Monday, April 21, 2014

Mary Elizabeth Coleridge

Mary Elizabeth Coleridge (1861—1907) is a British writer, who also wrote poetry under the pseudonym Anodos (a character in the George MacDonald novel Phantastes). During her lifetime she was best known for such novels as The King With Two Faces (1897). Today she is more remembered for her verse.

She was raised in a home that encouraged the arts, and which was visited by such writers as Robert Browning and Alfred Tennyson. She is the great-grand-niece of Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Mary Elizabeth Coleridge taught literature and grammar for twelve years at Working Women's College, seeing it as her Christian duty to help the poor.

Good Friday In My Heart

GOOD FRIDAY in my heart! Fear and affright!
My thoughts are the Disciples when they fled,
My words the words that priest and soldier said,
My deed the spear to desecrate the dead.
And day, Thy death therein, is changed to night.

Then Easter in my heart sends up the sun.
My thoughts are Mary, when she turned to see.
My words are Peter, answering, ‘Lov’st thou Me?’
My deeds are all Thine own drawn close to Thee,
And night and day, since Thou dost rise, are one.

Entry written by D.S. Martin. His new poetry collection, Conspiracy of Light: Poems Inspired by the Legacy of C.S. Lewis, is available from Wipf & Stock as is his earlier award-winning collection, Poiema.