Thanks very much for that, D. Allen. It's the longest rhymed epic in the English language and well worth reading.

Yes, and just as important, though less obvious, Robinson Jeffers and Walt Whitman were influences at that time. But who could ever hope to rival those three? It is just fun (and some times unavoidable) to let one's own soul speak in poetry or any other medium, - music, painting, horticulture, etc.

I Looked At Calvary, a Song


(1) I look'd at Calvary,
And what did I see?
I saw my bless'd Savior
Dying there for me! *

O wonderful Jesus,
This I do know:
Nothing have I done
For you to love me so.*

(2) I look up to heav'n,
And what do I see?
I see my sinless High Priest
Standing up for Me! *

O wonderful Jesus,
This I do know:
Nothing have I done
For you to treat me so.*

(3) I'll look into the sky,
And what will I see?
I'll see my righteous King
Come to rescue me!*

O wonderful Jesus,
This I do know:
Nothing have I done
For you to want me so.*

* Repeat last line of each stanza.

I also like Robison Jeffers and Whitman very much. Jeffers is considered terribly depressing by most poetry-lovers because of his philosophy and the themes of his poems. For that reason, his poetry is not often found in the poetry anthologies. He's thought of as nihilistic, somewhat similar to Nietzsche. That is interesting because both men's fathers were Christian pastors. (Nietzsche was known as "the little pastor" when he was young and was constantly reading the Bible. He ended up hating God and, if his sister is to be believed, deliberately set out to compete against Jesus Christ. He wrote the famous sentence, often misunderstood, "God is dead," as well as the little book, "Antichrist," all of which had an influence on Jeffers.)

It has been a long time since I read Jeffers. I opened the 'Selected Poems' today and found this:

To the Stone-cutters

"Stone-cutters fighting time with marble, you foredefeated
Challengers of oblivion
Eat cynical earnings, knowing rock splits, records fall down,
The square-limbed Roman letters
Scale in the thaws, wear in the rain. The poet as well
Builds his monument mockingly;
For man will be blotted out, the blithe earth die, the brave sun
Die blind and blacken to the heart:
Yet stones have stood for a thousand years, and pained thoughts found
The honey of peace in old poems."

I never found Jeffers to be depressing. He found peace in 'old poems.' I don't know what old poems he had in mind but I found my peace in the old poems of David, his Psalms, esp. #21. So his father was a pastor! that's interesting.

"I Looked at Calvary"

Nice. Did you write it? Have you music, too?

Thanks, I'm glad you like it. I wrote it at the SDA church during an afternoon break in my colporteuring in Bremerton, Washington. My wife composed the music to it, but it isn't written.

I know Marvin Ponder, a recording artist and pastor at the Loma Linda University Church, and am planning on sharing it with him and seeing if he wants to use it.

In the meantime, if you send me a mailing address by PM, I'll send you a tape of me singing it so at least you will know how the music goes.

Compare the line, "For man will be blotted out... the brave sun die blind," (typical Jeffers) with two of our other great writers, Hemingway and Faulkner, contemporaries of Jeffers. Hemingway wrote of "the sun also ris[ing]" and of the earth remaining forever, and both Hemingway's and Faulkner's works were illustrations of their confidence that "man shall endure."

I personally don't find them depressing, either, but many found his themes (incest, suicide, infanticide, murder, mayhem, etc.) distasteful, and a number of his views were controversial too, such as his opposition to US entry into WW2. He seems to've been born out of time, because he'd almost certainly have fit in better with the classical Greek poets and tragedians. No doubt one of America's greatest poets, right up there with Whitman, though he's never received his due.

By the way, a publisher recently came out with his complete poems in 3 volumes.

My book is of the Selected Poems, 1959. Not even half of the complete. Three vols. sounds expensive!

Yes, very. And very big books too. I saw them recently at Barnes and Noble and was tempted to get them, but I decided to buy a truck instead. Seriously, though, each volume was like 12 x 16 inches and cost about $50.00.