Today’s poem is for one of my most beloved poets: George Herbert, the seventeenth-century Anglican minister who also wrote poems of breathtaking honesty and beauty. Herbert wrote extensively in Latin, but his English poems were only published after his death when his friend Nicholas Ferrar ignored Herbert’s request to have them all destroyed. I couldn’t possibly do Herbert justice with my own words, so I have gone instead for homage. If you have not read Herbert for yourself, read “Prayer (I)”, his masterpiece and the framework for my poor imitation.

Temple Prayers (For George Herbert, Priest and Poet)

Wrestling in submissive, humbled prayer,
The soul contorting in its hopeful rise;
The weight of comfort lighter than the air,
A fall, a leap, a tower to the skies.
The spirit moving in the tug and pull
Of rest and restless groping towards peace,
The six-days’ work contracting, emptied, full;
A Sabbath-voice of calm on tempered seas.
The heart rejoicing in the tears of praise;
The cry that echoes out beyond the walls
Of broken temples in their rise and fall;
The call to make an altar of our days.
Soft freedom found within these vast constraints;
Incense-prayers, the poetry of saints.

St Matthias, the thirteenth apostle, is remembered by the church on Feb 24th. I neglected to write his poem on the day, so here it is, better late than never. For those unfamiliar with his story, you can read about him in Acts 1:15-26, where the remaining eleven apostles (Judas having hanged himself) are given the task of choosing another apostle to replace Judas. They cast lots – a seemingly random act, yet governed by God – “and the lot fell to Matthias; so he was added to the eleven apostles”. Here is his poem.

The Lot (For St Matthias, Apostle and Martyr)

Whenever our own personal gain depends on a neighbour’s loss, do we, at least in will, steadily and practically love him as ourself?
(Christina Rossetti, Time Flies: A Reading Diary)

Succeeding where another failed,
Chosen where one lies condemned,
The lot including him and yet
Excluding, barring others.

Seemingly chosen by chance –
The lots possessing in themselves
No wisdom or discretion, yet
The tools of sovereign will.

And this is how it seems to go
Within His vast economy:
The way one rises as one falls
And lowly ones are crowned.

And humbly, we presume, he takes
The lot that is declared now his,
The sign that nothing is annulled
And grace will go on giving,

For even fields of blood lie in
The boundaries of His will
And some are snatched as though from flames
While others sadly fall.

If we please Him in this present world, we shall receive also the future world, according as He has promised that He will raise us again from the dead, and that if we live worthily of Him, “we shall also reign together with Him”, provided only we believe.
(Polycarp, Letter to the Philippians)

His eighty-six years of faith still burned;
He had no other choice.
This present life was dead to him
If he denied his Life.

He who had not scorned the Cross
Had called him as His own
And so life’s treasures were all dust
And flames had lost their power.

Broken joints and pierced sides
Were honours from the One
Who promised him a crown of life
In the endless life to come.

Eighty-six years he had believed
And known the arms of grace.
They lifted him now from the flames
For he had won his crown.

Today’s poem is written in memory of the first and only archbishop of Australia, William Grant Broughton. His story is a dense and confusing one to read, full of internal debates over the division of church and state. It isn’t one which lends itself immediately or easily to poetry. However, I have chosen to focus on Broughton’s determination to plant a strong, secure church around which Australian society could flourish and grow, and his fear of what might happen if the state had greater authority than the church – not an easy topic to take a firm and confident stance on in today’s society, yet one which got me thinking about what it means for the church to be truly rooted and established in the God who will grow it regardless of government policy. I hope I’ve succeeded in turning this into something poetically meaningful!

Rooted and Established (For William Grant Broughton, First Bishop of Australia)

Arriving on new soil, you saw in this your duty:
That in the ground you’d plant the church,
The roots of orderly, just society,
Grafting the nation to its growing stem.

And when the forces around you fought
To make the State a taller tree,
You fought back, pruning branches which
Threatened what you sought to grow.

Sometimes the sun of this new garden
Made you wilt, and your lame leg
Slowed you down as you paced the ground;
Not all the workers were your friends.

But the tree you tended, you must know,
Had roots far deeper than this soil
And did not need the earth’s supplies
To grow and flourish far and wide.

Had you stopped a moment in the garden
And seen, in increments beyond you,
Its certain growth, its strongest roots,
You would see how deep, how fixed, how wide,

How high its arms, how sure its fruit.
For you – like me, like all of us –
Could have rested in its shade
For it established you.