What isolates me here in frozen clay

But that same tidal shock which fell

First upon England in your day?

Betrayal of the truth is no new thing

Within the fellowship of Christ, yet new

Was the cold glare whence alien ripples flashed….

The darkness comes as you foretold.

You  hear the fretful moan,

The alien winds that rave

As bitterly the grey truth breaks

On disillusioned Church and frantic world.

You see what form the judgement takes,

What harvest faithless generations reap:

The folds half empty, no clean pasture for the sheep;

Soil sterile where the liberal waters swirled

Which now have hardened into mud

Of festering ethic; fruitless hands grown chill

With their starved, pallid blood;

And the sky freezing still….

Jack Clemo (1916-94), The Broad Winter, (Dedicated to Charles Haddon Spurgeon)