“St. Patrick’s Breastplate”
( Attributed to St. Patrick , but likely written later)

I bind to myself today
The strong virtue of the Invocation of the Trinity:
I believe the Trinity in the Unity
The Creator of the Universe.

I bind to myself today
The virtue of the Incarnation of Christ with His Baptism,
The virtue of His crucifixion with His burial,
The virtue of His Resurrection with His Ascension,
The virtue of His coming on the Judgement Day.

I bind to myself today
The virtue of the love of seraphim,
In the obedience of angels,
In the hope of resurrection unto reward,
In prayers of Patriarchs,
In predictions of Prophets,
In preaching of Apostles,
In faith of Confessors,
In purity of holy Virgins,
In deeds of righteous men.

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“Spring Rivulet”
Liberty Hyde Bailey

(From WIND AND WEATHER: POEMS
Doulos Christou Press, 2008 edition)

When the March suns come
And meadows are free
And the waters start
A-way to the sea,
Far back in the fields
When the keen winds blow
I follow a rill
From a bank of snow.
There the last drift lies
In a fence-row hedge
And an inch-wide thread
Drops out of its edge;
And the, day-old pools
Ice-rimmed on the grass
Seep into the stream
As its waters pass.
Sparkle and sparkle the streamlets roam,
Grasses and twigs are pointing from home.

Oh winter, my winter, you have left me again;
The snow’s gone from the hillsides and meadows are bare,
The orchards are vacant and all stark is the glen,
The highways are drying and the woodlands are spare.

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A Hymn of the Early Church
Translated by John Brownlie
(from Hymns of the Early Church )

Thou, Lord, hast power to heal,
And Thou wilt quickly aid;
For Thou dost deeply feel
The stripes upon us laid–
Thou who wast wounded by the rod
Uplifted in the hand of God.

Send speedy help, we pray,
To him who ailing lies,
That from his couch he may
With thankful heart arise;
Through prayers which all availing find
Thine ear, O Lover of mankind.

Oh, blinded are our eyes,
And all are held in night;
But like the blind who cries,
We cry to Thee for light;
In penitence, O Christ, we pray,
Give us the radiant light of day.

“Marvel”
Liberty Hyde Bailey

(From WIND AND WEATHER: POEMS
Doulos Christou Press, 2008 edition)

Ah, the wonders I have seen
At dawn and sunset and between!

The ocean beach on wild midnights
Deep steaming swamps and northern bights
The cirrhus clouds in high moonlights
The magic calm of tropic seas
The nameless sails at distant quays
The long long walks on lonely strands
Dead vacantness of desert lands
The constellations in new skies
The rounding landscape’s million dyes

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In remembrance of Ash Wednesday (tomorrow), we offer you two poems related to Ash Wednesday.

Ash Wednesday
T.S. Eliot

Because I do not hope to turn again
Because I do not hope
Because I do not hope to turn
Desiring this man’s gift and that man’s scope
I no longer strive to strive towards such things
(Why should the aged eagle stretch its wings?)
Why should I mourn
The vanished power of the usual reign?

Because I do not hope to know again
The infirm glory of the positive hour
Because I do not think
Because I know I shall not know
The one veritable transitory power
Because I cannot drink
There, where trees flower, and springs flow, for there is nothing again

Because I know that time is always time
And place is always and only place
And what is actual is actual only for one time
And only for one place
I rejoice that things are as they are and
I renounce the blessed face
And renounce the voice
Because I cannot hope to turn again
Consequently I rejoice, having to construct something
Upon which to rejoice

[ Read the full poem here ]

Marked by Ashes
Walter Brueggemann

Ruler of the Night, Guarantor of the day . . .
This day — a gift from you.
This day — like none other you have ever given, or we have ever received.
This Wednesday dazzles us with gift and newness and possibility.
This Wednesday burdens us with the tasks of the day, for we are already halfway home
halfway back to committees and memos,
halfway back to calls and appointments,
halfway on to next Sunday,
halfway back, half frazzled, half expectant,
half turned toward you, half rather not.

[ Read the full poem here,
courtesy of our friends at Journey With Jesus ]

“The Present Crisis”
James Russell Lowell

[Editor's Note:  John Howard Yoder mentions this poem in THE WAR OF THE LAMB (reviewed above) as significant in the life and work of Martin Luther King, Jr. ]

WHEN a deed is done for Freedom, through the broad earth’s aching breast
Runs a thrill of joy prophetic, trembling on from east to west,
And the slave, where’er he cowers, feels the soul within him climb
To the awful verge of manhood, as the energy sublime
Of a century bursts full-blossomed on the thorny stem of Time.

Through the walls of hut and palace shoots the instantaneous throe,
When the travail of the Ages wrings earth’s systems to and fro;
At the birth of each new Era, with a recognizing start,
Nation wildly looks at a nation, standing with mute lips apart,
And glad Truth’s yet mightier man-child leaps beneath the Future’s heart.

So the Evil’s triumph sendeth, with a terror and a chill,
Under continent to continent, the sense of coming ill,
And the slave, where’er he cowers, feels his sympathies with God
In hot tear-drops ebbing earthward, to be drunk up by the sod,
Till a corpse crawls round unburied, delving in the nobler clod.

For mankind are one in spirit, and an instinct bears along,
Round the earth’s electric circle, the swift flash of right or wrong;
Whether conscious or unconscious, yet Humanity’s vast frame
Through its ocean-sundered fibres feels the gush of joy or shame;-
In the gain or loss of one race all the rest have equal claim.

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“A Winter’s Day”
Paul Laurence Dunbar

Across the hills and down the narrow ways,
And up the valley where the free winds sweep,
The earth is folded in an ermined sleep
That mocks the melting mirth of myriad Mays.
Departed her disheartening duns and grays,
And all her crusty black is covered deep.
Dark streams are locked in Winter’s donjon-keep,
And made to shine with keen, unwonted rays.
O icy mantle, and deceitful snow!
What world-old liars in your hearts ye are!
Are there not still the darkened seam and scar
Beneath the brightness that you fain would show?
Come from the cover with thy blot and blur,
O reeking Earth, thou whited sepulchre!

THE HAPPY MAN
G.K. Chesterton

To teach the grey earth like a child,
To bid the heavens repent,
I only ask from Fate the gift
Of one man well content.

Him will I find: though when in vain
I search the feast and mart,
The fading flowers of liberty,
The painted masks of art.

I only find him at the last,
On one old hill where nod
Golgotha’s ghastly trinity–
Three persons and one god.

“The Times are Nightfall”
Gerard Manley Hopkins.

The times are nightfall, look, their light grows less;
The times are winter, watch, a world undone:
They waste, they wither worse; they as they run
Or bring more or more blazon man’s distress.
And I not help. Nor word now of success:
All is from wreck, here, there, to rescue one–
Work which to see scarce so much as begun
Makes welcome death, does dear forgetfulness.

Or what is else? There is your world within.
There rid the dragons, root out there the sin.
Your will is law in that small commonweal . . .

“Spiritual Canticle”
(Stanzas XXIV-XL)
St. John of the Cross
(1542-1591)

XXIV
THE BRIDE
Our bed is of flowers
By dens of lions encompassed,
Hung with purple,
Made in peace,
And crowned with a thousand shields of gold.

XXV
In Your footsteps
The young ones run Your way;
At the touch of the fire
And by the spiced wine,
The divine balsam flows.

XXVI
In the inner cellar
Of my Beloved have I drunk; and when I went forth
Over all the plain
I knew nothing,
And lost the flock I followed before.

XXVII
There He gave me His breasts,
There He taught me the science full of sweetness.
And there I gave to Him
Myself without reserve;
There I promised to be His bride.

XXVIII
My soul is occupied,
And all my substance in His service;
Now I guard no flock,
Nor have I any other employment:
My sole occupation is love.

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