The Soul in Paraphrase—A Treasury of Classic Devotional Poems

BOOK SPOTLIGHT

Leland Ryken

Reprinted with permission of the author. In this phase of responsible reopening, Crossway has provided this link for you to order Leland Ryken’s book at a discount.

O Gracious Shepherd

Henry Constable (1562-1613)

O gracious Shepherd, for thy simple flock

By guileful goats to ravening wolves misled,

Who thine own dear heart’s precious blood didst shed,

And lamb-like offered to the butcher’s block:

O gracious Shepherd, unremoving rock

Of succor to all such as thither fled,

Respect one of thy flock which followed

These curséd goats, and doth repentant knock,

To be with mercy taken to thy fold, I know thy grace doth still for wanderers look;

I was a lost sheep once; dear Lord, behold,

And in compassion take me with thy hook.

In one lost sheep new found, thou dost rejoice;

then know they sheep, which know his Shepherd’s voice.

Note on selected words

Guileful: deceitful. Succor: help; assistance; aid. Hook: the shepherd’s crook, used for rescuing the sheep.

Commentary

It is commonplace that most poems are structured on the principle of theme (a central motif) and variation, but rarely is that principle pursued so singlemindedly as in this poem. The sheep-shepherd metaphor for God and his followers is so recurrent in the Bible that is ranks as a major biblical archetype (recurrent master image). Our first impression of this poem is that the poet perused the shepherd references in the Bible and saw how many he could pack into his fourteen-line sonnet. This poem resembles the answers to a Bible memorization quiz.

When we look closely at the poem’s organization, however, we can see that while it is certainly true that the poet put as many Bible passages as possible dealing with God as shepherd into the poem, he did not abandon the poet’s obligation to present a coherent and progressive line of thought. The overall unifying element in the poem is the genre of the prayer, as the speaker addresses God from start to finish. We can say that the poem possesses the logic of prayer. The first six lines are an extended address to God, and we should note that the poet uses the epithet (exalted title) O Gracious Shepherd twice. This unit is a preliminary meditation on the biblical metaphor of God as a shepherd.

The remainder of the poem is a combination of petitions addressed to God and hints of the speaker’s spiritual journey away from God and back to him. The poet makes three petitions, as signaled by the imperative voice of the verbs: respect, take, and know. Together these petitions are a prayer for salvation. The intermingled personal narrative is the story of a wayward sheep rescued by the Good Shepherd.

There are too many biblical references in the poem to the pastoral metaphor of God as shepherd to provide an exhaustive list here, but the following at least should be consulted by anyone wishing to master the poem: Psalm 23; Ezekiel 34; Matthew 25:31-33; Luke 15:3-7; and John 10:1-18.

About the Author | Leland Ryken

College Church member Leland has served as an elder and an elementary Bible school teacher in Kids’ Harbor. He also has served as professor of English at Wheaton College for nearly 50 years.