John Oxenham

A Little Te Deum Of The Commonplace.

(A Fragment)

   With hearts responsive
   And enfranchised eyes,
   We thank Thee, Lord,—
   For all things beautiful, and good, and true;
   For things that seemed not good yet turned to good;
   For all the sweet compulsions of Thy will
   That chased, and tried, and wrought us to Thy shape;
   For things unnumbered that we take of right,
   And value first when first they are withheld;
   For light and air; sweet sense of sound and smell;
   For ears to hear the heavenly harmonies;
   For eyes to see the unseen in the seen;
   For vision of The Worker in the work;
   For hearts to apprehend Thee everywhere;
           We thank Thee, Lord!
 
   For all the wonders of this wondrous world;—
   The pure pearl splendours of the coming day,
   The breaking east,—the rosy flush,—the Dawn,—
   For that bright gem in morning’s coronal,
   That one lone star that gleams above the glow;
   For that high glory of the impartial sun,—
   The golden noonings big with promised life;
   The matchless pageant of the evening skies.
   The wide-flung gates,—the gleams of Paradise,—
   Supremest visions of Thine artistry;
   The sweet, soft gloaming, and the friendly stars;
   The vesper stillness, and the creeping shades;
   The moon’s pale majesty; the pulsing dome,
   Wherein we feel Thy great heart throbbing near;
   For sweet laborious days and restful nights;
   For work to do, and strength to do the work;
           We thank Thee, Lord!
 
   For those first tiny, prayerful-folded hands
   That pierce the winter’s crust, and softly bring
   Life out of death, the endless mystery;—
   For all the first sweet flushings of the Spring;
   The greening earth, the tender heavenly blue;
   The rich brown furrows gaping for the seed;
   For all Thy grace in bursting bud and leaf,—
   The bridal sweetness of the orchard trees,
   Rose-tender in their coming fruitfulness;
   The fragrant snow-drifts flung upon the breeze;
   The grace and glory of the fruitless flowers,
   Ambrosial beauty their reward and ours;
   For hedgerows sweet with hawthorn and wildrose;
   For meadows spread with gold and gemmed with stars;
   For every tint of every tiniest flower;
   For every daisy smiling to the sun;
   For every bird that builds in joyous hope;
   For every lamb that frisks beside its dam;
   For every leaf that rustles in the wind;
   For spiring poplar, and for spreading oak;
   For queenly birch, and lofty swaying elm,
   For the great cedar’s benedictory grace;
   For earth’s ten thousand fragrant incenses,—
   Sweet altar-gifts from leaf and fruit and flower;
   For every wondrous thing that greens and grows;
   For wide-spread cornlands,—billowing golden seas;
   For rippling stream, and white-laced waterfall;
   For purpling mountains; lakes like silver shields;
   For white-piled clouds that float against the blue;
   For tender green of far-off upland slopes;
   For fringing forests and far-gleaming spires;
   For those white peaks, serene and grand and still;
   For that deep sea—a shallow to Thy love;
   For round green hills, earth’s full benignant breasts;
   For sun-chased shadows flitting o’er the plain;
   For gleam and gloom; for all life’s counter-change;
   For hope that quickens under darkening skies;
   For all we see; for all that underlies,—
           We thank Thee, Lord!
 
   For that sweet impulse of the coming Spring,
   For ripening Summer, and the harvesting;
   For all the rich Autumnal glories spread,—
   The flaming pageant of the ripening woods;
   The fiery gorse, the heather-purpled hills;
   The rustling leaves that fly before the wind.
   And lie below the hedgerows whispering;
   For meadows silver-white with hoary dew;
   For sheer delight of tasting once again
   That first crisp breath of winter in the air;
   The pictured pane; the new white world without;
   The sparkling hedgerow’s witchery of lace;
   The soft white flakes that fold the sleeping earth;
   The cold without, the cheerier warmth within;
   For red-heart roses in the winter snows;
   For all the flower and fruit of Christmas-tide;
   For all the glowing heart of Christmas-tide;
           We thank Thee, Lord!
 
   For all Thy ministries,—
   For morning mist, and gently-falling dew;
   For summer rains, for winter ice and snow;
   For whispering wind and purifying storm;
   For the reft clouds that show the tender blue;
   For the forked flash and long tumultuous roll;
   For mighty rains that wash the dim earth clean;
   For the sweet promise of the seven-fold bow;
   For the soft sunshine, and the still calm night;
   For dimpled laughter of soft summer seas;
   For latticed splendour of the sea-borne moon;
   For gleaming sands, and granite-frontled cliffs;
   For flying spume, and waves that whip the skies;
   For rushing gale, and for the great glad calm;
   For Might so mighty, and for Love so true,
   With equal mind,
           We thank Thee, Lord!
 
   For maiden sweetness, and for strength of men;
   For love’s pure madness and its high estate;
   For parentage—man’s nearest reach to Thee;
   For kinship, sonship, friendship, brotherhood
   Of men—one Father—one great family;
   For glimpses of the greater in the less;
   For touch of Thee in wife and child and friend;
   For noble self-denying motherhood;
   For saintly maiden lives of rare perfume;
   For little pattering feet and crooning songs;
   For children’s laughter, and sweet wells of truth;
   For sweet child-faces and the sweet wise tongues;
   For childhood’s faith that lifts us near to Thee
   And bows us with our own disparity;
   For childhood’s sweet unconscious beauty sleep;
   For all that childhood teaches us of Thee;
           We thank Thee, Lord!
 
   For doubts that led us to the larger trust;
   For ills to conquer; for the love that fights;
   For that strong faith that vanquished axe and flame
   And gave us Freedom for our heritage;
   For clouds and darkness, and the still, small voice;
   For sorrows bearing fruit of nobler life;
   For those sore strokes that broke us at Thy feet;
   For peace in strife; for gain in seeming loss;
   For every loss that wrought the greater gain;
   For that sweet juice from bitterness out-pressed;
   For all this sweet, strange paradox of life;
           We thank Thee, Lord!
 
   For friends above; for friends still left below;
   For the rare links invisible between;
   For Thine unsearchable greatness; for the vails
   Between us and the things we may not know;
   For those high times when hearts take wing and rise
   And float secure above earth’s mysteries;
   For that wide, open avenue of prayer,
   All radiant with Thy glorious promises;
   For sweet hearts tuned to noblest charity;
   For great hearts toiling in the outer dark;
   For friendly hands stretched out in time of need;
   For every gracious thought and word and deed;
           We thank Thee, Lord!
 
   For songbird answering song on topmost bough;
   For myriad twitterings of the simpler folk;
   For that sweet lark that carols up the sky;
   For that low fluting on the summer night;
   For distant bells that tremble on the wind;
   For great round organ tones that rise and fall,
   Entwined with earthly voices tuned to heaven,
   And bear our hearts above the high-arched roof;
   For Thy great voice that dominates the whole,
   And shakes the heavens, and silences the earth;
   For hearts alive to earth’s sweet minstrelsies;
   For souls attuned to heavenly harmonies;
   For apprehension, and for ears to hear,—
           We thank Thee, Lord!
 
   For that supremest token of Thy Love,—
   Thyself made manifest in human flesh;
   For that pure life beneath the Syrian sky—
   The humble toil, the sweat, the bench, the saw,
   The nails well-driven, and the work well-done;
   For all its vast expansions; for the stress
   Of those three mighty years;
   For all He bore of our humanity;
   His hunger, thirst, His homelessness and want,
   His weariness that longed for well-earned rest;
   For labour’s high ennoblement through Him,
   Who laboured with His hands for daily bread;
   For Lazarus, Mary, Martha, Magdalene,
   For Nazareth and Bethany;—not least
   For that dark hour in lone Gethsemane;
   For that high cross upraised on Calvary;
   The broken seals,—the rolled-back stone—The Way,
   For ever opened through His life in death;
   For that brief glimpse vouchsafed within the vail;
   For all His gracious life; and for His Death,
   With low-bowed heads and hearts impassionate,
           We thank Thee, Lord!
 
   For all life’s beauties, and their beauteous growth;
   For Nature’s laws and Thy rich providence;
   For all Thy perfect processes of life;
   For the minute perfection of Thy work,
   Seen and unseen, in each remotest part;
   For faith, and works, and gentle charity;
   For all that makes for quiet in the world;
   For all that lifts man from his common rut;
   For all that knits the silken bond of peace;
   For all that lifts the fringes of the night,
   And lights the darkened corners of the earth;
   For every broken gate and sundered bar;
   For every wide-flung window of the soul;
   For that Thou bearest all that Thou hast made;
           We thank Thee, Lord!
 
   For perfect childlike confidence in Thee;
   For childlike glimpses of the life to be;
   For trust akin to my child’s trust in me;
   For hearts at rest through confidence in Thee;
   For hearts triumphant in perpetual hope;
   For hope victorious through past hopes fulfilled;
   For mightier hopes born of the things we know;
   For faith born of the things we may not know;
   For hope of powers increased ten thousand fold;
   For that last hope of likeness to Thyself,
   When hope shall end in glorious certainty;
   —With quickened hearts
   That find Thee everywhere,
   We thank Thee, Lord!
Altre opere di John Oxenham...



Alto