Did you know that the Easter Story has inspired some of the greatest poets of the Renaissance in England?

 

Edmund Spenser ‘Easter’

Edmund Spenser is famous for composing the The Faerie Queene, a celebration of Elizabeth I, but he also wrote a poem about Easter in his sonnet sequence titled Amoretti.

Most glorious Lord of Lyfe! that, on this day,
Didst make Thy triumph over death and sin;
And, having harrowd hell, didst bring away
Captivity thence captive, us to win:
This joyous day, deare Lord, with joy begin;
And grant that we, for whom thou diddest dye,
Being with Thy deare blood clene washt from sin,
May live for ever in felicity!

And that Thy love we weighing worthily,
May likewise love Thee for the same againe;
And for Thy sake, that all lyke deare didst buy,
With love may one another entertayne!
So let us love, deare Love, lyke as we ought,
—Love is the lesson which the Lord us taught.

 

The first stanza celebrates the love that Christ had for the world. His love is the force that raised him to life and triumph over sin and death. The opening lines of this poem are triumphant. Christ has triumphed, having harrowed hell and released its captives, a new joyous day begins with those captives washed from sin and living ‘for ever in felicity!’ The second stanza continues to celebrate this love but the focus is on those people who must now ‘for thy sake’ love one another…and the final couplet adds a sudden twist. The speaker suddenly address his ‘deare Love’ – as if he suddenly turned away from the world and addresses his lover. The final lines are a triumphant celebration of a less spiritual love:

So let us love, deare Love, lyke as we ought,
—Love is the lesson which the Lord us taught.

 

John Donne

John Donne, the most famous of all the Metaphysical poets, wrote a poem on Good Friday 1613 titled ‘Riding Westward’.

Let mans Soule be a Spheare, and then, in this,
The intelligence that moves, devotion is,
And as the other Spheares, by being growne
Subject to forraigne motion, lose their owne,
And being by others hurried every day,
Scarce in a yeare their naturall forme obey:
Pleasure or businesse, so, our Soules admit
For their first mover, and are whirld by it.
Hence is’t, that I am carryed towards the West
This day, when my Soules forme bends toward the East.
There I should see a Sunne, by rising set,
And by that setting endlesse day beget;
But that Christ on this Crosse, did rise and fall,
Sinne had eternally benighted all.
Yet dare I’almost be glad, I do not see
That spectacle of too much weight for mee.
Who sees Gods face, that is selfe life, must dye;
What a death were it then to see God dye?
It made his owne Lieutenant Nature shrinke,
It made his footstoole crack, and the Sunne winke.
Could I behold those hands which span the Poles,
And tune all spheares at once peirc’d with those holes?
Could I behold that endlesse height which is
Zenith to us, and our Antipodes,
Humbled below us? or that blood which is
The seat of all our Soules, if not of his,
Made durt of dust, or that flesh which was worne
By God, for his apparell, rag’d, and torne?
If on these things I durst not looke, durst I
Upon his miserable mother cast mine eye,
Who was Gods partner here, and furnish’d thus
Halfe of that Sacrifice, which ransom’d us?
Though these things, as I ride, be from mine eye,
They’are present yet unto my memory,
For that looks towards them; and thou look’st towards mee,
O Saviour, as thou hang’st upon the tree;
I turne my backe to thee, but to receive
Corrections, till thy mercies bid thee leave.
O thinke mee worth thine anger, punish mee,
Burne off my rusts, and my deformity,
Restore thine Image, so much, by thy grace,
That thou may’st know mee, and I’ll turne my face.

 

Donne’s journey from Warwickshire to Wales on Good Friday reminds him of the East, and the place where Jesus Christ was sacrificed on a Good Friday long ago. The extended metaphor of the soul as a sphere evokes the movement of planets in space, following the laws of the universe. It is the sun travelling from east to west that reminds the speaker of Christ, the son of God. It also reminds him of his own travels: he travels west, but his soul travels east.

There I should see a Sunne, by rising set,
And by that setting endlesse day beget;

An ‘endlesse day’ because Christ conquered death when he rose again. The thought is so momentous that the poet is both sorry and relieved that his journey forces his thoughts away from contemplation. The physical demands of the journey distract him and for that he is glad for the thoughts of eternity are overwhelming.

 

Christina Rossetti

Christina Rossetti, sister of the famous Pre-Raphealite artist Dante Rossetti and one of the most important female writers of the nineteenth century, wrote many poems inspired by the Bible. She also wrote An Easter Carol inspired by the Easter Story.

Spring bursts to-day,
For Christ is risen and all the earth’s at play.

Flash forth, thou Sun,
The rain is over and gone, its work is done.

Winter is past,
Sweet Spring is come at last, is come at last.

Bud, Fig and Vine,
Bud, Olive, fat with fruit and oil and wine.

Break forth this morn
In roses, thou but yesterday a Thorn.

Uplift thy head,
O pure white Lily through the Winter dead.

Beside your dams
Leap and rejoice, you merry-making Lambs.

All Herds and Flocks
Rejoice, all Beasts of thickets and of rocks.

Sing, Creatures, sing,
Angels and Men and Birds and everything.

All notes of Doves
Fill all our world: this is the time of loves.

Easter and Spring are celebrated in an explosion of re-birth. ‘Sweet Spring’ brings an abundance of new life with Biblical imagery of figs and vines and olives and wine. The Lily is addressed ‘uplift thy head, O pure white Lily’ as is the Lamb ‘rejoice, you merry-making Lambs’. Both of them are symbols of Easter, as well as realities of the re-awakening world around her. Spring are the time of joyous singing and the notes of Doves reminds us that Easter is ‘the time of loves’. The word is plural to include a multiplicity of loves – love of spring, love of creation, love of life, and the love of Christ.