Poems for Holy Week: Holy Saturday
(scroll down for previous days)
Our Master Lies Asleep by Christina Rosetti
(scroll down for previous days)
Our Master Lies Asleep by Christina Rosetti
Our Master Lies Asleep
by Christina Rosetti (1830-1894)
Our Master lies asleep and is at rest:
His Heart has ceased to bleed, His Eye to weep:
The sun ashamed has dropt down in the west:
Our Master lies asleep.
Now we are they who weep, and trembling keep
Vigil, with wrung heart in a sighing breast,
While slow time creeps, and slow the shadows creep.
Renew Thy youth, as eagle from the nest;
O Master, who hast sown, arise to reap: –
No cock-crow yet, no flush on eastern crest:
Our Master lies asleep.
by Christina Rosetti (1830-1894)
Our Master lies asleep and is at rest:
His Heart has ceased to bleed, His Eye to weep:
The sun ashamed has dropt down in the west:
Our Master lies asleep.
Now we are they who weep, and trembling keep
Vigil, with wrung heart in a sighing breast,
While slow time creeps, and slow the shadows creep.
Renew Thy youth, as eagle from the nest;
O Master, who hast sown, arise to reap: –
No cock-crow yet, no flush on eastern crest:
Our Master lies asleep.
Stormy seas near Skellig Michael.
Image courtesy of Patsy Lynch [@patsylynch]
Good Friday
Sheep and Lambs
by Katharine Tynan (1859-1931)
This poem by Irish poet, Katharine Tynan, was set to music by Scottish composer, Sir Hugh Roberton and is sung here by the Treorchy Male Voice Choir from the Rhonnda Valley in Wales.
All in the April morning,
April airs were abroad;
The sheep with their little lambs
Pass'd me by on the road.
The sheep with their little lambs
Pass'd me by on the road;
All in an April evening
I thought on the Lamb of God.
The lambs were weary, and crying
With a weak human cry,
I thought on the Lamb of God
Going meekly to die.
Up in the blue, blue mountains
Dewy pastures are sweet:
Rest for the little bodies,
Rest for the little feet.
But for the Lamb of God
Up on the hill-top green,
Only a cross of shame
Two stark crosses between.
All in the April evening,
April airs were abroad;
I saw the sheep with their lambs,
And thought on the Lamb of God.
Reprinted from The Oxford Book of Verse. Ed. Arthur Quiller-Couch. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1900.
Good Friday
Sheep and Lambs
by Katharine Tynan (1859-1931)
This poem by Irish poet, Katharine Tynan, was set to music by Scottish composer, Sir Hugh Roberton and is sung here by the Treorchy Male Voice Choir from the Rhonnda Valley in Wales.
All in the April morning,
April airs were abroad;
The sheep with their little lambs
Pass'd me by on the road.
The sheep with their little lambs
Pass'd me by on the road;
All in an April evening
I thought on the Lamb of God.
The lambs were weary, and crying
With a weak human cry,
I thought on the Lamb of God
Going meekly to die.
Up in the blue, blue mountains
Dewy pastures are sweet:
Rest for the little bodies,
Rest for the little feet.
But for the Lamb of God
Up on the hill-top green,
Only a cross of shame
Two stark crosses between.
All in the April evening,
April airs were abroad;
I saw the sheep with their lambs,
And thought on the Lamb of God.
Reprinted from The Oxford Book of Verse. Ed. Arthur Quiller-Couch. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1900.
My Soul is Sorrowful onto Death. James Tissot (1836-1902). Courtesy of the Brooklyn Museum.
Holy Thursday
Gethsemane
by Mary Oliver
The grass never sleeps.
Or the roses.
Nor does the lily have a secret eye that shuts until morning.
Jesus said, wait with me. But the disciples slept.
The cricket has such splendid fringe on its feet,
and it sings, have you noticed, with its whole body,
and heaven knows if it ever sleeps.
Jesus said, wait with me. And maybe the stars did, maybe
the wind wound itself into a silver tree, and didn’t move,
maybe, the lake far away, where once he walked as on a
blue pavement, lay still and waited, wild awake.
Oh the dear bodies, slumped and eye-shut, that could not
keep that vigil, how they must have wept,
so utterly human, knowing this too
must be a part of the story.
Mary Oliver, Thirst (Boston: Beacon Press, 2007).
Holy Thursday
Gethsemane
by Mary Oliver
The grass never sleeps.
Or the roses.
Nor does the lily have a secret eye that shuts until morning.
Jesus said, wait with me. But the disciples slept.
The cricket has such splendid fringe on its feet,
and it sings, have you noticed, with its whole body,
and heaven knows if it ever sleeps.
Jesus said, wait with me. And maybe the stars did, maybe
the wind wound itself into a silver tree, and didn’t move,
maybe, the lake far away, where once he walked as on a
blue pavement, lay still and waited, wild awake.
Oh the dear bodies, slumped and eye-shut, that could not
keep that vigil, how they must have wept,
so utterly human, knowing this too
must be a part of the story.
Mary Oliver, Thirst (Boston: Beacon Press, 2007).
Wednesday
A Hymn to God the Father
John Donne (1572-1631)
Wilt Thou forgive that sin where I begun,
Which is my sin, though it were done before?
Wilt Thou forgive that sin, through which I run,
And do run still, though still I do deplore?
When Thou hast done, Thou hast not done,1
For I have more.
Wilt Thou forgive that sin which I have won
Others to sin? and, made my sin their door?
Wilt Thou forgive that sin which I did shun
A year or two: but wallowed in, a score?
When Thou hast done, Thou hast not done,
For I have more.
I have a sin of fear, that when I have spun
My last thread, I shall perish on the shore;
Swear by Thyself, that at my death Thy Son
Shall shine as He shines now, and heretofore;
And, having done that, Thou hast done,
I fear no more.
A Hymn to God the Father
John Donne (1572-1631)
Wilt Thou forgive that sin where I begun,
Which is my sin, though it were done before?
Wilt Thou forgive that sin, through which I run,
And do run still, though still I do deplore?
When Thou hast done, Thou hast not done,1
For I have more.
Wilt Thou forgive that sin which I have won
Others to sin? and, made my sin their door?
Wilt Thou forgive that sin which I did shun
A year or two: but wallowed in, a score?
When Thou hast done, Thou hast not done,
For I have more.
I have a sin of fear, that when I have spun
My last thread, I shall perish on the shore;
Swear by Thyself, that at my death Thy Son
Shall shine as He shines now, and heretofore;
And, having done that, Thou hast done,
I fear no more.
Stanley Spencer (1891–1959), Christ Overturning the Money Changers’ Table, 1921. Courtesy of the Stanley Spencer Gallery, Cookham, England.
Tuesday
Cleansing the Temple, by by Malcolm Guite
Come to your Temple here with liberation
And overturn these tables of exchange
Restore in me my lost imagination
Begin in me for good, the pure change.
Come as you came, an infant with your mother,
That innocence may cleanse and claim this ground
Come as you came, a boy who sought his father
With questions asked and certain answers found,
Come as you came this day, a man in anger
Unleash the lash that drives a pathway through
Face down for me the fear the shame the danger
Teach me again to whom my love is due.
Break down in me the barricades of death
And tear the veil in two with your last breath.
From Sounding the Seasons: Seventy Sonnets for the Christian Year (Norwich: Canterbury Press, 2012).
Cleansing the Temple, by by Malcolm Guite
Come to your Temple here with liberation
And overturn these tables of exchange
Restore in me my lost imagination
Begin in me for good, the pure change.
Come as you came, an infant with your mother,
That innocence may cleanse and claim this ground
Come as you came, a boy who sought his father
With questions asked and certain answers found,
Come as you came this day, a man in anger
Unleash the lash that drives a pathway through
Face down for me the fear the shame the danger
Teach me again to whom my love is due.
Break down in me the barricades of death
And tear the veil in two with your last breath.
From Sounding the Seasons: Seventy Sonnets for the Christian Year (Norwich: Canterbury Press, 2012).
Monday
The Coming by R S Thomas
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 a bare
Hill a bare tree saddened
The sky. Many people
Held out their thin arms
To it, as though waiting
For a vanished April
To return to its crossed
Boughs. The son watched
Them. Let me go there, he said.
R S Thomas: Collected Poems 1945-1990 (Phoenix, 2000)
PALM SUNDAY
The Donkey, by G K Chesterton (1874-1936)
When fishes flew and forests walked
And figs grew upon thorn,
Some moment when the moon was blood
Then surely I was born.
With monstrous head and sickening cry
And ears like errant wings,
The devil’s walking parody
On all four-footed things.
The tattered outlaw of the earth,
Of ancient crooked will;
Starve, scourge, deride me: I am dumb,
I keep my secret still.
Fools! For I also had my hour;
One far fierce hour and sweet:
There was a shout about my ears,
And palms before my feet.
The Donkey, by G K Chesterton (1874-1936)
When fishes flew and forests walked
And figs grew upon thorn,
Some moment when the moon was blood
Then surely I was born.
With monstrous head and sickening cry
And ears like errant wings,
The devil’s walking parody
On all four-footed things.
The tattered outlaw of the earth,
Of ancient crooked will;
Starve, scourge, deride me: I am dumb,
I keep my secret still.
Fools! For I also had my hour;
One far fierce hour and sweet:
There was a shout about my ears,
And palms before my feet.