Messiah's Kingdom
Messiah's Kingdom is a long poem by Agnes Bulmer.[1] It was published in 1833. It is regarded as the longest poem written by a woman.[2][3] It consists of some 14,000 lines grouped in twelve books. The poem is written in heroic couplet[4] but the introduction is made up of four 13-line stanzas like this one:
- Of Him, high raised on Heaven's stupendous throne,
- Beneath whose feet the sapphire pavement glows;
- O'er whose intensest splendours, dread, unknown,
- The beaming bow its milder radiance throws;
- Around whose state, in bright attendance, close
- The full-toned choir of harping cherubim.
- Seraphs, whose robes empyreal lights compose,
- And angels, breathing soft the' adoring hymn:—
- Of Him, Eternal, Infinite, Supreme,
- Fain would a mortal Muse, adventurous, sing;
- Him, for archangel minds too vast a theme,
- Who yet, when babes their meek hosannas bring,
- Inclines with gentlest grace, and veils in Mercy's wing.
The poet was praised for "harmonious versification".[5] The poem was reviewed also in The Methodist Magazine and Quarterly Review.[6]
References[edit]
- ^ Agnes Bulmer 18th at Century Religion, Literature, and Culture.
- ^ Richard Watson Dixon, Bulmer, Agnes at Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900, Volume 07.
- ^ Andrew O. Winckles, The Book of Nature and the Methodist Epic: Agnes Bulmer's Analogic Poetics and the End(s) of Romanticism.
- ^ Herbert F. Tucker, Epic: Britain's Heroic Muse 1790-1910, p. 284.
- ^ British Magazine and Monthly Register of Religious and Ecclesiastical Information, Parochial History and Documents Respecting the State of the Poor, Progress of Education, &c., Vol. III, 1833, p. 585.
- ^ The Methodist Magazine and Quarterly Review, XV (New series IV), 1833, p. 473-477.