Humankind: Sinful, Rebellious and Faithless
Virtue could see to do what virtue would By her own radiant light, though sun and moon Were in the flat sea sunk. And wisdom’s self Oft seeks to sweet retired solitude, Where with her best nurse Contemplation She plumes her feathers, and lets grow her wings That in...
Hypocrisy – the only evil that walks Invisible except to God alone, By his permissive will, through heaven and earth; And oft, though wisdom wake, suspicion sleeps At wisdom’s gate, and to simplicity Resigns her charge, while goodness thinks no ill Where no ill...
The Soul that rises with us, our life’s Star, Hath had elsewhere its setting, And cometh from afar: Not in entire forgetfulness, And not in utter nakedness But trailing clouds of glory do we come From God who is our home: Heaven lies about us in our infancy! Shades of...
A man said to the universe: ‘Sir, I exist.’ ‘However,’ replied the universe. ‘The fact has not created in me A sense of obligation.' Stephen Crane (1871-1900), War is Kind and Other Lines, 1899.
What we call the beginning is often the end And to make an end is to make a beginning. The end is where we start from…. … A people without history Is not redeemed from time, for history is a pattern Of timeless moments. So, while the light fails On a winter’s...
Search me, O God, my action try And let my life appear As seen by Thine all-searching eye; To mine my ways make clear. Search all my sense and know my heart, Who only canst make known And let the deep, the hidden part To me be fully shown. Throw light...
And now, O Father, mindful of the love that bought us, once for all, on Calvary's Tree, and having with us him that pleads above, we here present, we spread forth to thee that only Offering perfect in thine eyes, the one, true, pure, immortal Sacrifice. Look, Father,...
Southern trees bear a strange fruit, Blood on the leaves and blood at the root, Black body swinging in the Southern breeze, Strange fruit hanging from poplar trees. Pastoral scene of the gallant South, The bulging eyes and twisted mouth, Scent of magnolia sweet...
I came out alone on my way to my tryst. But who is this that follows me in the silent dark? I move aside to avoid his presence but I escape him not. He makes the dust rise from the earth with his swagger; He adds his loud voice to every word that I utter. He is my own...
And Christ went sadly. He had wrought for them a sign Of Love, and Hope, and Tenderness divine; They wanted - swine. Christ stands without your door and gently knocks; But if your gold, or swine, the entrance blocks, He forces no man's hold - he will depart, And leave...
Here in this transport I, Eve, With my son, Abel. If you see my elder son, Cain, Son of Adam; Tell him that I am. (Scribbled in pencil in a sealed wagon used for transporting Jews).
It is not the feeling of anything I’ve ever done Which I might get away from, or of anything in me I could get rid of – but of emptiness, or failure Towards someone, or something, outside of myself: And I feel I must – atone – is that the word? T.S. Eliot...