Another poem of the resurrection, this one entitled, Easter, by the 17th-century poet and Anglican priest, George Herbert:

Rise heart; thy Lord is risen. Sing his praise
            Without delayes,
Who takes thee by the hand, that thou likewise
            With him mayst rise:
That, as his death calcined thee to dust,
His life may make thee gold, and much more, just.

Awake, my lute, and struggle for thy part
            With all thy art.
The crosse taught all wood to resound his name,
            Who bore the same.
His stretched sinews taught all strings what key
Is best to celebrate this most high day.

Consort both heart and lute, and twist a song
            Pleasant and long:
Or, since all musick is but three parts vied,
            And multiplied,
O let thy blessed Spirit bear a part,
And make up our defects with his sweet art.

I got me flowers to straw thy way;
I got me boughs off many a tree:
But thou wast up by break of day,
And brought’st thy sweets along with thee.

The Sunne arising in the East,
Though he give light, and th’ East perfume;
If they should offer to contest
With thy arising, they presume.

Can there be any day but this,
Though many sunnes to shine endeavour?
We count three hundred, but we misse:
There is but one, and that one ever.

Jerry Shepherd
Lent
April 6, 2014