Poem of the Day: ‘The Day of Judgment’

A year ago, we spent a week looking at efforts to use classical meters in English poetry, here in the Poem of the Day feature of The New York Sun. As we noted at the time, in a handful of eras (notably the Victorian) poets made an attempt to remodel English verse with classical meter — the system, used by the ancient Greeks and Romans, that understood poetic lines as patterns of long and short syllables (called “quantity”), rather than the patterns of stressed and unstressed syllables that English typically uses. What can we say of it, except that it was a noble endeavor, high minded and born of serious classical education? And, of course, that it was doomed.We used all of last week’s Poem of the Day features to think about the English hymn tradition, considered as poetry — opening the week with “Lord, in the morning” by Isaac Watts (1674–1748). As it happens, what may be Watts’s most accomplished poem is an Englishing of classical meter, called “The Day of Judgment” with the subtitle “An Ode Attempted in English Sapphic.” And that mention of Watts prompted today’s revisiting of classic meters.As we mentioned before, sapphics are an ancient Greek form, eventually borrowed into Latin, that were named for the poet Sappho and originally composed of long and short syllables. In English meter it typically becomes a pattern of accents. And so the Victorian Algernon Charles Swinburne wrote in sapphics. Rudyard Kipling turned his hand to sapphics. Allen Ginsburg experimented with sapphics. Timothy Steele’s “Sapphics Against Anger” is a fine example of the stanza in contemporary verse.Sometimes using spondees to force three stressed syllables in a row (“Fierce North wind”) and sometimes substituting dactyls for the Latin spondees, Watts gives us something that can be read aloud in English with verve and a communicable steady meter. The poem takes a storm at sea as an image for the apocalypse, which Watts turns into the speaker’s prayer for redemption. And, as in all sapphics, the shortness of the fourth line gives the stanzas a feeling of closure and an opportunity for powerful phrasings: “Quick to devour them” or “Shakes the Creation.”The Day of JudgmentAn Ode Attempted in English Sapphicby Isaac WattsWhen the Fierce North wind with his Airy ForcesRears up the Baltick to a foaming Fury,And the red Lightning with a Storm of Hail comes Rushing amain down,How the poor Sailers stand amazed and tremble,While the hoarse Thunder, like a Bloody Trumpet,Roars a loud onset to the gaping Waters, Quick to devour them!Such shall the Noise be and the Wild disorder,(If things Eternal may be like these Earthly)Such the dire Terror, when the great Archangel Shakes the Creation,Tears the strong Pillars of the Vault of Heaven,Breaks up old Marble, the Repose of Princes;See the Graves open, and the Bones arising, Flames all around ’em!Hark, the shrill Out-cries of the Guilty Wretches!Lively bright Horror and amazing AnguishStare through their Eyelids, while the living Worm lies Gnawing within them.Thoughts like old Vultures prey upon their Heart-strings,And the smart twinges, when their Eye beholds theLofty Judge frowning, and a Flood of Vengeance Rolling afore him.Hopeless Immortals! how they scream and shiver,While Devils push them to the Pit wide-YawningHideous and gloomy, to receive them headlong Down to the Centre.Stop here, my Fancy: (All away ye horridDoleful Ideas); come, arise to Jesus;How He sits Godlike! and the Saints around him Thron’d, yet adoring!Oh may I sit there when he comes triumphantDooming the Nations! Then ascend to gloryWhile our Hosannas all along the Passage Shout the Redeemer.___________________________________________With “Poem of the Day,” The New York Sun offers a daily portion of verse selected by Joseph Bottum with the help of the North Carolina poet Sally Thomas, the Sun’s associate poetry editor. Tied to the day, or the season, or just individual taste, the poems are drawn from the deep traditions of English verse: the great work of the past and the living poets who keep those traditions alive. The goal is always to show that poetry can still serve as a delight to the ear, an instruction to the mind, and a tonic for the soul.

Poem of the Day: ‘The Day of Judgment’

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