prayer
by Chesterton · Cluster: Faith · Providence · Divine Love
Abstract
A sonnet of submission in suffering, thanking God that one’s wrath cannot harm the world, ending on Christ on the Cross hearing the crickets and being glad; faith, suffering and gratitude.
Testo / Text
Connections
Topoi: Memento Mori
Motifs: Cross, Light and Dark, Nature, Silence, Stars, Tears, Sun, Insects, Grave Themes & Concepts: Faith, Grief and Loss, Humility, Divine Love, Wonder and Gratitude, Providence, Suffering, Resignation, Madness Forms & Genres: Sonnet Historical References: Christianity, Bible Characters: Christ, God
Testo integrale / Full text
A Prayer in Darkness
G.K.Chesterton
This much, O heaven—if I should brood or rave,
Pity me not; but let the world be fed,
Yea, in my madness if I strike me dead,
Heed you the grass that grows upon my grave.
If I dare snarl between this sun and sod,
Whimper and clamour, give me grace to own,
In sun and rain and fruit in season shown,
The shining silence of the scorn of God.
Thank God the stars are set beyond my power,
If I must travail in a night of wrath,
Thank God my tears will never vex a moth,
Nor any curse of mine cut down a flower.
Men say the sun was darkened: yet I had
Thought it beat brightly, even on—Calvary:
And He that hung upon the Torturing Tree
Heard all the crickets singing, and was glad.