St. Philip and the Ethiopian Eunuch

’TWAS silent all and dead
Beside the barren sea,
Where Philip’s steps were led,
Led by a voice from Thee—
He rose and went, nor ask’d Thee why,
Nor stay’d to heave one faithless sigh:

Upon his lonely way
The high-born traveller came,
Reading a mournful lay
Of “One who bore our shame,
Silent Himself, His name untold,
And yet His glories were of old.”

To muse what Heaven might mean
His wandering brow he rais’d,
And met an eye serene
That on him watchful gaz’d.
No hermit e’er so welcome cross’d
A child’s lone path in woodland lost.

Now wonder turns to love;
The scrolls of sacred lore
No darksome mazes prove;
The desert tires no more:
They bathe where holy waters flow,
Then on their way rejoicing go.

They part to meet in heaven;
But of the joy they share,
Absolving and forgiven,
The sweet remembrance bear.
Yes—mark him well, ye cold and proud,
Bewilder’d in a heartless crowd,

Starting and turning pale
At Rumour’s angry din—
No storm can now assail
The charm he wears within,
Rejoicing still, and doing good,
And with the thought of God imbu’d.

No glare of high estate,
No gloom of woe or want,
The radiance can abate
Where Heaven delights to haunt.
Sin only hides the genial ray,
And, round the Cross, makes night of day.

Then weep it from thy heart;
So may’st thou duly learn
The intercessor’s part,
Thy prayers and tears may earn
For fallen souls some healing breath,
Ere they have died th’ Apostate’s death.

--John Keble (1792-1866) Anglican priest, poet, and leader of the Oxford Movement 

Image: Baptism of the Eunuch by St. Philip, Alexandre Denis Abel de Pujol, 1848

Scripture reference: Acts 8:26-40, Easter 5B

Love's Growth

I scarce believe my love to be so pure
As I had thought it was,
Because it doth endure
Vicissitude, and season, as the grass;
Methinks I lied all winter, when I swore
My love was infinite, if spring make’ it more.

But if medicine, love, which cures all sorrow
With more, not only be no quintessence,
But mixed of all stuffs paining soul or sense,
And of the sun his working vigor borrow,
Love’s not so pure, and abstract, as they use
To say, which have no mistress but their muse,
But as all else, being elemented too,
Love sometimes would contemplate, sometimes do.

And yet no greater, but more eminent,
Love by the spring is grown;
As, in the firmament,
Stars by the sun are not enlarged, but shown,
Gentle love deeds, as blossoms on a bough,
From love’s awakened root do bud out now.

If, as water stirred more circles be
Produced by one, love such additions take,
Those, like so many spheres, but one heaven make,
For they are all concentric unto thee;
And though each spring do add to love new heat,
As princes do in time of action get
New taxes, and remit them not in peace,
No winter shall abate the spring’s increase.

--John Donne (1571-1631), one of the premier English metaphysical poets, politician, writer, and Anglican priest

scripture reference: 1 John 3:16-24, Easter 4B

Loveliest of Trees

Loveliest of trees, the cherry now
Is hung with bloom along the bough,
And stands about the woodland ride
Wearing white for Eastertide.

Now, of my threescore years and ten,
Twenty will not come again,
And take from seventy springs a score,
It only leaves me fifty more.

And since to look at things in bloom
Fifty springs are little room,
About the woodlands I will go
To see the cherry hung with snow.

--A. E. Housman (1859-1936), British poet and professor

Dame Judi Dench recites this poem here:

Metamorphosis

Always it happens when we are not there —
The tree leaps up alive in the air,
Small open parasols of Chinese green
Wave on each twig. But who has ever seen
The latch sprung, the bud as it burst?
Spring always manages to get there first.

Lovers of wind, who will have been aware
Of a faint stirring in the empty air,
Look up one day through a dissolving screen
To find no star, but this multiplied green,
Shadow on shadow, singing sweet and clear.
Listen, lovers of wind, the leaves are here!

-- May Sarton (1912-1995), Belgian- American writer, memoirist, and poet