Who Shall Deliver Me?

Kai Samuel Davis

\

Who Shall Deliver Me?

God strengthen me to bear myself;

That heaviest weight of all to bear,

Inalienable weight of care.

All others are outside myself;

I lock my door and bar them out

The turmoil, tedium, gad-about.

I lock my door upon myself,

And bar them out; but who shall wall

Self from myself, most loathed of all?

If I could once lay down myself,

And start self-purged upon the race

That all must run ! Death runs apace.

If I could set aside myself,

And start with lightened heart upon

The road by all men overgone!

God harden me against myself,

This coward with pathetic voice

Who craves for ease and rest and joys:

Myself, arch-traitor to myself ;

My hollowest friend, my deadliest foe,

My clog whatever road I go.

Yet One there is can curb myself,

Can roll the strangling load from me

Break off the yoke and set me free.

Christina Rossetti 

In spite of the regard I’m supposed to feel for myself, I am acutely aware of the weight of this “selfness”. It's cumbersome.  “ God strengthen me to bear myself”, if those aren’t honest words, I don’t know what are. 

 

Like the speaker of the poem, I can hold others off, barricade them out, wall off from the rest of the world; but inside that fortress is still the ever-present enemy. "If I could set aside myself, And start with lightened heart..." Yes, if only I could do that. How to break out of this inward-looking circle, this snake-biting-its-tail, this whirlpool of self-centredness that pulls me down and down. How?

 

 I'm not saying that it's bad to be me, I'm saying that it's miserable being stuck with me, being tied to being me, being tethered to this me-pole. Hardly any space to move, and no scope for expansion. 

 

What I'd like is to be able to let myself go. Cut the rope, open the door and let myself out. Like the speaker in the poem, there is only One I know who can help, who splits the snakeskin and allows me to breathe deep. 

 

But even so, Self tightens around me gradually, closes in, sits on my chest, and I'm back crying for a deliverer. It's a continuing process. 

 

However, each time I have grown, I have strengthened somewhat, I have stretched beyond the former boundaries. I am no longer the same. One day I hope for a full transformation. 

 

 

But for now, I'll have to take it one inch at a time.

 

 

Double Sonnet

Julia Manning

from Double Sonnet

10.

Tread softly! all the earth is holy ground.
It may be, could we look with seeing eyes,
This spot we stand on is a Paradise
Where dead have come to life and lost been found,
Where Faith has triumphed, Martyrdom been crowned,
Where fools have foiled the wisdom of the wise;
From this same spot the dust of saints may rise,
And the King’s prisoners come to light unbound.
O earth, earth, earth, hear thou thy Maker’s Word:
“Thy dead thou shalt give up, nor hide thy slain”—
Some who went weeping forth shall come again
Rejoicing from the east or from the west,
As doves fly to their windows, love’s own bird
Contented and desirous to the nest.

Christina Rossetti


This is sonnet #10 of 28 from "Later Life: A Double Sonnet of Sonnets". This one seems particularly suited to Easter. The idea of the entire earth as a resurrection scene intrigues me. "Where dead have come to life and lost been found." How true, how strange and true. I mean, for one thing, it's Spring, and the dead, brown soil is coming to life again, the bare tree branches are bursting into leaf. And yes, this is the place where generations of wild creatures have been born, where we ourselves grew, and those after us - we are witness to these cycles. I love that "O earth, earth, earth, hear thou thy Maker's Word." it's almost a direct quote from Jeremiah 22:29, a most beautiful call of hope, a reassurance of future resurrection. The Creator's Son has died and risen so that all creation will rise, new, rejoicing. The earth, a Paradise once more. This is the promise of Christianity, and whether one believes it or not, it is compelling. 

 

A Dirge

Anita Klein, "Betty and the Bird"

A Dirge

Related Poem Content Details

Why were you born when the snow was falling? 

You should have come to the cuckoo’s calling, 

Or when grapes are green in the cluster, 

Or, at least, when lithe swallows muster 

For their far off flying 

From summer dying. 

Why did you die when the lambs were cropping? 

You should have died at the apples’ dropping, 

When the grasshopper comes to trouble, 

And the wheat-fields are sodden stubble, 

And all winds go sighing 

For sweet things dying. 

Christina Rossetti

    I need a good cry once in a while. Happy poems don't mean a thing without a sprinkling of sadness and grief. It's like salt. In this poem the question "why?" of someone who cannot answer, the irony of birth happening in Winter and death in Spring and the string of beautiful images - snowfall, grapes growing on a vine, Swallows flying, altogether make a poignant statement of contradiction and loss - life in death and death in life - it's beautiful and sad, and it's how I feel about life overall. It's the mix of tears and laughter that lies at the heart of everything.