A CROWN OF SONNETS X

And now He gives me the Nilgiri Hills,
The Krishna river, the Deccan plateau,
Horse-traps and camel carts; the gorgeous show
Of sarees; of the field where someone tills
With oxen; Mumbai's heat's and Ooty's chills;
Street cattle; flower-abundant trees that grow
From drought; an ornamental lake aglow;
The tastes and senses India distils;

Good company: the joy more than the rest:
Good company, who in a heathen land
Are touched by Jesus Christ and understand
He died for them; thus brought into accord
They, having Christ as their first interest,
Extol in various languages the Lord.

A CROWN OF SONNETS IX

Seeing God's power and wisdom in display.
In His creation I am moved to praise;
Dawn wakens every day with His sun's rays;
His flowers and herbs and bushes hedge my way;
His creatures low or chirp or roar or bray,
While birds express themselves in sweeter lays
All to His glory: night to night conveys
The chorus of the songs of day to day.

And best I love the hills where I can walk
And talk with friends, and God; where lonely pines
Sentry the sgurrs and stucs, and light defines
Countours of grandeur, while the spirit thrills
To vistas which my eye and lenses stalk;
And now He gives me the Nilgiri Hills!

A CROWN OF SONNETS VIII

We thank Him for the children given us
Regarding them as children lent to Him,
Aware that they were neither cherubim
Nor petty playthings over which to fuss.
Neither sublime nor quite ridiculous
A father's love observed each faltering limb
Or tongue direct and strengthen to be trim,
Articulate, keen and adventurous.

I love my children for whom I have prayed
And gladly see the answer to my prayers
In that they are the Lord's and He is theirs.
While a next generation makes me pray,
And play, within the ambience God has made
Seeing God's power and wisdom in display.

A CROWN OF SONNETS VII

There she still shines as a resplendent bride

After near forty years of married life!

Rosemary: I am told to love my wife

As Christ loved the assembly.  Oh how wide

And long and deep and high, and to abide,

The love of Christ that won through grief and strife;

Yet as the blade and handle form one knife

We too are one, though grace He will provide.

I love my Rose in her variety:
The Pilgrim, Delicate Beauty, Superstar
Peace, Grace or Dove - she outshines them by far:
Lets sum her up as Blooming Marvellous!
Blessed by the Father in our amity
We thank Him for the children given us.

A CROWN OF SONNETS VI

They are united in the Spirit's power

As the assembly, answering Christ's heart;

I love the assembly as it stands apart

To be for Him, a confident white flower;

To be for Him, resplendent in the shower

Of blessings that surround her; heaven's art

Has formed and strengthened: hades' gates can't start

To make Christ's grand assembly quake or cower!

Christ's love for the assembly is so great

He gave Himself for her: and who can speak

Of such great love for what He came to seek?

Conformed to Him as one built from His side,

John saw her in the aeon we await:

There she still shines as a resplendent bride.

A CROWN OF SONNETS V

He will secure His purpose in His saints

And so I love them as the ones He chose

Before the worlds began, but now as those

Whom Jesus' blood has cleansed from all sin's taints.

Yet we remain where sin and sin's complaints

Affect us, and a sultry wind still blows;

I love the saints because my spirit knows

That they will bring it succour when it faints.

These are the sons of God and they are led

In worship by the Spirit.  These are men

The Father gave to Jesus and who yen

To please Him, while among their plenteous dower

Of graces it can thankfully be said

They are united in the Spirit's power.

A CROWN OF SONNETS IV

The Holy Spirit brings the truth to me

And brings me to the truth.  And so I love

The truth that comes as wisdom from above

In purity.  And searching it I see

It's noble, while it hold my only plea

For justness.  He who came down as a dove

On Christ displays, despite man's cut and shove,

It's potency to set God's people free.

We love the Holy Scriptures for we find

The truth in revelation, and God's thought

To have before Him those in whom He's wrought;

We loved the blessed doctrine which acquaints

Our hearts with Christ, the truth; while God designed

He will secure His purpose in His saints.

A CROWN OF SONNETS III

The Father sent the Spirit as my Guide

And Comforter, and One who intercedes,

Because He knows my feelings and my needs.

I love the Spirit since He will abide

With us for ever and will now provide

Strength to enjoy the truths towards which He leads.

I love Him since He graciously accedes

To saying, "Come" to Jesus with the Bride.

I love the Spirit, whose activity

In fact or sign - He strives, sweeps, carries, blows,

Hovers, refreshes, intercedes, falls, flows -

Enables Christianity to be

Living: while in His grace and majesty

The Holy Spirit brings the truth to me.

A CROWN OF SONNETS II

Because the Son has made the Father known

I love the Father; while that Name of grace

Draws out my love so also does the place

That He has given Christ upon His throne.

I love the Father who could not condone

- So in the Son has acted to efface -

My sins.  I love the Father as I trace

His purposes, through which I am His own.

The attributes He chooses to evince

Or all the counsel to attain His ends

No human intuition apprehends.

I feel I need another at my side

As helper: so I love the Father since

The Father sent the Spirit as my Guide.

A CROWN OF SONNETS I

I love the Saviour since He died for me

To save me from my sins and their dire end;

And I love Jesus since He is my Friend,

Whom I am waiting longingly to see;

I love the One who has the right to be

Both Lord and Christ; the One who could ascend,

Having annulled what I was to offend

A holy God, to bless and set me free.

I love the Lord for all that He has done

To accomplish all the purposes of God;

And for His moral glories as He trod

On earth, while now in heaven His glory's shown

For faith to wonder at; I love the Son

Because the Son has made the Father known.

This is the first of fourteen linked sonnets.

HE

       (Mark 6: 37)
He does all things well:
Un-does Satan's's might,
Leads us all to light,
Making dark things bright;
He does all things well.

       (Acts 10: 36)
He is Lord of all
As  is understood,
Since the Lord is good
In  His  gift  of food:
He  is  Lord  of  all.


       (1 John 4: 19)
He has first loved us
And has shown His grace:
In the first-born's place
See His well-loved face;
He has first loved us.

UP TO MOUNT OLIVET MY SOUL ASCEND

Up to Mount Olivet my soul ascend

The mount spiritual, and there supply

Thy fainting lamp with oil of charity

To make the light of faith the more extend.

Go by this tract which thither right doth tend,

Which Christ did first beat forth to walk thereby,

And sixteen ages of posterity

Have gone it over since from end to end.

But strike not down to any new-found balk,

Which hunters have begun of late to chalk:

For whether 'twere the glow-worm faith went out,

Or want of love did pine them in the way,

Or else the cruel devils rob or slay,

No news comes back of one of all that rout. 

 

William Alabaster (1568-1640)

From LATER LIFE

To love and to remember; that is good:
To love and to forget; that is not well:
To lapse from love to hatred; that is hell
And death and torment, rightly understood.
Soul dazed by love and sorrow, cheer thy mood;
More blest art thou than mortal tongue can tell:
Ring not thy funeral but thy marriage bell,
And salt with hope thy life's insipid food.
Love is the goal, love is the way we wend,
Love is our parallel unending line
Whose only perfect Parallel is Christ,
Beginning not begun, End without end:
For He Who hath the heart of God sufficed,
Can satisfy all hearts,--yea, thine and mine.

Christina Rossetti (1830–1894)

JORDAN (II)

When first my lines of heav’nly joyes made mention,
Such was their lustre, they did so excell,
That I sought out quaint words and trim invention;
My thoughts began to burnish, sprout, and swell,
Curling with metaphors a plain intention,
Decking the sense, as if it were to sell.

Thousands of notions in my brain did runne,
Off’ring their service, if I were not sped:
I often blotted what I had begunne;
This was not quick enough, and that was dead.
Nothing could seem too rich to clothe the sunne,
Much lesse those joyes which trample on his head.

As flames do work and winde, when they ascend,
So did I weave my self into the sense.
But while I bustled, I might heare a friend
Whisper, How wide is all this long pretence!
There is in love a sweetnesse readie penn’d;
Copie out onely that, and save expense.

George Herbert (3 April 1593 – 1 March 1633) 

HIS PLACE

He took me from the mountains

Where I was wont to roam

And laid me on His shoulders

To bear me kindly home:

I had been lost and straying

And He had heard my plea;

He tenderly assured me

"This is My place for thee."

He led me to green pastures

Where I could safely feed:

He brought me by still waters

To answer all my need.

"My Lord, I am not worthy

Of all Thou givest me."

He tenderly assured me

"This is My place for thee."

He led me through dark valleys

Where all seemed dank and dim;

Where shadows pressed upon me

Although I was with Him;

Though fears arose within me

And made me long to flee

He tenderly assured me

"This is My place for thee."

So as my path goes onward

Through pleasure or through test

I trust my caring Shepherd

Because His way is best.

And when my way is ended

With Him I will be free;

He'll tenderly assure me

"This is My place for thee."

ARISTARCHUS

Paul’s fellow-traveller, he would have seen

Paul’s teaching, conduct, purpose, faith and light;

Among the fresh assemblies would have been

A sharer of Paul’s fatherly delight,

While as his fellow-worker he would share

His love, endurance and long-suffering:

Striving to conquer moments of despair

And finding Christ his help in everything.

But as Paul’s fellow-captive he endured

What Paul endured - the bondage and the storm -

Till by the grace of God he was secured

In safety - where Paul’s service made him warm.

Lord Jesus, help me till I hear Thy call

To move, and work - and be in bonds - with Paul.

MEMORIES

Do you remember particular trees?

At Marchmont, where I was born, the garden

Had one sycamore sapling: perhaps my age,

But useless to a small boy. Sciennes

Was an Eden, apple, cherry, chestnut,

And the pear whose branches sauntered and rambled;

I have not plundered or climbed a taller

Tree. Once an exotic green of budgie

Evaded my fingertips. The main memory

From Valleyfield was the birch which William

Clawed down in my photo. Mayshade had

A neat conifer growing too rapidly

From inches to feet. The elm at Straiton

Stricken, cost two days work and two

Days burning to a Polish escapee from

Martial law. Here a slight lime-tree

Sprouts, and glues, and drops seeds, and fades

To a premature mite-induced autumn. These

Are my tree-memories - and what are yours?

These are the places I have had as home; Sciennes is pronounced "sheens"; William was the cat where I lodged a while in London.

PEACE

God has made peace by the blood of Christ's cross;
By Him now all things have been reconciled.
Out of His anguish, His horror and loss
Peace comes in triumph where sin had defiled.

He is our peace who has broken the wall
Forging diversity into one man;
Coming in love He has preached peace to all:
Formed through this Source we are built to one plan.

He gives His peace ‑ what a wonderful gift ‑
More than the best that this world can provide!
How could we fear with such power to uplift
Hearts to the place where His comforts preside?

As Prince of Peace He will quickly return
Down to this earth to set everything right:
Lord! wake our hearts with desire ‑ let them burn
Till Thou shalt come and secure Thy delight.

BELIEVER ...

Believer, Jesus knows
Your sins! Because on the cross
He bore every one.

EDDY AND KITTY

Oh you should have seen Eddy and Kitty dance

With an elegant turn and a sally

With a twirl and a whirl you could see them prance

At the Ritz, the Rotunda or Palais.

But the Saviour has touched them with love and grace,

By His word He has drawn them apart;

He has given a home in a better place

And has given a dance in their heart.

Do you think they have danced not to dance again

Long ago in nineteen forty-seven?

Do you not all await that occasion when

They will dance with the ransomed in heaven?

Local brethren both now asleep through Jesus.

THE WOOD OFFERING

Help me, Lord Jesus, to provide

The wood offering - to maintain

What is for thy service, without

Pretension, to dependably

Supply unmemorable and

Unsung effort. As others have

Laboured, their names now known only

To God, make me expendable,

Reduced to ash. As Urijah

Would not act for his own comfort

If the Ark and God’s people were

In the fields, even if it meant

His death. As Naboth of Jizreel

Would not abandon his father’s land

Whatever the cost - even if

It meant his death. As Christ’s bondman

Paul spent and was spent, night and day,

That God’s service should continue,

That God’s testimony remain,

Even to the point of his death.

BRING WOOD

Go up to the mountain and bring wood

That the house of God may be built;

Long since should your sloth have been eschewed,

With your selfishness and your guilt.

Go bearing your axe to hew down trees

That the house’s beams may be strong.

Your vigour will not regret your ease

As you quit the place of your wrong.

How long will you sow but will not reap,

Have your gains in bags full of holes?

The house of your God lies waste, a heap -

Rise, for benefit of your souls.

Go, find there is wood to bear each weight,

There is wood whose scent is refined,

And wood to be carved to decorate

Till God’s house accords to His mind.

How soon will your blessing have accrued!

God will give your singing a lilt:

Go up to the mountain and bring wood

That the house of God may be built.

ACACIA WOOD

To make the Ark  required acacia wood:

A supple wood,  well able to endure

And thus to bear   the testimony through.

The copper altar  required acacia too

To bear the fire  and all the heat produced

That God’s delight  should daily be ensured.

But this wood also,  standing as it was hewn,

Formed boards by which   the tabernacle stood

Since only this  in all its strength conduced

To form the tent  which God Himself would choose.

One kind of Man  could be before God’s heart:

Suited to God  within His inner Man.

Only the Christ  could be the perfect Ark,

One kind of Man  in sufferings and charm

Clears the approach  by which we may advance

To God’s abode  where we may boldly stand.

One kind of manhood  alone is consonant

With Christ Himself  and God can rest in that.

Men after Christ  now have their heavenly part

Which will remain  when death and sin are past.

PRAYER

Lord Jesus, Saviour, serve us

Mid sins that might infect us,

From which we might receive ill;

And make us really free;

Preserve us;

Protect us;

Keep us from evil;

Help us to walk with Thee.