Showing posts with label A Song for Simeon. Show all posts
Showing posts with label A Song for Simeon. Show all posts

Sunday, December 9, 2012

SECOND SUNDAY IN ADVENT

 
A Song for Simeon

Lord, the Roman hyacinths are blooming in bowls and 
The winter sun creeps by the snow hills; 
The stubborn season has made stand. 
My life is light, waiting for the death wind, 
Like a feather on the back of my hand. 
Dust in sunlight and memory in corners 
Wait for the wind that chills towards the dead land.

Grant us thy peace. 
I have walked many years in this city, 
Kept faith and fast, provided for the poor, 
Have taken and given honour and ease. 
There went never any rejected from my door. 
Who shall remember my house, where shall live my children’s children 
When the time of sorrow is come? 
They will take to the goat’s path, and the fox’s home, 
Fleeing from the foreign faces and the foreign swords. 

Before the time of cords and scourges and lamentation 
Grant us thy peace. 
Before the stations of the mountain of desolation, 
Before the certain hour of maternal sorrow, 
Now at this birth season of decease, 
Let the Infant, the still unspeaking and unspoken  Word, 
Grant Israel’s consolation 
To one who has eighty years and no to-morrow. 

According to thy word, 
They shall praise Thee and suffer in every generation 
With glory and derision, 
Light upon light, mounting the saints’ stair. 
Not for me the martyrdom, the ecstasy of thought and prayer, 
Not for me the ultimate vision. 
Grant me thy peace. 
(And a sword shall pierce thy heart, 
Thine also). 
I am tired with my own life and the lives of those after me, 
I am dying in my own death and the deaths of those after me. 
Let thy servant depart, 
Having seen thy salvation.
(T S Eliot)
Am I jumping the gun?  Is publishing the poem today Adventicide?  I don't think so, because the meaning of Eliot's words are Adventish in their own way.  Besides, I like the poem.
Collect for the Second Sunday in Advent

Merciful God, who sent your messengers the prophets to preach repentance and prepare the way for our salvation: Give us grace to heed their warnings and forsake our sins, that we may greet with joy the coming of Jesus Christ our Redeemer; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.