Messiah's Kingdom

Messiah's Kingdom is a long poem by Agnes Bulmer.^[1] It was published in 1833. It is regarded as the longest poem written by a woman.^[2][3] It consists of some 14,000 lines grouped in twelve books. The poem is written in heroic couplet^[4] but the introduction is made up of four 13-line stanzas like this one:

Of Him, high raised on Heaven's stupendous throne,

Beneath whose feet the sapphire pavement glows;

O'er whose intensest splendours, dread, unknown,

The beaming bow its milder radiance throws;

Around whose state, in bright attendance, close

The full-toned choir of harping cherubim.

Seraphs, whose robes empyreal lights compose,

And angels, breathing soft the' adoring hymn:—

Of Him, Eternal, Infinite, Supreme,

Fain would a mortal Muse, adventurous, sing;

Him, for archangel minds too vast a theme,

Who yet, when babes their meek hosannas bring,

Inclines with gentlest grace, and veils in Mercy's wing.

The poet was praised for "harmonious versification".^[5] The poem was reviewed also in The Methodist Magazine and Quarterly Review.^[6]

References

1. Agnes Bulmer 18th at Century Religion, Literature, and Culture.
2. Richard Watson Dixon, Bulmer, Agnes at Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900, Volume 07.
3. Andrew O. Winckles, The Book of Nature and the Methodist Epic: Agnes Bulmer's Analogic Poetics and the End(s) of Romanticism.
4. Herbert F. Tucker, Epic: Britain's Heroic Muse 1790-1910, p. 284.
5. British Magazine and Monthly Register of Religious and Ecclesiastical Information, Parochial History and Documents Respecting the State of the Poor, Progress of Education, &c., Vol. III, 1833, p. 585.
6. The Methodist Magazine and Quarterly Review, XV (New series IV), 1833, p. 473-477.

Bibliography

• Agnes Bulmer, Messiah's Kingdom, New York 1833.