Category: Poems

Easter hymn – We cannot speculate, or glance

An empty tomb is just empty. It took a meeting with Jesus to convince a woman, then a group of men that Jesus, who had died on a cross, was alive. It is still difficult to believe. Yet after two thousand years, whatever we believe, as Geoffrey Best has written on Facebook, ‘…in this (hi)story is the revelation of the very nature of God, a God who takes all that we throw and absorbs and transforms the dead and deadly into life abundant .... if we let it!’ Amen!

1	We cannot speculate, or glance 
	into the well of history. 
	Nor can we look beyond this time 
	with any sense of certainty. 
	We only have our faith and hope, 
	to make us stand, to help us cope.
	
2	Great God we grasp at straws of faith,
	of things we hope will point to you. 
	We read the ancient texts and scan 
	those distant myths to make them new. 
	And all the time we live between 
	these metaphors and what is seen.
	
3	The past is gone, we cannot hear 
	more than an echo down the age. 
	And what is still to come we fear; 
	we see each other's pent up rage.
	Yet what we need is close at hand, 
	your present love in every land.
	
4	True resurrection brings to bear 
	the things that heal, create, unite. 
	Love launches its triumphant praise 
	and builds on joy and will delight.
	The former things are passed away, 
	dead night transformed to brightest day.

Metre: 8 8 8 8 8 8 Tune: ABINGDON
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.

Art © Andrew Pratt 2022

	


	
	






	
	

		
Good Friday hymn – Tortured, beaten…
	


	

		

So often our Good Friday hymns soften diminish the horror - ‘glorious scars’, ‘wondrous cross’. I wrote these words as a reaction…

Tortured, beaten, scarred and tainted,
Not a picture deftly painted,
More a tattered, battered being,
Torn, disfigured, stark, unseeing.

Muscles twisted, strained, contorted,
Body dangling, bruised, distorted.
Life blood drying, sun-baked, stinging,
Hatred, bitter hatred, flinging.

Crowds insensate, tempers vented,
Full of anger, discontented.
Curses scattered, insults flying,
Spurned, derided, God is dying.


Andrew E Pratt (born 1948)	
Words © 1997 © 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.

8 8 8 8 Trochaic
CLONMACHNOISE




	


	
	






	
	

		
Palm Sunday Hymn – As Jesus came riding
	


	

		

As Jesus came riding along on a donkey, 
the pavement was holy, he hallowed the ground.
The stones will cry out if the people are silent, 
a day filled with joy and with praising is found.
	
Then those who had followed and those who came after
sang loudly while waving their palms in the air;
these palms they laid down on the ground like a carpet, 
some joined celebration, while some stood to stare.
	
Then loud the hosannas that rang round about him, 
this man of humility, heading for death;
and would we sing with them, hosannas and praising,
or cry for the cross that would take his last breath.
	
And now in this moment the trial and the testing
for you and for me, and for each and for all, 
is sharing God's sacrifice, selflessly loving, 
to stand beside Jesus, respond to his call.

Andrew E Pratt (born 1948)
Words © 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.
12 11 12 11
STREET OF LAREDO


	


	
	






	
	

		
When song gives way to solitude – hymn inspired by Psalm 130
	


	

		

This coming Sunday is Passion Sunday. The following words were inspired by one of the Psalms, 130, appointed for this Sunday.

1	When song gives way to solitude,
	and loneliness conspires with fear;
	when walls of anguish tower around,
	and agony is sharp and shear;
	deep in the midst of our concern
	love can, love must, love will draw near.

2	When all is dark and comfortless
	and no one near can hear our sighs,
	when tears are salt with bitterness
	and all we know are jeers and lies;
	here in the midst of our despair
	love shares our pain and with us cries.

3	When all is seared with grief and loss
	and faith seems empty, or absurd,
	when life lacks purpose, shape or form,
	we find no sense, we frame no word;
	here in the furnace of our fear
	love whispers peace and will be heard.

Andrew E Pratt (born 1948)
Words © 2002 © 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: 8 8 8 8 8 8
Tune: ABINGDON


	


	
	






	
	

		
This is our mother – Mothering Sunday hymn
	


	

		

This is our mother, the source of all being,
sharpening starlight, then raising the dawn,
singing forth sunshine, then playing with laughter,
scattering teardrops, in passion newborn.

Mother of oceans, so careful with splendour,
ground of creation and centre of life,
love in abundance, all caring, all seeing,
counter to conflict, now staying our strife.

This is our mother, the God of our parents,
source of the hope that has brought them to be,
present to hold us, then leading us onward,
loving, renewing, and setting us free.

Andrew Pratt (born 1948)
Words © 2006 © 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..
11 10 11 10
Tunes: WAS LEBET WAS SCHWEBET; EPIPHANY HYMN