I Know what Beauty is
I know what beauty is, for thou Hast set the world within my heart; Of me thou madest it a part; I never loved it more than now. I know the Sabbath afternoons; The light asleep upon the graves: Against the sky the poplar waves; The river murmurs organ tunes. I know the spring with…
The Riddle of Love
There is but one thingWhich is both work and wage,Both wound and healing,Both journey and inn,Both motive and method,Both master and servant,Both giving and receiving,Both law and freedom,Both antiquity and novelty,Both tradition and revolution,Both mystery and familiarity,Both innocence and knowledge,Both germ and consummation,Both child and ancient,Both origin and aim.~ GK Chesterton, mid 1890’s
Joseph
If the stars fell; night's nameless dreamsOf bliss and blasphemy came true,If skies were green and snow were gold,And you loved me as I love you;O long light hands and curled brown hair,And eyes where sits a naked soul;Dare I even then draw near and burnMy fingers in the aureole?Yes, in the one wise foolish…
The Inn at the End of the World
There is heard a hymn when the panes are dim,And never before or again,When the nights are strong with a darkness long,And the dark is alive with rain.Never we know but in sleet and in snow,The place where the great fires are,That the midst of the earth is a raging mirthAnd the heart of the…
The Victory that Overcomes the World
To trust in spite of the look of being forgotten; to keep crying out into the vast whence comes no voice, and where seems no hearing; to struggle after light, where is no glimmer to guide in the direction of it; at every turn to find a doorless wall, yet ever seek a door; to…
The Good Riddle
“For who shall guess the good riddle Or speak of the Holiest, Save in faint figures and failing words, Who loves, yet laughs among the swords, Labours, and is at rest?” — GK Chesterton, The Ballad of the White Horse
The Search
Whither, O, whither art thou fled,My Lord, my Love?My searches are my daily bread;Yet never prove.My knees pierce th’earth, mine eies the skie;And yet the sphereAnd centre both to me denieThat thou art there.Yet can I mark how herbs belowGrow green and gay,As if to meet thee they did know,While I decay.Yet can I mark…
The Presence
I was praying today, and that feeling came again. – That feeling of vastness and great space. I sometimes wonder if it is somehow a feeling of that presence – of being in the presence of something infinite. I cannot stay in that space very long without finding myself out of it. Somehow I feel…
Golden in Thy Sunlight
“Lord, come to me,’ he cried in his heart, ‘for I cannot go to thee. If I were to go up and up through that awful space for ages and ages, I should never find thee. Yet there thou art. The tenderness of thy infinitude looks upon me from those heavens. Thou art in them…
Oh, Spirit
Oh Spirit — how may I enter God’s presence? How find a door that lets me in,When my heart feels tinged with the shadow of darknessAnd this flesh — burdened from the first with sin?Let there be some healing ointment —Some sweet smelling herb be found,To take away these blemished spotsThat the heart of me…
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