Poetry: What Her Heart Remembered

What Her Heart Remembered (Mary, A Witness)

By Michael Card:  From the album The Promise:  A Celebration of Christ's Birth

Out in the stable yard

She sees a glow

Could it be angel light?

How would she know?

Shepherds stand wondering

Afraid to come in

But the baby that's born tonight

Will free them all

To never fear again

As He lies in a cattle trough

She kneels by His side

Sweet baby breathing

Soft infant sighs

Soft sounds of swallowing

As soft fingers part

Marvelous memories

She pondered then and hid them in her heart

Like a good

Mother would

She learned His cries

If He'd awake

With a bellyache

From hunger or fright

But now and then

Sometimes when

The dark would descend

He would weep

A dark so deep

For all her love

She couldn't comprehend

Her warm loving carpenter

His strong gentle hands

His dark and bewildered eyes

Can they understand?

That this Baby she's given him

Is theirs for a time

In truth came to give Himself

The Treasure and the

Ransom of mankind

Classic Poetry: Jehovah-Rophi by William Cowper

Jehovah-Rophi. I Am the Lord That Healeth Thee
Exodus 25:26 

Heal us, Emmanuel! here we are,
Waiting to feel Thy touch:
Deep-wounded souls to Thee repair
And, Saviour, we are such.

Our faith is feeble, we confess,
We faintly trust Thy word;
But wilt Thou pity us the less?
 Be that far from Thee, Lord!

Remember him who once applied,
With trembling, for relief;
"Lord, I believe," with tears he cried,
 "Oh, help my unbelief!"

She too, who touch'd Thee in the press,
 And healing virtue stole,
Was answer'd, "Daughter, go in peace,
Thy faith hath made thee whole."

Conceal'd amid the gathering throng,
She would have shunn'd Thy view;
And if her faith was firm and strong,
Had strong misgivings too.

Like her, with hopes and fears we come,
To touch Thee, if we may;
Oh! send us not despairing home,
Send none unheal'd away!

Classic Poetry: Lost and Found

Lost and Found
I missed him when the sun began to bend;
I found him out when I had lost his rim;
With many tears I went in search of him,
Climbing high mountains which did still ascend,
And gave me echoes when I called my friend;
Through cities vast and charnel-houses grim,
And high cathedrals where the light was dim,
Through books and arts and works without and end,
But found him not – the friend whom I had lost.
And yet I found him – as I found the lark,
A sound in fields I heard but could not mark;
I found him nearest when I missed him most;
I found him in my heart, a life in frost,
A light I knew not till my soul was dark.

George McDonald

Classic Poetry: I Asked the Lord

I Asked The Lord

1. I asked the Lord that I might grow
In faith and love and every grace
Might more of His salvation know
And seek more earnestly His face

2. Twas He who taught me thus to pray
And He I trust has answered prayer
But it has been in such a way
As almost drove me to despair

3. I hoped that in some favored hour
At once He'd answer my request
And by His love's constraining power
Subdue my sins and give me rest

4. Instead of this He made me feel
The hidden evils of my heart
And let the angry powers of Hell
Assault my soul in every part

5. Yea more with His own hand He seemed
Intent to aggravate my woe
Crossed all the fair designs I schemed,
Cast out my feelings, laid me low

6. Lord why is this, I trembling cried
Wilt Thou pursue thy worm to death?
"Tis in this way" The Lord replied
"I answer prayer for grace and faith"

7. "These inward trials I employ
From self and pride to set thee free
And break thy schemes of earthly joy
That thou mayest seek thy all in me,
That thou mayest seek thy all in me."

John Newton

Classic Poetry: Second Lazarus

O come, dear Lord, unbind:  like Lazarus, I
Lie wrapped in stifling grave clothes of self-will.
Come give me life that I to death may die.
I stink:  the grave of sin is worm-filled still
Despite our turning from its rottenness,
Unwilling to admit that we are bound,
Too proud to mention our begottenness.
Come, open sin’s sarcophagus.  I’m wound
In selfishness, self-satisfaction, pride,
Fear of change, demands of love, greed,
Self-hate, sweet sins that come in fair disguise.
Help me accept this death and open wide
The tight-closed tomb.  If pain comes as we’re freed,
Your daylight must have first hurt Lazarus’s eyes.

Madeline L'Engle

Classic Poetry: Patience, Hard Thing! The Hard Thing But To Pray

Patience, hard thing! the hard thing but to pray,
But bid for, Patience is! Patience who asks
Wants war, wants wounds; weary his times, his tasks;
To do without, take tosses, and obey.
Rare patience roots in these, and, these away,
Nowhere. Natural heart's ivy, Patience masks
Our ruins of wrecked past purpose. There she basks
Purple eyes and seas of liquid leaves all day.

We hear our hearts grate on themselves: it kills
To bruise them dearer. Yet the rebellious wills
Of us we do bid God bend to him even so.
And where is he who more and more distils
Delicious kindness?—He is patient. Patience fills
His crisp combs, and that comes those ways we know.

Gerard Manley Hopkins

Classic Poetry: I Cannot Dance

I Cannot Dance
I cannot dance, Lord, unless you lead me.
If you want me to leap with abandon,
You must intone the song.
Then I shall leap into love,
From love into knowledge,
From knowledge into enjoyment,
And from enjoyment beyond all human sensations.
There I want to remain, yet want also to circle higher still

Mechthild of Magdeburg

Classic Poetry: God's Grandeur

THE WORLD is charged with the grandeur of God.
  It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;
  It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil
Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod?
Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;      
  And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;
  And wears man’s smudge and shares man’s smell: the soil
Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.

And for all this, nature is never spent;
  There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;      
And though the last lights off the black West went
  Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs—
Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
  World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.

Gerard Manley Hopkins,  Poems, 1918

Classic Poetry: Though Art Indeed Just, Lord

Gerard Manley Hopkins poetry is often complex, challenging, and delightful at the same time.  This week in my reading I became acquainted with this honest prayer, published in 1918.


Thou Art Indeed Just, Lord
Thou art indeed just, Lord, if I contend
With thee; but, sir, so what I plead is just.
Why do sinners’ ways prosper? and why must
Disappointment all I endeavour end?

  Wert thou my enemy, O thou my friend,      
How wouldst thou worse, I wonder, than thou dost
Defeat, thwart me? Oh, the sots and thralls of lust
Do in spare hours more thrive than I that spend,
Sir, life upon thy cause. See, banks and brakes
Now leavèd how thick! lacèd they are again      
With fretty chervil, look, and fresh wind shakes
Them; birds build—but not I build; no, but strain,
Time’s eunuch, and not breed one work that wakes.
Mine, O thou lord of life, send my roots rain.