How Do I Use Thee?

Every so often I get a letter from someone I don’t know, who would like me to give him a syllabus of things he might read to familiarize himself with English poetry. As often as not, the person writing to me has been an English major in college or something of the like.

What’s just as disappointing to me is to find that among those Christians who read a lot of books, very few of them know the slightest thing about sacred poetry in their own language. Perhaps we might lay the initial blame at the feet of modern poets, whose pursuit of obscurity and confusion—at first, as in T. S. Eliot, meant to reflect the confusion of a civilization in ruins—has declared, as with the howl of a beast or the garble of an academic, that poetry is not for ordinary people, who expect sentences to mean things, with clear subjects and verbs.

But eventually we must take care for our own heritage, especially as nobody else will do it. And that should be no onerous task; rather, a delight, the delight of unsuspected riches and recovery. So then, if you are a Christian and a reader—as you doubtless are, because otherwise you would not be reading these words—you should get for yourself, right away, a copy of the collected poems of George Herbert (1593-1633), the young courtier and member of Parliament who left the high life to become an Anglican priest in a poor and far-flung parish, dying of consumption before he turned forty. Such wealth, in so small a place! It may take you a couple of months to read The Brothers Karamazov. It will take you a few minutes to read one of Herbert’s poems, and the poem may remain with you all your life long.

THIS ARTICLE ONLY AVAILABLE TO SUBSCRIBERS.
FOR QUICK ACCESS:


Anthony Esolen is Distinguished Professor of Humanities at Thales College and the author of over 30 books, including Real Music: A Guide to the Timeless Hymns of the Church (Tan, with a CD), Out of the Ashes: Rebuilding American Culture (Regnery), and The Hundredfold: Songs for the Lord (Ignatius). He has also translated Dante’s Divine Comedy (Random House) and, with his wife Debra, publishes the web magazine Word and Song (anthonyesolen.substack.com). He is a senior editor of Touchstone.

Print &
Online Subscription

Get six issues (one year) of Touchstone PLUS full online access including pdf downloads for only $39.95. That's only $3.34 per month!

Online
Subscription

Get a one-year full-access subscription to the Touchstone online archives for only $19.95. That's only $1.66 per month!

bulk subscriptions

Order Touchstone subscriptions in bulk and save $10 per sub! Each subscription includes 6 issues of Touchstone plus full online access to touchstonemag.com—including archives, videos, and pdf downloads of recent issues for only $29.95 each! Great for churches or study groups.

Transactions will be processed on a secure server.


more on poetry from the online archives

37.5—Sept/Oct 2024

Young Folly & Elder Hope

A Battle Plan for Peace While Growing Old by Anthony Esolen


more from the online archives

32.5—September/October 2019

Peter's Sword

by Patrick Henry Reardon

19.4—May 2006

The Relatively Good Book

on the Liberal Protestant Bible Translation by B. J. Hutto

14.6—July/August 2001

The Transformed Relics of the Fall

on the Fulfillment of History in Christ by Patrick Henry Reardon

calling all readers

Please Donate

"There are magazines worth reading but few worth saving . . . Touchstone is just such a magazine."
—Alice von Hildebrand

"Here we do not concede one square millimeter of territory to falsehood, folly, contemporary sentimentality, or fashion. We speak the truth, and let God be our judge. . . . Touchstone is the one committedly Christian conservative journal."
—Anthony Esolen, Touchstone senior editor

Support Touchstone

00