Feria vi in Passione et Morte Domini
Good Friday
Faithful Cross sustain your burden
do not splinter, do not crack,
though the load of all our sorrows
hangs, a deadweight, on your back.
Upright on the hill of sadness
in the gale of evil's power,
hold him strongly, hold him gently
at his covenanted hour.
Matchless, in the forest mounting
shoot and sapling, branch and tree;
felled, dismembered, planed and jointed,
for this day's dark mystery.
Gibbet, infamous, ennobled
by this death and by this birth
hold your cross-grained branches open
harbour for a ship-wrecked earth.
When, the noon-tide darkness ended,
he whom you have borne is dead,
in his mother's arms laid softly,
you are left untenanted;
sharp against the soul's horizon
still uphold us, shining tree,
emblem of the Saviour's passion
standard of his victory.When we hear the glorious gospel
brow and lips and heart we mark.
Radiant cross with your bright signal
talisman against the dark.
speech and love and understanding
to your wisdom we confide;
you a spendthrift God betoken
only hope of Passiontide.
© Kevin Nichols
NEXT›»»»