I have no wit, no words, no tears;
My heart within me like a stone
Is numb’d too much for hopes or fears;
Look right, look left, I dwell alone;
I lift mine eyes, but dimm’d with grief
No everlasting hills I see;
My life is in the falling leaf:
O Jesus, quicken me.
My life is like a faded leaf,
My harvest dwindled to a husk:
Truly my life is void and brief
And tedious in the barren dusk;
My life is like a frozen thing,
No bud nor greenness can I see:
Yet rise it shall–the sap of Spring;
O Jesus, rise in me.
My life is like a broken bowl,
A broken bowl that cannot hold
One drop of water for my soul
Or cordial in the searching cold;
Cast in the fire the perish’d thing;
Melt and remould it, till it be
A royal cup for Him, my King:
O Jesus, drink of me.
Image above (and on front-page mastheads): Fresco of the “white angel” at Mileševa monastery, 2012, photograph by Snežana Trifunović. (This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.)
Words above: “A Better Resurrection” by Christina Rosetti. From Goblin Market, The Prince’s Progress and Other Poems. London: Macmillan 1879.