I’ve been on a poetry kick recently, so I thought it would be fun to comb our archives for poems by and about saints…
Here are the poems that I found:
*** Also, Recommended Stories of the Saints
ST. FRANCIS OF ASSISI
Vachel Lindsay
(1879-1931)
Would I might wake St. Francis in you all,
Brother of birds and trees, God’s Troubadour,
Blinded with weeping for the sad and poor;
Our wealth undone, all strict Franciscan men,
Come, let us chant the canticle again
Of mother earth and the enduring sun.
God make each soul the lonely leper’s slave;
God make us saints, and brave.
Others:
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Three poems about St. Francis
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Three poems by Therese de Lisieux
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St. Teresa of Avila – “Christ has no Body“
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“The Death of St. Brendan” – J.R.R. Tolkien
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“St. Patrick’s Breastplate”
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Longfellow – The Ladder of St. Augustine
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St. Francis De Sales – William Edward Heygate
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St. John of the Cross “Stanzas of the Soul”
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St. John of the Cross “Spiritual Canticle” –
[ Part 1 ] [ Part 2 ] [ Part 3 ]
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Tania Runyan – Blessed are the Merciful
(Amish Schoolhouse Shooting) -
Saint Therese of Lisieux – To Joan of Arc
Surely there are other favorite poems by/about saints that are not included on this list…
What others would you include?
C. Christopher Smith is the founding editor of The Englewood Review of Books. He is also author of a number of books, including most recently How the Body of Christ Talks: Recovering the Practice of Conversation in the Church (Brazos Press, 2019). Connect with him online at: C-Christopher-Smith.com

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“God make us saints, and brave.” As we say in Kentucky: “That there’ll preach!”
Yeah, that poem is one of my favorites!