A DISPUTATION BETWEEN CHRIST AND THE HUMAN FORM
(For the Feast of the Nativity)
COMEST Thou peaceably, O Lord? | |
| ‘Yea, I am Peace! | |
| Be not so fearful to afford | |
| Thy Maker room! for I am the Reward | |
| To which all generations of increase | 5 |
| Looking did never cease. | |
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| ‘Down from amid dark wings of storm | |
| I set My Feet | |
| To earth. Will not My earth grow warm | |
| To feel her Maker take the form | 10 |
| He made, when now, Creation’s purpose meet, | |
| Man’s body is to be God’s Mercy-seat?’ | |
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| Lord, I am foul: there is no whole | |
| Fair part in me | |
| Where Thou canst deign to be! | 15 |
| This form is not Thy making, since it stole | |
| Fruit from the bitter Tree. | |
| ‘Yet still thou hast the griefs to give in toll | |
| That I may test the sickness of man’s soul.’ | |
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| O Lord, my work is without worth! | 20 |
| I am afraid, | |
| Lest I should man the blissful Birth. | |
| Quoth Christ, ‘Ere seas had shores, or earth | |
| Foundations laid, | |
| My Cross was made!’ | 25 |
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| ‘Naught canst thou do that was not willed | |
| By Love to be, | |
| To bring the Work to pass through Me. | |
| No knee | |
| Stiffens, or bends before My Sov’reignty, | 30 |
| But from the world’s beginning hath fulfilled | |
| Its choice betwixt the valleyed and the hilled. | |
| For both, at one decree, | |
| My Blood was spilled.’ | |
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| Yet canst Thou use these sin-stained hands? | 35 |
| ‘These hands,’ quoth Christ, | |
| ‘Of them I make My need: | |
| Since they sufficed to forge the bands | |
| Wherein I hunger, they shall sow the seed! | |
| And with bread daily they shall feed | 40 |
| My Flesh till, bought and bound, It stands | |
| A Sacrifice to bleed.’ | |
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| Lord, let this house be swept and garnished first! | |
| For fear lest sin | |
| Do there look in, | 45 |
| Let me shut fast the windows: lest Thou thirst, | |
| Make some pure inner well of waters burst: | |
| For no sweet water can man’s delving win— | |
| Earth is so curst. | |
| Also bar up the door: Thou wilt do well | 50 |
| To dwell, whilst with us, anchorite in Thy cell. | |
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| Christ said ‘Let be: leave wide | |
| All ports to grief! | |
| Here when I knock I will not be denied | |
| The common lot of all that here abide; | 55 |
| Were I so blinded, I were blind in chief: | |
| How should I see to bring the blind relief? | |
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| Wilt Thou so make Thy dwelling? Then I fear | |
| Man, after this, shall dread to enter here: | |
| For all the inner courts will be so bright, | 60 |
| He shall be dazzled with excess of light, | |
| And turn, and flee! | |
| ‘But from his birth I will array him right, | |
| And lay the temple open for his sight, | |
| And say to help him, as I bid him see: | 65 |
| “This is for thee!” ’ | |
