Written by
Elizabeth Barrett Browning |
The woman singeth at her spinning-wheel
A pleasant chant, ballad or barcarole;
She thinketh of her song, upon the whole,
Far more than of her flax; and yet the reel
Is full, and artfully her fingers feel
With quick adjustment, provident control,
The lines--too subtly twisted to unroll--
Out to a perfect thread.
I hence appeal
To the dear Christian Church--that we may do
Our Father's business in these temples mirk,
Thus swift and steadfast, thus intent and strong;
While thus, apart from toil, our souls pursue
Some high calm spheric tune, and prove our work
The better for the sweetness of our song.
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Written by
Stevie Smith |
The lions who ate the Christians on the sands of the arena
By indulging native appetites played was now been seen a
Not entirely negligible part
In consolidating at the very start
The position of the Early Christian Church.
Initiatory rights are always bloody
In the lions, it appears
From contemporary art, made a study
Of dyeing Coliseum sands a ruddy
Liturgically sacrificial hue
And if the Christians felt a little blue-
Will people being eaten often do.
Theirs was the death, and there's was a crown undying,
A state of things which must be satisfying.
My point which up to this has been obscured
Is that it was the lions who procured
By chewing up blood gristle flesh and bone
The martyrdoms on which the church has grown.
I only write this poem because I thought it rather looked
As if the part the lions played was being overlooked.
By lions' jaws great benefits and blessings were begotten
And so our debt to Lionhood must never be forgotten.
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Written by
Isaac Watts |
The song of Moses and the Lamb.
Rev.
15:3; 16:19; 17:6.
We sing the glories of thy love,
We sound thy dreadful name;
The Christian church unites the songs
Of Moses and the Lamb.
Great God! how wondrous are thy works
Of vengeance and of grace!
Thou King of saints, Almighty Lord,
How just and true thy ways!
Who dares refuse to fear thy name,
Or worship at thy throne?
Thy judgments speak thine holiness
Through all the nations known.
Great Babylon that rules the earth,
Drunk with the martyrs' blood,
Her crimes shall speedily awake
The fury of our God.
The cup of wrath is ready mixed,
And she must drink the dregs:
Strong is the Lord, her sovereign Judge,
And shall fulfil the plagues.
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