Eucharistic
The autumn leaves are falling brown and dusty on the road,
the winter chill is beating like a hammer on the brain,
the sun perhaps forever-lost is hiding, veiled by cloud.
A dull and aching boredom rules, worse than any pain,
and time --
the word is inexact, but we may call it 'time' --
time is bare, oppressive;
it smothers the sublime.
We itch to walk and wander,
inquire, think, and ponder --
we itch but do not scratch,
for where is there to journey
when the sameness never ceases
(brown below and gray above)
and life in bits and pieces
knows not peace nor joy nor love?
The world is drained of every color,
fading is its life and light,
and all without reprieve await
an all-elusive night.
Yet in a little building, quiet and tucked away,
a little light of day
is through the dismal breaking,
only a little ray
but a beam of sunlight pure
like water to the thirsty and to the ill a cure:
a little bread, unobtrusive,
of infinite grace diffusive
a little wine, a drop upon the tongue,
ever ancient, ever young,
but the bread is living bread
and the wine is holy vine
and they who see and taste that supersubstantial sign --
the word is inexact, but call it living sign --
are abundant with renewal that can resurrect the dead.
The autumn leaves are falling brown and dusty on the road,
the winter chill is beating like a hammer on the brain,
yet sublimely, and how finely, like fair face behind a veil,
with enigmatic smile lives the lamb that had been slain.
Fragment
Sing the stars that wander,
nomads of the heavens,
starlike planets spinning
through the darkling sky,
Sol their guiding parent;
out to clouds of comets
wildly they wander.
Mercurial in changing,
running through its courses,
bathing in the sunlight,
Mercury the fleeting
never stays its flowing
'round the burning sun.
Venus with its veiling
covered with the cloudbanks
follows after second,
sister of the Earth;
slowly it is turning,
pale and white its cover,
as 'round the sun it wanders.
Earth the third is splendid,
rich with flowing water,
sapphire of the planets,
fairest of them all;
and dancing with its partner,
the Moon like to a planet,
tide and time its tally,
is waltzing in a dance.
