Master of Vyšší Brod (1305)
Spiritual Sunday
Reader William McKeachie alerted me to this Advent poem Madeleine L’Engle which, like the one I posted last Sunday, remains as relevant as it was 45 years ago. It contains an allusion to Yeats’s “Second Coming,” and I particularly like the pun in the final line. The Christmas promise is a reminder that we have always had access to ultimate stability.
Into the Darkest Hour
By Madeleine L’Engle
It was a time like this,
War & tumult of war,
a horror in the air.
Hungry yawned the abyss —
and yet there came the star
and the child most wonderfully there.
It was time like this
of fear & lust for power,
license & greed and blight —
and yet the Prince of bliss
came into the darkest hour
in quiet & silent light.
And in a time like this
how celebrate his birth
when all things fall apart?
Ah! wonderful it is
with no room on the earth
the stable is our heart