Author: Andrew Pratt

Andrew Pratt was born in Paignton, Devon, England in 1948.

The sky, at sunset, still bleeding…

When the sky at sunset, bleeding, mirrors pain that fells our hope;
it seems that love is fast receding, sowing tears that can’t be quelled.


Can it be that God, seceding, leaves this world, all grace expelled?
When the streets are warm with terror, as emotions run or seize,
singing notes of music shudder, when God’s tempo should relieve,
must we lose the spirit’s rudder, losing hope?
We start to grieve.


When the darkness is descending, night a quiet, yet chilling, shroud,
folding round us bleak, unending, muting what we cry aloud,
is God near, with grace transcending fear and dread, defeat or cloud?
© Andrew Pratt 27/7/2016/2020/2024

From Words, images and Imagination copyright Andrew Pratt 2020

Hymn on the death of John the Baptist

The death of John the Baptist


1 Evil intention, skilful deception,
devious plotting, bent on revenge;
heart fired by hatred, John is not sacred,
see how Herodias seeks her revenge.


2 Then came the moment, see her opponent,
vulnerable prisoner, she’d seal his fate.
Dancing for Herod opened the scabbard,
offered the victim cold on a plate.


3 Shocking entrapment, scheming detachment,
almost inhuman, are we like that?
When self-deception hides our intention
self-righteous pleading bleeds on the mat.


4 Let us be honest, grace is God’s promise,
no need to earn it, this gift is free.
Yet could I face it? How to live with it:
face in the mirror looking at me.


Andrew E Pratt (born 1948)
Words © 2015 © Stainer & Bell Ltd, London, England copyright@stainer.co.uk . Please
include any reproduction for local church use on your CCL Licence returns. All wider and
any commercial use requires prior application to Stainer & Bell Ltd.
Metre: 10 9 10 9
Tune: BUNESSAN