ENGLISH titular genius. There is perhaps nothing more audacious than endeavouring to overcome our postlapsarian Total Depravity in union with Christ to achieve ultimate salvation.
Wholly present and affectionate Since kindling his tendered hearth Whether Winter’s roar or Summer’s murmur, The vessel staunched to pacify our fervour, Mystic of the cloisters as the garth, He is the transubstantiate. Yet affectionate, and yet to be, Lo, streamers of his ecstasy, Which flash and flicker ‘cross the thund’ring sky, And we but blithely glimpse, preoccupied By furies, frets and fusses ‘neath These ardours of our devotee. He is love which modulates to culminate his cadence, Hark chromatic consonance in perpetuity: Oh petrifying instrument, oh mystic rhapsody! We’ve imbibed the ichor of his agonising grievance, And too have swilled the
Deesis translated by Harry Hennessy pungent smack of our own bitter brine: Oh, a toast, then, to depravity, our Lust for the divine! His eyes fixed on our salvation, as we crowd him but to preen, His love for us, in any case, increases exponentially….. This winter night, from cape to cape, From Polheim squalls to banquet halls, From the serried throng to the shore’s escape, With each gaze held fast in each other’s thrall, Let all passions and all tenderness turn stupefied And behold Him, now hail Him, track his redemptive rise! From ‘neath the fecund ocean tides To the barren snowcapped heights, Heed his Judgement, his Spirit, his Flesh and his Gore! Let us follow him through to the day of the Lord. 9
