The Hammer and The Fire

By Henry Marsh

Following The Guidman’s Daughter with his poems on Mary, Queen of Scots, Marsh begins this new collection with a sequence exploring the life and times of John Knox, locating this ambivalent figure in the turmoil of the Scottish Reformation. Marsh moves via Kepler and Darwin into a celebration of nature, searching within our secular world to ‘find a language’ to render its mystery and concludes by touching on the great challenges we now face. Our striving to understand the nature of things hints, perhaps, at the possibility of a different kind of redemption.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Birlinn
• Release date: Jan 1, 2012
• ISBN: 9780857901170

Henry Marsh

HENRY MARSH studied medicine at the Royal Free Hospital in London, became a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons in 1984 and was appointed Consultant Neurosurgeon at Atkinson Morley's/St George's Hospital in London in 1987. He is the author of the New York Times bestselling memoir Do No Harm and NBCC finalist Admissions, and has been the subject of two documentary films, Your Life in Their Hands, which won the Royal Television Society Gold Medal, and The English Surgeon, which won an Emmy. He was made a CBE in 2010. He is married to the anthropologist Kate Fox, and lives in London and Oxford.

Book preview

THE HAMMER AND THE FIRE

THE HAMMER AND THE FIRE

HENRY MARSH

2011

For Alice and Charlotte

Maclean Dubois

Also by Henry Marsh

A First Sighting, ISBN 0 9514470 1 7

first published in Great Britain in 2005

by Maclean Dubois,

Hillend House, Hillend, Edinburgh EH10 7DX

A Turbulent Wake, ISBN 978 0 9514470 4 8

first published in Great Britain in 2007

by Maclean Dubois.

A Trail of Dreaming, ISBN 13 978 0 9561141 0 5

in collaboration with the artist, Kym Needle,

published 2009

by the Open Eye Gallery,

34 Abercromby Place, Edinburgh EH3 6QE

The Guidman’s Daughter, ISBN 978 0951 47062

first published 2009

by Maclean Dubois

distributed by Birlinn.

Printed by CPI Antony Rowe

www.cpibooks.co.uk

Design by Cate Stewart

Distributed by Birlinn Ltd

Copyright by Henry Marsh 2011

The moral right of the author has been asserted.

ISBN 978-0-9565278-2-0

E-book ISBN: 978-0-8579-0117-0

Acknowledgements

I am grateful to the editors of Dream Catcher and North Words Now where some of these poems were first published.

I am particularly indebted to Dr Rosalind Marshall for the rich source of detail in her book John Knox and for her other work on the Scottish Reformation. She kindly read the manuscript and offered her advice. The Swordbearer by my old friend, the Revd Stewart Lamont, was also very useful.

Peter Gilmour provided wise comments, as always, on the selection of the pieces.

But the publication of the collection would not have been possible without Professor Alexander McCall Smith and his team – Lesley Winton, his P.A., and the book’s designer, Cate Stewart. I owe them a great debt of gratitude.

The spectacular cover image of the Rosette Nebula I owe to Dr Nick Wright, University College London and the Centre for Astrophysics Research, University of Hertfordshire. I must also thank Professor Janet Drew who very kindly and speedily facilitated what must have seemed a rather eccentric enquiry.

Table of Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Acknowledgements

The Hammer and the Fire

Introduction

At St Giles’ Kirk

George Wishart

In the French Galleys

Berwick

By the House of Dun

St John’s Kirk, Perth

The Reformation of Lindores Abbey

Remembering the Field of Pinkie

Loss

Of the Monstrous Regiment

De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium

In Thrall

Sisyphus

Bunty Wallace

Edinburgh, 1572

Gethsemane

January, 2009

Homecoming

Origins

Origins

Oasis

Kepler’s Supernova

Cognition of Torture

The Mystery of Tides

Harmony of the World

Rainbows

The Watch

Lux

Lumen

Illumination

Light and Water

Dancing after Bees

Thinking Path

Sundew – Loch Druidibeg

At Loch Crócabhat

Black and White

October 1st

At the Window

Marsh Thistle

Like to Like

Glen Esk

By the Sound of Eriskay

Stonechat

Valhalla

Kestrel

Voyager

Colonsay

Rain-washed

Dirt Tosser

Trickster

Belhaven Bay

Mummy

Beach at Smeircleit

Drove Road

Echidna by Three Pine Trees Quarry

Handing On

Sun-dust

Lindisfarne

Jupiter

Wheelhouse – Cille Pheadair

Eco Demo

At the Royal

Singularities

Stroke

Inheritance

At South Lochboisdale

Dandelion Clock

Green Man in a Chapel

Sky Lines – Otterspool Promenade

For Charlotte

Walking

The Open Road

Art Lesson

The Hammer and the Fire

Introduction

It is likely that John Knox was born in Haddington, probably in 1514. It was during his childhood that Martin Luther sprang to prominence, his ideas being appropriated to justify attempts at social revolution in Germany. The association of religious reform and revolution was later reflected in events as they unfolded in Scotland. Against this background of growing European turmoil, Knox was ordained priest