The Poetic Cosmos Bundle

NOTE: If you saw the email for this, you may notice books are missing here. The original bundle sold out, so this bundle was modified so you can still give out poetic gold this Christmas.

Untune the Sky

It is in the music of the heavens that we all will find our end.

This noble collection of verse on subjects great and small provides a window into how a Christian writer views the world: there is beauty, there is sorrow, but underneath it all beats the music of the heavens — and it is in the music of the heavens that we all will find our end. 

This anthology of over a hundred poems written by Calvinists is a surprising introduction to the aesthetics of the Reformed tradition. Who knew there was such a host of Calvinist poets?

Containing notes and short biographies to aid your enjoyment, this collection is the perfect starting point for appreciating these men and women — and the faith that inspired their words.

“Calvinists have had a great many negative things said over the years about their lack of artistic soul…. Not surprisingly, I believe this caricature to be grotesquely unfair. Because the proof is in the pudding, I thought the best thing to do would be to assemble a collection of poems by various Calvinists, and let you all, members of the fair and open-minded public, have a look at them.” ~ from the editors

The Poems of Anne Bradstreet

“A real sense of calm pervades Bradstreet’s poetry. She has genuine affection for the things she writes about, whether that be family, or the vistas of nature, or her husband, or the “pleasant things” lost in the house fire, and so in no way does she come across as a pinched ascetic. But neither does she come across as someone who is in frantic pursuit of worldly goods.” ~From Douglas Wilson’s Introduction

Anne Bradstreet came to fame when someone published her poetry as The Tenth Muse Lately Sprung Up in America. Anne Bradstreet was a Puritan who had crossed the ocean to help found the new colony in America. She lived on the frontier and lived a fairly uneventful life loving her husband and children. However, she was also a well-educated and imaginative woman whose poetry continues to be admired to this day. This collection of her poems is a forgotten classic that we would be well advised to read.

The Poems of John Donne

“We as readers get to enjoy an experience akin to serendipity—the gift of an unlooked-for connection that answers questions we didn’t know we had… The pleasure of poetry is often its principal power in turning us around and moving us towards the good and the beautiful, and in them, towards God himself.” ~From Elizabeth Howard’s introduction

John Donne was one of the great “metaphysical poets” in Elizabethan England. His work helped establish the English tradition of poetry, and influenced everyone afterwards from Alexander Pope to T.S. Eliot. Donne lived a tumultuous life before settling down and becoming the dean of St. Paul’s cathedral. He wrote everything from love sonnets to satires and elegies, but his greatest poems are undoubtedly the holy sonnets.

In this new edition of the complete 1633 collection of Donne’s poems, we see the work of a mature Christian poet and pastor writing about love, suffering, and our need for God.

Beowulf

A bold, new rendering and a daring interpretation of the classic epic, Beowulf.

“Hear the song of spear-Danes from sunken years,
Kings had courage then, the kings of all tribes,
We have heard their heroics, we hold them in memory.”

So begins a dark, but sturdy epic full of warriors, dragons, monsters of the deep, mead halls, and mounds of treasure. Beowulf is the great Norse epic poem, and one of the great inspirations for J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings. In this bold and truly innovative translation, Douglas Wilson reproduces the alliteration and stresses of the original, though being more dynamic with particular wording. This is without question the most musical translation of Beowulf, one which many readers will return to again and again if they wish to get an idea of the feel of the original Anglo-Saxon.

The Temple

“Herbert loved crafting language in new and powerful ways. It was for him a way of seeing and savoring and showing the wonders of Christ. The central theme of his poetry was the redeeming love of Christ, and he labored with all his literary might to see it clearly, feel it deeply, and show it strikingly. We don’t have a single sermon that he ever preached…. What we have is his poetry. And here the beauty of the subject is wedded to the beauty of his craft.” ~ John Piper, Introduction

Although George Herbert was a pastor of a small remote church in Elizabethan England, he came to fame because of a small collection of poems called The Temple. In this short but beautiful collection of poetry, Herbert devised 116 new poetic forms to capture his experiences of awe, sorrow, glory, turmoil, repentance, and heart-rending joy, all of it dedicated to God, not man.

In this book, we have a picture of the full range of human experience and emotion, felt by a man being sanctified by God and describing it with all his poetic powers.

Edgar Allan Poe’s Best Loved Tales & Poems

“Poe is, to my mind, the supreme original short story writer of all time.” -Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Edgar Allan Poe was an American writer who invented the short story, wrote some of the first mystery novels, and contributed to the earliest developments of science fiction. Whether evoking horror, curiosity, fear, or excitement, Poe was a deft artist who left a very distinctive mark on American literature. This collection includes some of his most popular stories, including “The Purloined Letter,” “The Pit and the Pendulum,” “The Murders in the Rue Morgue,” and “The Fall of the House of Ussher,” as well as some of his greatest poems.

This Canon Classic has eighteen of Poe’s best-loved short stories and nineteen of his poems. The Canon Classics series presents the most definitive works of Western literature in a colorful, well-crafted, and affordable way. Unlike many other thrift editions, our classics feature individualized designs that prioritize readability by means of proper margins, leading, characters per line, font, trim size, etc. Each book’s materials and layout combine to make the classics a simple and striking addition to classrooms and homes, ideal for introducing the best of literary culture and human experience to the next generation.

This edition does not feature a worldview guide or introduction.