... from our incoherence we
May learn to put our trust in Thee
And brutal fact persuade us to
Adventure Art and Peace.
Since I haven't yet reached Christmas (the Feast will be this Monday), I am still reading, on the advice of the Ochlophobist, Auden's wondrous For the Time Being. Why is this out of print? Is it too literalistic for the postconservative mood? Is it too poetic for the pragmatic marketplace?
The above iambic trimeter -- in particular, "Adventure Art and Peace" -- is another of my New Year's resolutions. I may post more, from today's civil New Year until the Julian procession a week from now.
Here is the context from "The Summons," in W. H. Auden's For the Time Being:
V. CHORALE
Our Father whose creative Will
Asked Being for us all
Confirm it that Thy Primal Love
May weave in us the freedom of
The actually deficient on
The justly actual.
Though written by Thy children with
A smudged and crooked line
The Word is ever legible
Thy Meaning unequivocal
And for Thy Goodness even sin
Is valid as a sign.
Inflict Thy promises with each
Occasion of distress
That from our incoherence we
May learn to put our trust in Thee
And brutal fact persuade us to
Adventure Art and Peace.
Comments