Some Contemplative Poets:

Gerard Manley Hopkins, St. John of the Cross, Thomas Merton, and Emily Dickinson

Contemplative poetry: is it something to define, or something to enter?
Is it something one knows when one feels it, or when one is told about it?
Is a contemplative poet known by reputation, or discovered by surprise?

The contemplative poet might be the one knocked silly by the discovery of having written such a surprising poem.

The soul is called into a contemplative quiet. The inward aching yearns for words to convey what cannot be said. Only prayer would do, no other art, apart from poetry.

Perhaps Gerard Manley Hopkins steps from a grove of birch trees to dazzle your soul with poetic rapture. Maybe Emily Dickinson will pat the place beside her on the wooden bench in the garden and recite poems while staring into your eyes. Thomas Merton would surely grin and wink and say nothing, while St. John might move his lips softly and tap his foot.

Pied Beauty
by Gerard Manley Hopkins

Glory be to God for dappled things –
For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;
For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;
Fresh-firecoal, chestnut-falls; finches’ wings;
Landscape plotted and pierced – fold, fallow, and plough;
And all trades, their gear and tackle and trim.
All things counter, original, spare, strange;
Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)
With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;
He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change;

Praise him.

Dark Night of the Soul (excerpt):
by St. John of the Cross

In darkness, and secure,
by the secret ladder, disguised,
– ah, the sheer grace! –
in darkness and concealment,
my house being now all stilled.
On that glad night
in secret, for no one saw me,
nor did I look at anything
with no other light or guide
than the One that burned in my heart.

The Song of the Traveler (excerpt)
by Thomas Merton

How light the heavy world becomes, when with transparent waters
All the shy elms and wakeful apple trees are dressed!
How the sun shouts, and spins his wheel of flame
And shoots the whole land full of diamonds
Enriching every Flower’s watery vesture with his praise,
O green spring mornings when we hear creation singing!

I think that some poems of Emily Dickenson belong with this esteemed company. She wrote poems of exemplary contemplative power and illumination. Yet those poems, like Emily herself, may have been overlooked or misunderstood by some.

564
by Emily Dickenson

My period had come for Prayer –
No other Art – would do –
My Tactics missed a rudiment –
Creator – Was it you?
God grows above – so those who pray
Horizons – must ascend –
And so I stepped upon the North
To see this Curious Friend –
His House was not – no sign had He –
By Chimney – nor by Door
Could I infer his Residence –
Vast Prairies of Air
Unbroken by a settler –
Were all that I could see –
Infinitude – Had’st Thou no Face
That I might look on Thee?
The Silence condescended –
Creation stopped – for Me –
But awed beyond my errand –
I worshipped – did not “pray”-

674
by Emily Dickenson

The Soul that hath a Guest
Doth seldom go abroad –
Diviner Crowd at Home –
Obliterate the need –
And Courtesy forbid

A Host’s departure when
Upon Himself be visiting
The Emperor of Men –

1495
by Emily Dickenson

The Thrill came slowly like a Boon
for Centuries delayed
Its fitness growing like the Flood
In sumptuous solitude-
The desolation only missed
While Rapture changed its Dress
And stood amazed before the Change
In ravished Holiness —

I think the spirituality of Emily Dickenson is often misinterpreted, particularly the roots of her poems in contemplative silence. Some consider her reserved lifestyle as an emotional or social deficit, rather than a monastic style choice, like those of St. John or Thomas Merton. A personal indwelling must precede the composition of a poem that shimmers with the presence of Another. In poetry, as in prayer, we seek to savor the illuminating presence of that Vital Word who is our friend.

1039
by Emily Dickenson

I heard, as if I had no Ear
Until a Vital Word
Came all the way from Life to me
And then I knew I heard.
I saw, as if my Eye were on
Another, till a Thing

And now I know ‘twas Light. Because
It fitted them, and came in.
I dwelt, as if Myself were out,
My Body but within
Until a Might detected me
And set my kernel in.
And Spirit turned unto the Dust
“Old Friend, thou knowest me,”
And Time went out to tell the News
And met Eternity.

820
by Emily Dickenson

All Circumstances are the frame
In which His face is set –
All Latitudes exist for His
Sufficient Continent –
The Light His action, and the Dark
The Leisure of His Will –
In Him Existence serve or set
A Force illegible.

And how about you? How does the indwelling spirit of God inspire contemplation and the emergence of prayerful writing in your life?

copyright 2025 Tom Medlar