10 Thursday Oct 2019
Posted in Poetical
Rain fall,
come pattering upon the panes
with your memory of sorrows
–there is ever tomorrow.
O dreary day,
yours is the moment;
paint it gray and grumble
over souls you humble.
Heaven sees,
and God is kind;
clearer come the dawning skies
and mercy with sunrise.
26 Thursday Sep 2019
Posted in Poetical
Here’s three cheers for the Welsh Brew Tea,
who, summoned under a Summer sun
fulfills his oath faithfully,
putting to rout tension.
Faithful, vigilant, Welsh Brew Tea,
Receive my encomium to thee!
Here’s three cheers for the Welsh Brew Tea,
who comes in Autumn no laggard,
but stalwart in his steaming station
leaves my brow less haggard.
Faithful, vigilant, Welsh Brew Tea,
Receive my encomium to thee!
Here’s three cheers for the Welsh Brew Tea,
who, welcomed on a Winter’s day,
slackens not in his sworn duty
to chase the chill away.
Faithful, vigilant, Welsh Brew Tea,
Receive my encomium to thee!
Here’s three cheers for the Welsh Brew Tea,
who sprightly springs at Spring tea-time
to invigorate the languid day
with essences sublime.
Faithful, vigilant, Welsh Brew Tea,
Receive my encomium to thee!
23 Monday Sep 2019
Posted in Poetical
19 Thursday Sep 2019
Posted in Poetical
That bold azure canopy above shows,
rather than hides,
the brilliant gates of heaven to our eyes,
and every blossom that unfolds
unfolds to us.
The twining grapevine molds
a sculpture of suggestive power
as songbirds herald
celestial tidings with each daylit hour.
We search, but cannot find what we
refuse to see–
that every moment apes eternity.
16 Monday Sep 2019
Tags
“Hush! while on silvery wing of holiest song
Floats forth the old, dear story of our peace,
His coming, the Desire of Ages long,
To wear our chains and win our glad release.
Our wondering joy, to hear such tidings blest,
Is crowned with ‘Come to Him, and He will give you rest.’
Rest, by His sorrow! Bruised for our sin,
Behold the Lamb of God! His death our life.
Now lift your heads, ye gates! He entereth in,
Christ risen, indeed, and Conqueror in the strife.
Thanks, thanks to Him who won, and Him who gave
Such victory of love, such triumph o’er the grave.”
–from “Threefold Praise,” by Frances Ridley Havergal
09 Monday Sep 2019
Posted in Poetical
Tags
Thank you, Lord, for this world
that you have made;
for the glory of its spreading skies
and every leaf and tree
and bit of painted paradise,
green fields of morning mist-veiled
or dew-bejeweled,
proud trees boastful with verdant plumage,
and every leaf and flower,
harbinger of that new age
and worlds renewed.
The gift of beauty prophesies
in fields and trees and spreading skies.
07 Saturday Sep 2019
Posted in Poetical
These fragile fields
and cities vain,
titanic labors of thought and limb
–ephemeral
–lights so sprightly shimmering
and so soon dim,
our monuments of data,
steel, and stone,
lifeless remnants
and dry as bone.
Look down, Everlasting,
upon these fragile fields;
when all things fade,
all sepulchral,
Your grace is new
and ever giving.
Awake our hearts
to ever-living hopes
undreamt in vanity,
and fix us
on eternity.
04 Sunday Aug 2019
Posted in Poetical
Tags
Comfort, Cross, Death, Jesus Christ, Pain, Poem, Problem of Evil, Theodicy, Tragedy, Truth
All our ‘why’s, our tears,
our anguished cries, seem hollow
set against the silent skies–
does heaven not hear?
But God is near, He
reaches down, bent down to wear
our thorny crown, and
stretches hands to us,
as stretched His arms upon the cross.
Our pain is answered cruciform;
our why is stilled at His reply,
“Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani!”
the cry that answers all our pain–
death’s death-knell, most awful,
most wonderful, numinous strain.
And grief will be ended,
and joy live again.
