our Word of the Week, most fit for the Easter season: glory.
Now let me say a little about where I placed this particular hymn-poem I’ve chosen for today. It is the fifth of a five-hymn series exactly in the center of The Hundredfold. The series itself is embraced by lyric poems on either side, poems on the Passion and the Resurrection. These have eight stanzas each, with a total of 100 lines and — I kid you not — 800 syllables. Eight, you see, is the number of the Resurrection, Christ having risen on the day after the Sabbath, and that is why so many of the old churches and baptisteries were built octagonally, and Saint Peter notes too, in this same regard, that eight persons were saved in Noah’s ark. Those would be Noah, Mrs. Noah, his three sons, and their wives. But for this final of the five hymns I was pulling out all the stops — and I mean that literally, because the melody I chose is the mighty Christ Lag in Todesbanden (Christ lay in the bonds of death), the melody for Bach’s first sacred cantata.
The stanzas are difficult, as you’ll see. Counting the syllables, as you do when you’re composing a hymn, they are 8-7-8-7-8-8-8, first four lines trochaic (DUM-da), last three lines iambic (da-DUM), followed by an Alleluia. The lines must rhyme ABCB DDD — ending on a rhyming triplet, with all its possibilities for climax, summation, or surprising reversal in the final line. The movement from stanza to stanza is thus: from Calvary, to earth and Eden lost, to earth and Eden regained, to the old and new Jerusalem, and then, finally, to hell defeated and plundered, and the Paradise of heaven. And for all this, there are lines in the poem that, though they’re meant to apply to all believers, come straight from my heart, and the ideas and the feelings that prompt them are impossible for me to describe.
From the field of final battle
Christ arises, glory-crowned.
Where Death shook his iron scepter
Life and liberty abound.
The chains of sin with power to draw,
The long-contracted brow of law,
Yield to His majesty and awe: Alleluia.
Man, from ease and Eden driven,
Delves his grave with every breath;
Labors in the field, and harvests
Fruit that tastes of ash and death.
Such is Man's fare, but only He
Who sowed the world can raise the Tree
Whose fruit is for eternity: Alleluia.
Heralds of the new creation,
Vanguard of the risen Lord,
Sing out with the sons of Adam,
Sing, and sheathe the flaming sword.
No more ye need to stand on guard
Against mankind from Eden barred,
For they are hastening heavenward: Alleluia.
The once desolated city
Gleams in gladness as a bride;
Wells of darkness flash with water
Flowing from the Temple's side.
The Lamb has set a diadem
Of light and every lightsome gem
Upon His spouse, Jerusalem: Alleluia.
We shall praise the Lamb triumphant
Who has crushed the gates of hell,
Taken sinners bound, and brought them
Where His sons in freedom dwell.
What dust or darkness shuts our eyes?
With Christ our light our hearts arise,
For He has opened Paradise: Alleluia.© Anthony Esolen, all rights reserved. Do not use this hymn without the express written permission of the author.
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