Two poetic offerings today; the second is more recent, and was written after reading all the way through Augustine's On the Trinity (in Hill's excellent translation) in preparation for my PHL 310 course on Malebranche (the idea of the course being to examine Descartes, Augustine, and Malebranche, and see how Malebranche transmutes Descartes using Augustine). I don't recall the occasion for the first, but I came across it during my yearly Massive and Much Needed Sorting of Papers, which began today (and will continue, it seems, for some time). I liked it, and so decided to pass it on. The last line is an allusion to the old Christian proverb, to sing once is to pray twice (I don't remember the origin of the proverb, but it is usually attributed to Augustine as well).
God has Blessed my Cup of Tea
God has blessed my cup of tea;
It is a thing of wonder.
In the cup amidst the leaves
I hear His holy thunder.
My bed's beneath God's Holy Throne;
His Light is on my walls;
And as I pray my very room
Becomes a new St. Paul's.
The wind bites deep into my bones,
The fires fade and dim,
But every singe flick of frost
Bears up the weight of Him.
I stand beneath the winter tree
And love God's snow and ice,
And lift a hymn to pray for me;
each psalm is prayer twice.
Augustine's Hymn
O pure and holy God of Love,
The angels sing before your Throne,
By sharing all, each will each own;
The Voice, the Lamb, the burning Dove
Are each in all and one alone.
Anthems in my head will ring,
The sky is never blue but gold,
And as the earth, so new, is old,
So is the song the mornings sing
On days of light in breezes cold.
The wooing of my soul is here,
Astride this point as we ascend
With those who count the God a friend,
Enflamed with love and holy fear
By First and Last and Without End.
The Three are One, the One are Three,
Where each is all and all are each,
And when God gives as we beseech
He gives this truth, an endless sea
Beyond the mind's most brilliant reach.
You drown us with Your holy grace,
As dust must drown within the sun,
You drown us ere we have begun
By casting light from off Your Face:
The Three It is, where Three are One.
