Christian England Poems

George faced the two ships of splendorous light 
Entreated, and vowed to shatter the false gods 
Openly soldiering on, through Christ’s name 
Rome, heard this...

Read More

Good Friday night, and haunted by the cross 
The body in the darkness sends the mind
To go out searching for him. Blood and moss
The crown...

Read More

GILDAS TRANSLATIONS

These are modern English translations of Latin poems by the English monk  Gildas Sapiens (“Gildas the Wise”).

“Alas! The nature of my complaint is...

Read More

In winter's cold grip
In the land of the Angles
The Good Christians came
Against their will to a trial
In a grand city
Called the Ford of the Oxen
Good...

Read More

This piece was actually written by my 84 year old neighbor when he was 14 and it was the posted in the school magazine, before...

Read More

The orb and sceptre, ring and crown
each with its cross adorned,
displayed the rule of Christ alone
to mark your fealty sworn. 
But stripped to simple linen...

Read More

I
You all know her, love her, enjoy them poems
Above all, a people-person, with three homes
I mean home-countries: first is Greece, Jenn's birth
Then there's England, UK:...

Read More

Four score, nothing there  

Ukraine lost the Roman hosted sporting affair  

Back in London Boris raises a Saturday pint  

Proclaiming success on...

Read More

Looking back, one thing comes clean-glass clear
you were always there for me subduing every fear.

I tried to do my duty, be a husband strong and...

Read More

The sheep field had been empty for a while
And then one day I saw them from the bus
All lined up on the hilltop by the...

Read More

An Excelente Balade of Charitie (“An Excellent Ballad of Charity”)
by Thomas Chatterton, age 17
modernization/translation by Michael R. Burch

As wroten bie the goode Prieste
Thomas Rowley 1464

In...

Read More

Caedmon’s Face
by Michael R. Burch

At the monastery of Whitby,
on a day when the sun sank through the sea,
and the gulls shrieked wildly, jubilant, free,

while the...

Read More

At Cædmon’s Grave
At Caedmon's Grave
by Michael R. Burch

“Cædmon’s Hymn,” composed at the Monastery of Whitby (a North Yorkshire fishing village), is one of the oldest...

Read More

Medieval Poems

How Long the Night
anonymous Middle English lyric, circa early 13th century AD
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

It is pleasant, indeed, while the summer lasts
with...

Read More

Spartan

Some men are born to play, 
and some… are not.
To them life is without common joy,
at least the kind others partake. 
But it is instead...

Read More