POEM OF THE DAY

Passionate sentiments, springing from centuries of faith, found a peerless spokesman in John Donne, (1572-1631), Dean of St Paul’s Cathedral. In the companion piece, Donne’s contemporary, the playwright Ben Johnson (1572-1637), deals in a more intimate way with spiritual matters.

AT THE ROUND EARTH’S IMAGINED CORNERS, BLOW At the round earth’s imagined corners, blow

Your trumpets, angels, and arise, arise From death, you numberless infinities Of souls, and to your scattered bodies go; All whom the flood did, and fire shall, o’erthrow,

All whom war, death, age, agues, tyrannies,

Despair, law, chance, hath slain, and you whose eyes

Shall behold God, and never taste death’s woe.

But let them sleep, Lord, and me mourn a space;

For, if above all these, my sins abound ’Tis late to ask abundance of thy grace When we are there. Here on this lowly ground,

Teach me how to repent; for that’s as good As if thou hadst sealed my pardon with thy blood.

A HYMN TO GOD THE FATHER Hear me, O God!

A broken heart,

Is my best part:

Use still thy rod,

That I may prove

Therein thy love.

If thou hadst not been stern to me, But let me free, I had forgot Myself and thee.

For sin’s so sweet, As minds ill bent Rarely repent,

Until they meet Their punishment.

Who more can crave Than thou hast done, That gav’st a Son, To free a slave?

First made of naught, With all since bought.

Sin, Death, and Hell, His glorious Name Quite overcame,

Yet I rebel

And slight the same.

But I’ll come in Before my loss Me further toss, As sure to win Under his Cross.