Faith, Spirituality and Religion

Suppose?


It's mighty nice at shut of day
With weariness to hit the hey,
To close your eyes, tired through and through,
And just forget that "you are you."


It's mighty sweet to wake again
When sunshine floods the window pain;
I love in cosy couch to lie,
And re-discover "I am I."


It would be grand could we conceive
A heaven in which to believe,
And in a better life to be be,
Find out with joy "we still are we."


Though we assume with lapsing breath
Eternal is the sleep of death,
Would it not be divinely odd
To wake and find that - "God is God."

Slugging Saint

'Twas in a pub in Battersea
They call the "Rose and Crown,"
Quite suddenly, it seemed to me,
The Lord was looking down;
The Lord was looking from above,

And shiny was His face,
And I was filled with gush of love
For all the human race.


Anon I saw three ancient men
Who reckoned not of bliss,
And they looked quite astonished when
I gave them each a kiss.
I kissed each on his balding spot
With heart of Heaven grace . . .
And then it seemed there was a lot
Of trouble round the place.

They had me up before the beak,
But though I told my tale,
He sentanced me to spend a week
In Yard of Scotland Gaol.


So when they kindly set me free
Please don't think it amiss,
If Battling Bill of Battersea,
For love of all humanity
Gives you a kiss.

Someone's Mother

Someone's Mother trails the street
Wrapt in rotted rags;
Broken slippers on her feet
Drearily she drags;
Drifting in the bitter night,
Gnawing gutter bread,
With a face of tallow white,
Listless as the dead.


Someone's Mother in the dim
Of the grey church wall
Hears within a Christmas hymn,
One she can recall
From the h so long ago,
When divinely far,
in the holy alter glow
She would kneel in prayer.


Someone's Mother, huddled there,
Had so sweet a dream;
Seemed the sky was Heaven's stair,
Golden and agleam,
Robed in gown Communion bright,
Singingly she trod
Up and up the stair of light,
And thee was waiting - God.


Someone's Mother cowers down
By the old church wall;
Soft above the sleeping town
Snow begins to fall;
Now her rags are lily fair,
but unproud is she:
Someone's Mother is not there . . .
Lo! she climbs the starry stair
Only angels see.

Sinister Sooth

You say I am the slave of Fate
Bound by unalterable laws.
I harken, but your words I hate,
Your damnable Effect and Cause.
If there's no hope for happy Chance
Give me the bliss of ignorance.


You say my life ends with the tomb;
This brain, my mind machine, will rot;
Its many million cells that room
My personality and thought
Will in the Dark Destroyer's term
Provide a banquet for the worm.


You say--yet though your wisdom wells,
To it I am unreconciled;
My mind admits, my heart rebels . . .
O let me listen like a child
To Him who spoke with blessed breath
From bench of toil in Nazareth!

Seven


If on water and sweet bread
Seven years I'll add to life,
For me will no blood be shed,
No lamb know the evil knife;
Excellently will I dine
On a crust and Adam's wine.


If a bed in monkish cell
Well mean old of age to me,
Let me in a convent dwell,
And from fellow men be free;
Let my mellow sunset days
Pass in piety and praise.


For I love each hour I live,
Wishing it were twice as long;
Dawn my gratitude I give,
Laud the Lord with evensong:
Now that moons are sadly few
How I grudge the grave its due!


Yet somehow I seem to know
Seven Springs are left to me;
Seven Mays may cherry tree
Will allume with sudden snow . . .
Then let seven candles shine
Silver peace above my shrine.

Sensibility


I

Once, when a boy, I killed a cat.
I guess it's just because of that
A cat evokes my tenderness,
And takes so kindly my caress.
For with a rich, resonant purr
It sleeks an arch or ardent fur
So vibrantly against my shin;
And as I tickle tilted chin
And rub the roots of velvet ears
Its tail in undulation rears.
Then tremoring with all its might,
In blissful sensuous delight,
It looks aloft with lambent eyes,
Mystic, Egyptianly wise,
And O so eloquently tries
In every fibre to express
Consummate trust and friendliness.


II

I think the longer that we live
The more do we grow sensitive
Of hurt and harm to man and beast,
And learn to suffer at the least
Surmise of other's suffering;
Till pity, lie an eager spring
Wells up, and we are over-fain
To vibrate to the chords of pain.

For look you - after three-score yeas
I see with anguish nigh to tears
That starveling cat so sudden still
I set my terrier to to kill.
Great, golden memories pale away,
But that unto my dying day
Will haunt and haunt me horribly.
Why, even my poor dog felt shame
And shrank away as if to blame
of that poor mangled mother-cat
Would ever lie at his doormat.

III

What's done is done. No power can bring
To living joy a slaughtered thing.
Aye, if of life I gave my own
I could not for my guilt atone.
And though in stress of sea and land
Sweet breath has ended at my hand,
That boyhood killing in my eyes


A thousand must epitomize.
Yet to my twilight steals a thought:
Somehow forgiveness may be bought;
Somewhere I'll live my life again
So finely sensitized to pain,
With heart so rhymed to truth and right
That Truth will be a blaze of light;
All all the evil I have wrought
Will haggardly to home be brought. . . .
Then will I know my hell indeed,
And bleed where I made others bleed,
Till purged by penitence of sin
To Peace (or Heaven) I may win.


Well, anyway, you know the why
We are so pally, cats and I;
So if you have the gift of shame,
O Fellow-sinner, be the same.

Roulette


I'll wait until my money's gone
Before I take the sleeping pills;
Then when they find me in the dawn,
Remote from earthly ails and ills
They'll say: "She's broke, the foreign bitch!"
And dump me in the common ditch.


So thought I, of all hope bereft,
And by my evil fate obsessed;
A thousand franks was all I'd left
Of that fair fortune I possessed.
...I throw it on the table there,
And wait, with on my lips a prayer.


I fear my very life's at stake;
My note is lying on the Red . . .
I know I'll lose it, then I'll take
My pills and sleep until I'm dead . . .
Oh God of mercy, understand!
In pity guide the croupier's hand.


My heart beats hard, my lips are dry;
I feel I cannot bear to look.
I dread to hear the croupier's cry,
I'll sit down in this quiet nook.
The lights go dim, my senses reel . . .
See! Jesus Christ is at the wheel.


* * * * * * *

Kind folks arouse me from my trance.
"The Red has come ten times," they say.
"Oh do not risk another chance;
Please, Lady, take your gains away,
And to the Lord of Luck give thanks You've
won nigh half a million franks."


Aye, call me just a daft old dame;
I knit and sew to make my bread,
And nevermore I'll play that game,
For I've a glory in my head. . . .
Ah well I know, to stay my fall,
'Twas our dear Lord who spun the ball.

Ripeness


With peace and rest
And wisdom sage,
Ripeness is best
Of every age.
With hands that fold
In pensive prayer,
For grave-yard mold

Prepare.

From fighting free
With fear forgot,
Let ripeness be,
Before the rot.
With heart of cheer
At eighty odd,
How man grows near


To God!

With passion spent
And life nigh run
Let us repent
The ill we've done.
And as we bless
With happy heart
Life's mellowness

--Depart.

Rhyme For My Tomb

Here lyeth one
Who loved the sun;
Who lived with zest,
Whose work was done,
Reward, dear Lord,
Thy weary son:
May he be blest
With peace and rest,
Nor wake again,


Amen.

Repentance


"If you repent," the Parson said,"
Your sins will be forgiven.
Aye, even on your dying bed
You're not too late for heaven."


That's just my cup of tea, I thought,
Though for my sins I sorrow;
Since salvation is easy bought
I will repent . . . to-morrow.


To-morrow and to-morrow went,
But though my youth was flying,
I was reluctant to repent,
having no fear of dying.


'Tis plain, I mused, the more I sin,
(To Satan's jubilation)
When I repent the more I'll win
Celestial approbation.


So still I sin, and though I fail
To get snow-whitely shriven,
My timing's good: I home to hail
The last bus up to heaven.

Procreation


It hurts my pride that I should be
The issue of a night of lust;
Yet even Bishops, you'll agree,
Obey the biologic 'must';
Though no doubt with more dignity
Than we of layman dust.

I think the Lord made a mistake
When he designed the human race,
That man and angel in the make
Should have brutality for base.
Jehovah might have planned at least
Not to confound us with the beast.

So with humiliation I
Think of my basic origin;
And yet with some relief I sigh,-I
might have been conceived in sin;
Instead of being, I believe,
The offspring of a nuptial eve.

So when I look in beauty's face,
Or that of king or saint or sage,
It seems to me I darkly trace
Their being to a rutting rage . . .
Had I been Deity's adviser
Meseems I might have planned it wiser.

Pragmatic


When young I was an Atheist,
Yea, pompous as a pigeon
No opportunity I missed
To satirize religion.

I sneered at Scripture, scoffed at Faith,
I blasphemed at believers:
Said I: "There's nothing after Death,-


Your priests are just deceivers."

In middle age I was not so
Contemptuous and caustic.
Thought I: "There's much I do not know:
I'd better be agnostic.
The hope of immortality
'Tis foolish to be flouting."
So in the end I came to be
A doubter of my doubting.

Now I am old, with steps inclined
To hesitate and falter;
I find I get such peace of mind
Just sitting by an altar.
So Friends, don't scorn the family pew,
The preachments of the kirks:
Religion may be false or true,
But by the Lord!--it works.

Perfection


If I could practise what I preach,
Of fellows there would few be finer;
If I were true to what I teach
My life would be a lot diviner.
If I would act the way I speak,
Of halo I might be a winner:
The spirit wills, the flesh is weak,-


I'm just a simple sinner.

Six days I stray,--on number seven
I try to be a little better,
And stake a tiny claim on Heaven
By clinging close to gospel letter.
My pew I occupy on Sunday,
And though I draw the line at snoring,
I must admit I long for Monday,


And find the sermon boring.

Although from godly grace I fall,
For sensed with sin my every act is,
'Twere better not to preach at all,
Then I would have no need to practice.
So Sabbath day I'll sneak away,
And though the Church grieve my defection,
In sunny woodland I will pray:


"God save us from Perfection!"

Pantheist


Lolling on a bank of thyme
Drunk with Spring I made this rhyme. . . .


Though peoples perish in defeat,
And races suffer to survive,
The sunshine never was so sweet,
So vast he joy to be alive;
The laughing leaves, the glowing grass
Proclaim how good it is to be;
The pines are lyric as I pass,
The hills hosannas sing to me.


Pink roses ring yon placid palm,
Soft shines the blossom of the peach;
The sapphire sea is satin calm,
With bell-like tinkle on the beach;
A lizard lazes in the sun,
A bee is bumbling to my hand;
Shy breezes whisper: "You are one
With us because you understand."


Yea, I am one with all I see,
With wind and wave, with pine and palm;
Their very elements in me
Are fused to make me what I am.
Through me their common life-stream flows,
And when I yield this human breath,
In leaf and blossom, bud and rose,
Live on I will . . . There is no Death.


Oh, let me flee from woeful things,
And listen to the linnet's song;
To solitude my spirit clings,
To sunny woodlands I belong.
O foolish men! Yourselves destroy.
But I from pain would win surcease. . . .
O Earth, grant me eternal joy!
O Nature - everlasting peace!


Amen.

Our Daily Bread

"Give me my daily bread.
It seems so odd,
When all is done and said,
This plea to God.
To pray for cake might be
The thing to do;
But bread, it seems to me,
Is just our due.


"Give me my daily toil,"
I ought to say (
If from life's cursed coil
I'd time to pray.)
Give me my daily sweat,
My body sore,
So that bread I may get
To toil for more.


"Give me my daily breath,"
Through half a sob,
Until untimely death
Shall end my job.
A crust for my award,
I cry in dread:


"Grant unto me. Oh Lord,
My daily bread!"

Negress In Notre Dame

When I attended Mass today
A coloured maid sat down by me,
And as I watched her kneel and pray,
Her reverence was good to see.
For whether there may be or no'
A merciful and mighty God,
The love for Him is like a glow
That glorifies the meanest clod.


And then a starched and snotty dame
Who sat the other side of me
Said: "Monsieur, is it not a shame
Such things should be allowed to be?
In my homeland, I'm proud to say,
We know to handle niggers right,
And wouldn't let a black wench pray
And worship God beside a white."


Her tone so tart bewilderd me,
For I am just a simple man.
A friend in every one I see,
Though yellow, brown or black and tan.
For I would father children five
With any comely coloured maid,
And lush with any man alive,
Of any race, of any shade.


Religion may be false or true,
The Churches may be wrong or right,
But if there be the Faith in you
It can be like a shining light.
And though I lack not piety
And pray my best, I'm sure that God
To that black wench and not to me
Would give his most approving nod.


Aye, you may scrub him day and night,
You'll never change a nigger's hide;
But maybe he is just as white,
(Or even more) than you...inside.

My Vineyard

To me at night the stars are vocal.
They say: 'Your planet's oh so local!
A speck of dust in heaven's ceiling;
Your faith divine a foolish feeling.
What odds if you are chaos hurled,
Yours is a silly little world.'


For their derision, haply true,
I hate the stars, as wouldn't you?
But whether earth be great or little,
I do not care a fishwife's spittle;
I do not fret its where or why,-Today's
a day and I am I.


Serene, afar from woe and worry
I tend my vines and do not hurry.
I buss the lass and tip the bottle,
Fill up the glass and rinse my throttle.
Tomorrow though the earth should perish,
The lust of life today I cherish.


Ah no, the stars I will not curse:
Though things are bad they might be worse.
So when vast constellations shine
I drink to them in ruby wine;
For they themselves,--although it odd is,
Somehow give me a sense that God is.


Because we trust and realise
His love he steers us in the skies.
For faith however foolish can
Be mighty helpful to a man:
And as I tend my vines so He
With tenderness looks after me.

My Chapel

In idle dream with pipe in hand
I looked across the Square,

And saw the little chapel stand
In eloquent despair.

A ruin of the War it was,
A dreary, dingy mess:

It worried me a lot because
My hobby's happiness.

The shabby Priest said: 'You are kind.
Time leaves us on the lurch,

And there are very few who mind
Their duty to the Church.

But with this precious sum you give,
I'll make it like a gem;

Poor folks will come, our altar live
To comfort them.'

So now my chapel of despair
Is full of joy and song;

I watch the humble go to prayer
Although I don't belong.

An artist and agnostic I
Possess but little pelf;

But oh what blessings it can buy
Them--and myself!

Mad Maria

Mad Maria in the Square
Sits upon a wicker chair.
When the keeper asks the price
Mad Maria counts her lice.
No pesito can she pay,
So he shrugs and goes away;
Hopes she'll pay him with her prayers,
Shabby keeper of the chairs.


Mad Maria counts her lice,
Cracks them once and cracks them twice,
Combs them from her sunny hair;
People stop to turn and stare.
Innocent in thought and deed
Mad Maria pays no heed,
And the Cross upon her breast
Proves her blessed of the blest.


So she sings her little song,
Happy as the day is long,
hunting in her camisole
Shy partakers of her dole;
thinking: Heaven please forgive -
Even lice have leave to live;
(But sweet Reader, do not blame,
For she kills them just the same.)


Mad Maria goes unchid,
Mildest maid in all Madrid;


While around in serried ranks
Rear the bold facades of Banks;
But when wrath of Heaven smites
Hosts of Mammon's parasites,
Mad Maria will not fall,
Being oh so very small.


Pariahs to God belong,
to be weak is to be strong;
Fools are richer than the wise,
And who see with shining eyes
Angels in the sordid street
Deem their happiness complete. . . .
Mad Maria counts her beads,
Cracks her lice and - Heaven heeds.

Land Mine

A grey gull hovered overhead,
Then wisely flew away.

'In half a jiffy you'll be dead,'
I thought I heard it say;

As there upon the railway line,
Checking an urge to cough,

I laboured to de-fuse the mine
That had not yet gone off.

I tapped around the time-clock rim,
Then something worried me.

I heard the singing of a hymn:
Nearer my God to Thee.

That damned Salvation Army band!
I phoned back to the boys:

'Please tell them,--they will understand,-Cut
out the bloody noise!'

Silence . . . I went to work anew,
And then I heard a tick

That told me the blast was due,-I
never ran so quick.

I heard the fury-roar behind;
The earth erupted hell,

As hoisted high and stunned and blind
Into a ditch I fell.

Then when at last I crawled from cover,
My hands were bloody raw;

And I was blue and bruised all over,
And this is what I saw:

All pale, but panting with elation,
And very much unstuck,

There was the Army of Salvation
Emerging from the muck.

And then I heard the Captain saying:
''Twas Heaven heard our pleas;

For there anight we all were praying
Down on our bended knees.

'Twas little hope your comrades gave you,
Though we had faith divine . . .

The blessed Lord stooped down to save you,
But Gosh! He cut it fine.'

God's Skallywags

The God of Scribes looked down and saw
The bitter band of seven,
Who had outraged his holy law
And lost their hope of Heaven:
Came Villon, petty thief and pimp,
And obscene Baudelaire,
And Byron with his letcher limp,
And Poe with starry stare.


And Wilde who lived his hell on earth,
And Burns, the baudy bard,
And Francis Thompson, from his birth
Malevolently starred. . . .
As like a line of livid ghosts
They started to paradise,
The galaxy of Heaven's hosts
Looked down in soft surmise.


Said God: "You bastards of my love,
You are my chosen sons;
Come, I will set you high above
These merely holy ones.
Your sins you've paid in gall and grief,
So to these radiant skies,
Seducer, drunkard, dopester, thief,
Immortally arise.


I am your Father, fond and just,
And all your folly see;
Your beastiality and lust
I also know in me.
You did the task I gave to you . . .
Arise and sit beside
My Son, the best beloved, who
Was also crucified.

God's Grief

"Lord God of Hosts," the people pray,
"Make strong our arms that we may slay
Our cursed foe and win the day."
"Lord God of Battles," cries the foe,
"Guide us to strike a bloody blow,
And lay the adversary low."


But brooding o'er the battle smother
Bewails the Lord: "Brother to brother,
Why must ye slaughter one another?
When will ye come to understand
My peace, and hand reach out to hand,
In every race, in every land?"


And yet, his weary words despite,
Went murderously on the fight,
Till God from mankind hid His sight,
Saying: "Poor children, must you gain
To brotherhood through millions slain?
--Was anguish on the Cross in vain?"

Fool Faith

Said I: "See yon vast heaven shine,-What
earthly sight diviner?
Before such radiant Design
Why doubt Designer?"

Said he: "Design is just a thought
In human cerebration,
And meaningless if Man is not
Part of creation.

"But grant Design,--we may imply
The job took toil aplenty;
Then why one sole designer, why
Not ten or twenty.

"But should there be one Source supreme
Of matter and of motion,
Why mould it like our man-machine
For daft devotion?"

Said I: "You may be right or wrong,
I'll seek not to discover . . .
I listen to yon starry song,-Still,
still God's lover."

Finale


Here is this vale of sweet abiding,
My ultimate and dulcet home,
That gently dreams above the chiding
of restless and impatient foam;
Beyond the hazards of hell weather,
The harceling of wind and sea,
With timbers morticed tight together
My old hulk havens happily.


The dawn exultantly discloses
My lawn lit with mimosa gold;
The joy of January roses
Is with me when rich lands are cold;
Serene with bells of beauty chiming,
This dream domain to be belongs,
By sweet conspiracy of rhyming,
And virtue of some idle songs.


I thank the gracious Lord of Living
Who gave me power and will to write:
May I be worthy of His giving
And win to merit in His sight. . . .
O merciful and mighty Master,
Though I have faltered in the past,
Your scribe I be. . . . Despite disaster
Let me be faithful to the last.