Category: Poetry

Behold, the Bridegroom Cometh

Sr. Dorcee, beloved1 Comment

This is my absolute favorite Advent poem. (Saving the best until last.) This may not be surprising since I am a consecrated religious, and my life centers on Christ as my Spouse who I long for.

I have also included two songs—very different musically from each other—that also stir my heart. May you know this Christmas the truth of how much the Bridegroom yearns for his bride, you.

Advent Sunday

Behold, the Bridegroom cometh: go ye out
With lighted lamps and garlands round about
To meet Him in a rapture with a shout.

It may be at the midnight, black as pitch,
Earth shall cast up her poor, cast up  her rich.

It may be at the crowing of the cock
Earth shall upheave her depth, uproot her rock.

For lo, the Bridegroom fetcheth home the Bride:
His Hands are Hands she knows, she knows His side.

Like pure Rebekah at the appointed place,
Veiled, she unveils her face to meet His Face.

Like great Queen Esther in her triumphing,
She triumphs in the Presence of her King.

His Eyes are as a Dove’s, and she’s Dove-eyed;
He knows His lovely mirror, sister, Bride.

He speaks with Dove-voice of exceeding love,
And she with love-voice of an answering Dove.

Behold, the Bridegroom cometh: go we out
With lamps ablaze and garlands round about
To meet Him in a rapture with a shout.

~Christina Rossetti

Come Soon

Sr. Dorcee, beloved1 Comment

This first Sunday of Advent, I thought I would share this lovely sonnet by Hazel Littlefield Smith. Hazel was born not too far from where I was raised in Michigan and spent her last years in Ann Arbor. She and her husband were missionaries in China for thirteen years during the “reign of the War Lords”. I love this sentence from her obituary: “Mrs. Smith never lost touch with the Michigan woods she loved so dearly.” I’m not sure where I came upon this poem of hers, but it seems perfect for the beginning of Advent.

Gerrit Dou – Old Woman at a Window with a Candle – GD-103 – Leiden Collection

Come Soon

I set my candle where the shadows loom,
A flame of faith between the eyes of fate,
And I am waiting in the windy gloom;
O come, my Love, for it is growing late.
Small doubts on darkling wings flit here and there
Uncertainly in the grey, lingering light,
Mysterious music haunts the troubled air,
And none but you can comfort me tonight.

I wait upon the moment’s hazard now;
Is there no power can hold the darkness back
Until you come? I do not disavow
Your promised love—the one thing I most lack.
The hour is late, dear Love, come soon, come soon;
Then shall the night be lovelier than noon.

I will remind you

Sr. Dorcee, belovedLeave a comment

As we near the end of the liturgical year and the Sunday readings are more and more about judgment, I find myself remembering little Thérèse’s thoughts about God’s judgment: “What a sweet joy it is to think that God is Just, i.e., that He takes into account our weakness, that He is perfectly aware of our fragile nature. What should I fear then? Ah! must not the infinitely just God, who deigns to pardon the faults of the prodigal son with so much kindness, be just also toward me who “am with Him always?” (Luke 15:31)

We must remember the mercy and love that drove Jesus to come to us then and to still come to us at every moment. Gregory of Narek gives us the example of boldly reminding Christ of his total love for us.

Refuge for my broken spirit lies in your 
living, incorruptible, constant hope,
that looking on me with mercy,
as one condemned to perdition,
when I present myself before our heavenly beneficence,
empty-handed and without gifts,
brining with me the evidence of your untold glory,
I will remind you
who never slumbers in forgetfulness,
who never shuts your eyes,
never ignores the sighs of grief,
That with your cross of light
you may lift away from me, I beg you, the peril that chokes me,
with your comforting care, the vacillating sadness,
with your crown of thorns, the germs of my sin,
with the lashes of the whip, the blows of death,
with the memory of the slap in the face, the neediness of my shame,
with the spitting of your enemies, my contemptible vileness,
with your sip of vinegar, the bitterness of my soul. 

Glimmers a world

Sr. Dorcee, belovedLeave a comment

A poem from Anthony Esolen for our Sunday poem this week. Anthony is one of the finest contemporary poets I have come across. If you haven’t read his The Hundredfold, do so.

O Lord, our Lord how wonderful is Thy name in all the earth!

I love Thy words, O Lord, and always shall:
The fresh sun shining forth in brash delight,
Then blushing gently in his evening fall
Like a youth from a dance; the deeps of night
Swaying the pilgrim spirit to behold
A sea powdered with stars, all life and light
Sprung from the Ancient One who is not old,
Given to man the Child. So from above
Glimmers a world of glory manifold,
And my return is gratitude and love.

Nico Angleys
Nico Angleys
Nico Angleys

God’s Grandeur

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This time of year always brings to mind this poem because, indeed, my part of the world is charged with God’s grandeur.

Nico Angleys

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.

A Year of Jubilee

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It’s Sunday, and since it is indeed a Year of Jubilee, I thought it would be appropriate to share this poem by Anne Porter. My favorite part is her ending.

A Year of Jubilee

You grew up like a sapling
With fishermen and shepherds
And the God-haunted mountains
Of your small holy country.

You looked the same
As all your people
So for a time
You went unnoticed
You who were later killed
Most cruelly

One Sabbath morning
You stood up in the temple
Young village rabbi
From the provinces

And you unrolled the scroll
And read aloud form it
The Word welled up to us
Out of Isaiah’s book
As fresh as the clear streams
That well up in the mountains

“The Spirit of the Lord
Has come upon me
He has anointed me
To bring glad tidings
To the poor
To heal the brokenhearted
To give the blind their sight
To free the captives
Release the prisoners and proclaim
A year of jubilee.”

We recognized the voice
This was the Promised One
This was the Shepherd
Our hearts were burning

We listened when you told us
About our heavenly Father
Who wishes us
To cherish one another
To be forgiving, generous
As he is himself

And festive, carefree
As the meadow-flowers
Lights as the swallows

He wishes us 
To be like children

You also told us
Our Father
Blesses us most of all
When we are poor

As even when our bodies
Have grown old
And our heads are filled with confusion

He will not love us 
Any the less for that.

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