This week’s poem in the Catholic Poetry Room is by Margaret Coats.
Herman the Cripple
A body helpless in deformity
Was mine, though loving parents carried me
Full seven years in sick infirmity,
Then placed me in the monks’ academy.
Their island abbey Reichenau became
My home to nurture life, surrounded by
The beautiful Lake Constance, Nature’s frame
For all my shriveled nature might reply.
Herman the Cripple, or Contractus, I
Was rubbish in Christ’s Benedictine flock,
Whom kindly brothers strove to edify—
And each one proved a worthy alpenstock.
Through cramps and spasms, pangs and throbs, I bent
My fingers to the quill, my will to learn,
Just as my eyes, ears, voice, more diligent,
The sooner for God’s work began to yearn.
His service led through growth in discipline,
Although I struggled at philosophy,
A stubborn donkey or a slug therein,
Despite my passable calligraphy.
Listen! So says our rule of brotherhood,
And by the age of twenty I could sing,
For God had given me a mind as good
As legs and form inept for anything.
He slowly taught my heart a love fraternal,
Encompassing you whom I never saw,
Though it is lesser than my joy supernal
In loving her who fills all hearts with awe.
I’ve written more than others would be able,
Astronomy, mathematics, history,
And from affection true and chaste and stable,
Emerged far-famed enduring poetry.
A thousand years, two lyrics read and sung,
Words fragrant as mature and costly orris,
They breathe as written, in the Latin tongue,
Salve Regina and Alma Redemptoris.
The works’ renown is welcome, but I find
An author known to be unnecessary:
These antiphons of sweetness unconfined
Belong entirely to Our Lady Mary.
Originally published by The Society of Classical Poets.
Herman of Reichenau (1013–1054), a Benedictine monk, became well-known as a scholar in many fields. His two poems named above remain in regular devotional use, in the original and in numerous translations.
Margaret Coats lives in California. She holds a Ph.D. in English and American Literature and Language from Harvard University. She has retired from a career of teaching literature, languages, and writing that included considerable work in homeschooling for her own family and others.
