‘Thou art a God that hidest Thyself’ (Isaiah 45:15) ... Till Thou givest that sense beyond, To shew Thee that Thou art, and near, Let patience with her chastening wand Dispel the doubt and dry the tear; And lead me child-like by the hand If still in darkness...
O Christ, our morning star, Splendour of light eternal, Shining with the glory of the rainbow. Come and waken us From the greyness of our apathy, And renew in us Your gift of hope. Venerable Bede (672-735)
Down to that littleness, down to all that Crying and hunger, all that tiny flesh And flickering spirit – down the great stars fall, Here the great kings bow. Here the farmer sees his fragile lambs, Here the wise man throws his books away. This manger is the universe’s...
When fishes flew and forests walked And figs grew upon thorn, Some moment when the moon was blood Then surely I was born. And monstrous head and sickening cry And ears like errant wings, And devil's walking parody On all four-footed things. The tattered...
There was a bright and happy tree; The wind with music laced its boughs; Thither across the houseless sea Came singing birds to house. Men grudged the tree its happy eyes, Its happy dawns of eager sound; So all that crown and tower of leaves They levelled with...
It is not clear that he can't speak; who created languages but God? . . . We call him the dumb God with an effrontery beyond pardon. Whose silence so eloquent as his? What word so explosive as that one Palestinian word with the endlessness of its fall-out?...
If you can stay in the midst of the turmoil unperplexed and calm because you see Jesus, that is God's plan in your life. Not that you may be able to say, 'I have done this and now it's alright.' We have an idea that God is leading us to a certain goal, a desired...
Surely some revelation is at hand; Surely the Second Coming is at hand. The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert A shape with lion body and the head of a man, A gaze blank...
And God held in his hand a small globe. Look, he said. The son looked. Far off, as through water, he saw a scorched land of fierce colour. The light burned there; crusted buildings cast their shadows: a bright serpent, a river uncoiled itself, radiant with slime. On...
I saw a stable low and very bare, A little child in a manger. The oxen knew him, had him in their care. To men he was a stranger. The safety of the world was lying there And the world’s danger. Mary Elizabeth Coleridge (1861-1907).
… were we led all that way for Birth or death? There was a Birth certainly, We had evidence and no doubt. I had seen birth and death, But had thought they were different; this birth was Hard and bitter agony for us, like Death, our death. We returned to our places,...
What hath man done that man shall not undo, Since God to him is grown so near akin? Did his foe slay him? He shall slay his foe. Hath he lost all? He all again shall win. Is sin his master? He shall master sin…. He is a path if any be misled; He is a robe, if any...