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Sabbaths
Wendell Berry's most formal poetic work to date is a sequence of traditional and classic meditations, spanning the years 1979 to 1985. Written in the solitude of his hillside study over seven years of Sabbaths, these are poems of deep spirituality, meshing the metaphysical and the natural worlds.
112 pages, Paperback
First published September 1, 1987
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About the author
Wendell Berry
295 books4,962 followersWendell Berry is a conservationist, farmer, essayist, novelist, professor of English and poet. He was born August 5, 1934 in Henry County, Kentucky where he now lives on a farm. The New York Times has called Berry the "prophet of rural America."
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 37 reviews
November 13, 2021
I don't have much time to write reviews these days, but this book deserves at least a short one.
The book is extraordinary; it gains in depth and loveliness section by section as it goes. Berry has lived his life unconventionally, and this book feels like the fruit of that labor of integrity and wholeness. The forest is to him a blessing and so is his work, the people, and the land. Reading these poems, it's hard to imagine otherwise; the atmosphere they create is so powerful, the awareness of the living grace around them.
The attitude is quiet, musing, and contemplative but never hesitant. These poems know what they are and what they see. They see the both the darkness and the light. They feel loss, but they feel it with grace. There's no hint of pettiness in them anywhere.
It's a slender book, but I feel blessed by the gift of it. I see that Berry wrote several poetry books over the years with "Sabbaths" in the title, and I look forward to reading more of them.
The book is extraordinary; it gains in depth and loveliness section by section as it goes. Berry has lived his life unconventionally, and this book feels like the fruit of that labor of integrity and wholeness. The forest is to him a blessing and so is his work, the people, and the land. Reading these poems, it's hard to imagine otherwise; the atmosphere they create is so powerful, the awareness of the living grace around them.
The attitude is quiet, musing, and contemplative but never hesitant. These poems know what they are and what they see. They see the both the darkness and the light. They feel loss, but they feel it with grace. There's no hint of pettiness in them anywhere.
It's a slender book, but I feel blessed by the gift of it. I see that Berry wrote several poetry books over the years with "Sabbaths" in the title, and I look forward to reading more of them.
May 18, 2018
The pasture, bleached and cold two weeks ago,
Begins to grow in the spring light and rain;
The new grass trembles under the wind's flow.
The flock, barn-weary, comes to it again,
New to the lambs, a place their mothers know,
Welcoming, bright, and savory in its green,
So fully does the time recover it.
Nibbles of pleasure go all over it.
There was a PBS documentary about Berry a few weeks back. It touched me. I have read his essays and bought novels for my mom. I hadn't yet strayed into his verse.
It has been a trying week, it isn't just a job when completely vulnerable/fragile people are concerned. I found myself arriving at work each morning before seven and watering our garden. Under morning clouds and fueled by breeze my thoughts were sweetened by the Kentucky poet.
I read this entire collection in one sitting this morning and despite not having a religious bone in my body I can say I feel duly blessed.
Begins to grow in the spring light and rain;
The new grass trembles under the wind's flow.
The flock, barn-weary, comes to it again,
New to the lambs, a place their mothers know,
Welcoming, bright, and savory in its green,
So fully does the time recover it.
Nibbles of pleasure go all over it.
There was a PBS documentary about Berry a few weeks back. It touched me. I have read his essays and bought novels for my mom. I hadn't yet strayed into his verse.
It has been a trying week, it isn't just a job when completely vulnerable/fragile people are concerned. I found myself arriving at work each morning before seven and watering our garden. Under morning clouds and fueled by breeze my thoughts were sweetened by the Kentucky poet.
I read this entire collection in one sitting this morning and despite not having a religious bone in my body I can say I feel duly blessed.
December 30, 2017
Beautiful collection of poems by the one and only Wendell Berry. Well worth the time to read. Ideally, I would read 1-3 poems each Sunday and stretch out this experience the way he created it, taking his time over a period of years. To get an idea of the restful (but still intellectually engaging) mood of these poems, here is the final poem in the book:
Slowly, slowly they return
To the small woodland let alone:
Great trees, spreading and upright,
Apostles of the living light.
Patient as stars, they build in air
Tier after tier a timbered choir,
Stout beams upholding weightless grace
Of song, a blessing on this place.
They stand in waiting all around,
Uprisings of the native ground,
Downcomings of the distant light;
They are the advent they await.
Receiving sun and giving shade,
Their life's a benefaction made,
And is a benediction said
Over the living and the dead.
In fall their brightened leaves, released,
Fly down the wind, and we are pleased
To walk on radiance, amazed.
O light come down to earth, be praised!
Slowly, slowly they return
To the small woodland let alone:
Great trees, spreading and upright,
Apostles of the living light.
Patient as stars, they build in air
Tier after tier a timbered choir,
Stout beams upholding weightless grace
Of song, a blessing on this place.
They stand in waiting all around,
Uprisings of the native ground,
Downcomings of the distant light;
They are the advent they await.
Receiving sun and giving shade,
Their life's a benefaction made,
And is a benediction said
Over the living and the dead.
In fall their brightened leaves, released,
Fly down the wind, and we are pleased
To walk on radiance, amazed.
O light come down to earth, be praised!
January 22, 2023
I could read Wendell Berry forever. His prose is just beautiful. This was the first work of poetry of his I’ve read, but I’ll certainly read everything he’s ever written! I’m sure of that.
“Whatever is foreseen in joy
Must be lived out from day to day.
Vision held open in the dark
By our ten thousand days of work.
Harvest will fill the barn; for that
The hand must ache, the face must sweat...”
First stanza of poem X from 1979. I just enjoyed everything about this Sabbath collection.
“Whatever is foreseen in joy
Must be lived out from day to day.
Vision held open in the dark
By our ten thousand days of work.
Harvest will fill the barn; for that
The hand must ache, the face must sweat...”
First stanza of poem X from 1979. I just enjoyed everything about this Sabbath collection.
November 12, 2023
"...For all His creatures were His pleasures
And their whole pleasure was to be
What He made them; they sought no gain
Or growth beyond their proper measures,
Nor longed for change or novelty.
The only new thing could be pain."
Boom mic drop. Seven years of quiet work and rest along the country side, Wendell Berry's appreciation and honor given to both labor and sabbaths is inspiring. I have longed adored Berry's attitude to work especially where it pertains to his toil as a farmer and environmentalist- slow and steady, not exploiting from the land prematurely; nurturing the land God has entrusted in him, truly a beautiful-and in my view accurate- interpretation of Genesis 1. His meditations of the sabbaths is revealed and actualized over the course of years and documented in his poetry here.
4 or 5 stars. I honestly am so terrible at sticking to a rating metric. Just know that I liked it and will find ways to weasel it into conversations.
And their whole pleasure was to be
What He made them; they sought no gain
Or growth beyond their proper measures,
Nor longed for change or novelty.
The only new thing could be pain."
Boom mic drop. Seven years of quiet work and rest along the country side, Wendell Berry's appreciation and honor given to both labor and sabbaths is inspiring. I have longed adored Berry's attitude to work especially where it pertains to his toil as a farmer and environmentalist- slow and steady, not exploiting from the land prematurely; nurturing the land God has entrusted in him, truly a beautiful-and in my view accurate- interpretation of Genesis 1. His meditations of the sabbaths is revealed and actualized over the course of years and documented in his poetry here.
4 or 5 stars. I honestly am so terrible at sticking to a rating metric. Just know that I liked it and will find ways to weasel it into conversations.
November 23, 2020
Reread of the earlier version of this (with the lovely Thomas Bewick tree on the cover!). Poems Berry wrote instead of going to church. All meditation, many straying toward the religious. Certainly toward the more mystical end of Berry's admirable "nature religion." Many of them seem to start or are centered on parts of the Bible. I was trying to place several of them before I realized there was a guide to them at the end. That helped. Also most of these poems are very formal -- either with pretty strict syllabics or rhyme schemes or both. I suspect these were all constraints Berry put on himself before he sat down on those Sunday mornings to do his thinking and his work.
All of that led many of these poems to feel a bit more abstract than much of Berry's other poems, certainly than his essays. I like the poems best that get down to actual small things on Berry's farm and property. That seemed to happen more as the poems progressed (as Berry moved through the 1980s), so I felt more engaged by the end of the book. It might be that I had simply learned to read these poems more closely by the time I got to the end. For instance here's a poem near the end, #7 of 1985:
The winter wren is back, quick
Among the treeroots by the stream,
Feeding from stem to stone to stick,
And in his late return the rhyme
Of years again completes itself.
He makes his work a kind of play.
He pauses on a little shelf
Of rock, says "Tick!" and flirts away.
Yeah, that's sweet and I can forgive someone who finds it too sweet. But I think the observation is real, even exact. It mirrors my image of the winter wren. And I love that "flirts" in line 8. I'm willing to bet it might even have been a typo that he chose to keep.
I hear that Berry is quite old and his many capacities have diminished now. He must know how much he has added to our cultural life.
All of that led many of these poems to feel a bit more abstract than much of Berry's other poems, certainly than his essays. I like the poems best that get down to actual small things on Berry's farm and property. That seemed to happen more as the poems progressed (as Berry moved through the 1980s), so I felt more engaged by the end of the book. It might be that I had simply learned to read these poems more closely by the time I got to the end. For instance here's a poem near the end, #7 of 1985:
The winter wren is back, quick
Among the treeroots by the stream,
Feeding from stem to stone to stick,
And in his late return the rhyme
Of years again completes itself.
He makes his work a kind of play.
He pauses on a little shelf
Of rock, says "Tick!" and flirts away.
Yeah, that's sweet and I can forgive someone who finds it too sweet. But I think the observation is real, even exact. It mirrors my image of the winter wren. And I love that "flirts" in line 8. I'm willing to bet it might even have been a typo that he chose to keep.
I hear that Berry is quite old and his many capacities have diminished now. He must know how much he has added to our cultural life.
May 3, 2021
Picked this up as a possible for my adult ed class at church, and, well, it's lovely.
Berry's poetry is gentle, gracious, and spirit-filled. The poems flow well, and express both a deep faith and an earthy, vibrant engagement with creation. They alternate between elegiac hymnody to the simple beauty and rhythm of the living world and lament at our human tendency to trample or ignore the ecosystem that birthed us.
Perhaps most striking was just how well these poems resonate today. I mean, shoot, 1987? I was 18 years old when they were written, and I'm a creaky middle aged coot with grey in my beard now. But the lyricism still works, still speak to our wonder, our ignorance and the amazing world of life outside of our self-absorbed hive-monkey chatter.
A four point four.
Berry's poetry is gentle, gracious, and spirit-filled. The poems flow well, and express both a deep faith and an earthy, vibrant engagement with creation. They alternate between elegiac hymnody to the simple beauty and rhythm of the living world and lament at our human tendency to trample or ignore the ecosystem that birthed us.
Perhaps most striking was just how well these poems resonate today. I mean, shoot, 1987? I was 18 years old when they were written, and I'm a creaky middle aged coot with grey in my beard now. But the lyricism still works, still speak to our wonder, our ignorance and the amazing world of life outside of our self-absorbed hive-monkey chatter.
A four point four.
August 7, 2021
Combining poetry/prose, nature and sabbath rest. Beautiful work by Mr. Berry.
Read
October 14, 2017Each time I read a few pages, I felt as if I'd had a taste of Sabbath, a moment of thought and reflection and fresh air and spiritual insight.
*
Round two. Reading this book again, 1 year and 2 months later. I savor this book and it inspires me to rest. I need to purchase this one.
*
Round two. Reading this book again, 1 year and 2 months later. I savor this book and it inspires me to rest. I need to purchase this one.
August 15, 2016
I go among trees and sit still.
All my stirring becomes quiet
around me like circles on water.
My tasks lie in their places
where I left them, asleep like cattle...
All my stirring becomes quiet
around me like circles on water.
My tasks lie in their places
where I left them, asleep like cattle...
July 16, 2022
“In fall their brightened leaves, released,
Fly down the wind, and we are pleased
To walk on radiance, amazed.
O light come down to earth, be praised”
(1986)
Fly down the wind, and we are pleased
To walk on radiance, amazed.
O light come down to earth, be praised”
(1986)
May 15, 2019
pg. 52
"Wrong was easy; gravity helped it.
Right is difficult and long.
In choosing what is difficult
we are free, the mind too
making its little flight
out from the shadow into the clear
in time between work and sleep.
There are two healings: nature's
and ours and nature's. Nature's
will come in spite of us, after us,
over the graves of its wasters, as it comes
to the forsaken fields. The healing
that is ours and nature's will come
if we are willing, if we are patient,
if we know the way, if we will do the work.
.....
Though we invite, this healing comes
in answer to another voice than ours;
a strength not ours returns
out of death beginning in our work."
pg. 83
"For we are fallen like the trees, our peace
Broken, and so we must
Love where we cannot trust,
Trust where we cannot know,
and must await the wayward coming grace
That joins living and dead,
Taking us where we would not go-
Into the boundless dark.
When what was made has been unmade
The Maker comes to His work."
pg. 89
"Why must the gate be narrow?
Because you cannot pass beyond it burdened.
To come into the woods you must leave behind
the six days' world, all of it, all of its plans and hopes.
You must come without weapon or tool, alone,
expecting nothing, remembering nothing,
into the ease of sight, the brotherhood of eye and leaf."
"Wrong was easy; gravity helped it.
Right is difficult and long.
In choosing what is difficult
we are free, the mind too
making its little flight
out from the shadow into the clear
in time between work and sleep.
There are two healings: nature's
and ours and nature's. Nature's
will come in spite of us, after us,
over the graves of its wasters, as it comes
to the forsaken fields. The healing
that is ours and nature's will come
if we are willing, if we are patient,
if we know the way, if we will do the work.
.....
Though we invite, this healing comes
in answer to another voice than ours;
a strength not ours returns
out of death beginning in our work."
pg. 83
"For we are fallen like the trees, our peace
Broken, and so we must
Love where we cannot trust,
Trust where we cannot know,
and must await the wayward coming grace
That joins living and dead,
Taking us where we would not go-
Into the boundless dark.
When what was made has been unmade
The Maker comes to His work."
pg. 89
"Why must the gate be narrow?
Because you cannot pass beyond it burdened.
To come into the woods you must leave behind
the six days' world, all of it, all of its plans and hopes.
You must come without weapon or tool, alone,
expecting nothing, remembering nothing,
into the ease of sight, the brotherhood of eye and leaf."
September 25, 2022
46 poems written on and about the Sabbath between 1979 and 1986. Much more formal in style than I am used to, but still covering his normal themes of nature and work and community. Some poets thrive when forced to work with the rules of poetic form, but Mr Berry does better when unconstrained.
A favorite section:
“There are two healings: nature's
and ours and nature's. Nature's
will come in spite of us, after us,
over the graves of its wasters, as it comes
to the forsaken fields. The healing
that is ours and nature's will come
if we are willing, if we are patient,
if we know the way, if we will do the work.
My father’s father, whose namesake
You are, told my father this, he told me,
And I am telling you: we make
This healing, the land’s and ours:
It is our possibility. We may keep
This place, and be kept by it."
May 6, 2017
SO MANY GOOD THINGS HERE! But to choose one to share to tempt your taste buds, I share this. For this shepherdess sees and understands deeply. And misses.
1982, III
The pasture, bleached and cold two weeks ago,
Begins to grow in the spring light and rain;
The new grass trembles under the wind's flow.
The flock, barn-weary, comes to it again,
New to the lambs, a place their mothers know,
Welcoming, bright, and savory in its green,
So fully does the time recover it.
Nibbles of pleasure go all over it.
1982, III
The pasture, bleached and cold two weeks ago,
Begins to grow in the spring light and rain;
The new grass trembles under the wind's flow.
The flock, barn-weary, comes to it again,
New to the lambs, a place their mothers know,
Welcoming, bright, and savory in its green,
So fully does the time recover it.
Nibbles of pleasure go all over it.
June 11, 2018
Wendell Berry's most formal poetic work to date is a sequence of traditional and classic meditations, spanning the years 1979 to 1985. Written in the solitude of his hillside study over seven years of Sabbaths, these are poems of deep spirituality, meshing the metaphysical and the natural worlds.
I found these to touch my sense of spirituality and were quite thoughtful in the process of absorbing them as meditations.
I found these to touch my sense of spirituality and were quite thoughtful in the process of absorbing them as meditations.
January 13, 2024
I was often brought to tears by this author’s work. Raised on a farm, I was drawn to the honor placed on a day of rest and could feel the calling of the forest.
At times, particularly in the first half, I struggled to find strong themes within a poem yet found stunningly beautiful and moving imagery and phrases throughout.
I copied a number of poems down to return to when the book is no longer in my hands.
At times, particularly in the first half, I struggled to find strong themes within a poem yet found stunningly beautiful and moving imagery and phrases throughout.
I copied a number of poems down to return to when the book is no longer in my hands.
August 22, 2025
I’ve been slowly savoring this book, poem by poem, for probably 2 years now and picking it up as part of my journal/Bible/reflection stack when I head out for a Sabbath adventure. Finishing the last poem from it was such a sweet sigh of gratitude for incredible prose that feels bursting with life and thoughtful observations on the parallel between the spiritual and natural worlds.
October 28, 2024
Good reminder that one could still write poetry about beauty while living through The Gipper getting elected a second time.
"Light, leaf, foot, hand, and wing,
Such order as we know,
One household, high and low,
And all the earth shall sing."
"Light, leaf, foot, hand, and wing,
Such order as we know,
One household, high and low,
And all the earth shall sing."
October 29, 2025
Reading this is much like walking through a forest or pasture; sometimes you lose your way in the thicket and must start again. Sometimes you stop, crouch down, and peer at the details on the path. Other times, you simply sit and ponder. And sometimes, you find yourself in a clearing, the light bright and bountiful.
July 1, 2018
I don’t read very much poetry, but this short collection of short poems made me want to read more. The themes of the inherent goodness and beauty of nature were very moving.
September 16, 2019
I'll be buying this little volume and looking for others of his.
April 6, 2022
We are all praising, praying to the light we are but cannot know.
December 20, 2023
This was wondrous.
May 31, 2024
Beautiful, thoughtful, inspiring poetry.
May 22, 2017
I like the subject matter, but the writing style is too baroque for my taste. I like the free verse psalms of On Farming more than Sabbaths. The baroque quality makes it more heavy which detracts from the transparency of the poem.
March 21, 2017
I wanted to love this collection, but just as there is a time to every purpose, perhaps this is not my time. Some of the individual stanzas were lovely, but I just couldn't get there-there on the poems in their entirety.
January 20, 2020
Good topic. Some images are too esoteric for me. Still, it was good to start the year reading poetry about sabbaths.
September 26, 2012
"Another Sunday morning comes/And I resume the standing Sabbath of the woods" (1979/II). The poems in this collection are the product of Wendell Berry sitting down every Sabbath to contemplate and write about his life on the land his family has lived on for 3 generations. This is my favorite volume of Wendell Berry's poetry, one I return to often, but this is the first time I have read the whole book, cover to cover, without interruption. Doing so has given me a new appreciation for the individual poems and the collection. And it has added a new favorite: this final stanza from 1985/V:
"Why must the gate be narrow?
Because you cannot pass beyond it burdened.
To come into the woods you must leave behind
the six days' world, all of it, all of its plans and hopes.
You must come without weapon or tool, alone,
expecting nothing, remembering nothing,
into the ease of sight, the brotherhood of eye and leaf."
"Why must the gate be narrow?
Because you cannot pass beyond it burdened.
To come into the woods you must leave behind
the six days' world, all of it, all of its plans and hopes.
You must come without weapon or tool, alone,
expecting nothing, remembering nothing,
into the ease of sight, the brotherhood of eye and leaf."
December 29, 2011
Poems can feel like conversations in a way novels never do, to me. This book was a life-improving-and-deepening conversation last summer. I stumbled upon it at the Point Reyes library and renewed it again and again, unwilling to let it leave my side. Wendell Berry's ideas on what is rest and what is work, what is nature and what is cultivation, where beauty can be found and how to love, fill me with gratitude and grounded hope.
September 13, 2015
I am not religious, but I don't mind experiencing the art of the religiously-inspired. This is a sometimes beautiful collection of poems that I read while visiting an amazing natural place (Crater Lake NP). Given the setting, some of these meditations cut right to the core of my experience; it was wonderful.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 37 reviews