Home ⇒ 📌George William Russell ⇒ The Christ-sword
The Christ-sword
THE WHILE my mad brain whirled around
She only looked with eyes elate
Immortal love at me. I found
How deep the glance of love can wound,
How cruel pity is to hate.
I was begirt with hostile spears:
My angel warred in me for you
Whose gentle calmness all too fierce
Made unseen lightnings to pierce
My heart that dripped with ruddy dew.
I know how on the final day
The hosts of darkness meet with death:
The angels with their love shall slay,
Flowing to meet the dark array
With terrible yet tender breath.
(2 votes, average: 4.00 out of 5)
Related poetry:
- An Evening Thought: Salvation by Christ, with Penetential Cries Salvation comes by Christ alone, The only Son of God; Redemption now to every one, That love his holy Word. Dear Jesus, we would fly to Thee, And leave off every Sin, Thy tender Mercy well agree; Salvation from our King. Salvation comes now from the Lord, Our victorious King. His holy Name be well […]...
- Longing to be with Christ To Jesus, the crown of my hope, My soul is in haste to be gone; O bear me, ye cherubim, up, And waft me away to His throne! My Saviour, whom absent I love, Whom, not having seen I adore; Whose name is exalted above All glory, dominion, and power; Dissolve thou these bonds that […]...
- THOUGHTS ON JESUS CHRIST'S DESCENT INTO HELL THOUGHTS ON JESUS CHRIST’S DESCENT INTO HELL. [THE remarkable Poem of which this is a literal But faint representation, was written when Goethe was only sixteen Years old. It derives additional interest from the fact of its being The very earliest piece of his that is preserved. The few other Pieces included by Goethe under […]...
- Contemplation Of The Sword Reason will not decide at last; the sword will decide. The sword: an obsolete instrument of bronze or steel, formerly used to kill men, but here In the sense of a symbol. The sword: that is: the storms and counter-storms of general destruction; killing of men, Destruction of all goods and materials; massacre, more or […]...
- Lay His Sword By His Side Lay his sword by his side it hath served him too well Not to rest near his pillow below; To the last moment true, from his hand ere it fell, Its point was still turn’d to a flying foe. Fellow-labourers in life, let them slumber in death, Side by side, as becomes the reposing brave […]...
- The Crucifixion of Christ Composed, by Special Request, 18th June 1890 Then Pilate, the Roman Governor, took Jesus and scourged Him, And the soldiers platted a crown of thorns, and thought it no sin To put it on His head, while meekly Jesus stands; They put on Him a purple robe, and smote Him with their hands. Then Pilate […]...
- Affinity YOU and I have found the secret way, None can bar our love or say us nay: All the world may stare and never know You and I are twined together so. You and I for all his vaunted width Know the giant Space is but a myth; Over miles and miles of pure deceit […]...
- Sonnet 38 – First time he kissed me, he but only kissed First time he kissed me, he but only kissed The fingers of this hand wherewith I write; And ever since, it grew more clean and white, Slow to world-greetings, quick with its ‘Oh, list,’ When the angels speak. A ring of amethyst I could not wear here, plainer to my sight, Than that first kiss. […]...
- Sword Blades and Poppy Seed A drifting, April, twilight sky, A wind which blew the puddles dry, And slapped the river into waves That ran and hid among the staves Of an old wharf. A watery light Touched bleak the granite bridge, and white Without the slightest tinge of gold, The city shivered in the cold. All day my thoughts […]...
- 16-bit Intel 8088 chip with an Apple Macintosh You can’t run Radio Shack programs In its disc drive. Nor can a Commodore 64 Drive read a file You have created on an IBM Personal Computer. Both Kaypro and Osborne computers use The CP/M operating system But can’t read each other’s Handwriting For they format (write On) discs in different […]...
- The Sword of Suprise Sunder me from my bones, O sword of God Till they stand stark and strange as do the trees; That I whose heart goes up with the soaring woods May marvel as much at these. Sunder me from my blood that in the dark I hear that red ancestral river run Like branching buried floods […]...
- A Hymn To Christ At The Author's Last Going Into Germany In what torn ship soever I embark, That ship shall be my emblem of thy Ark; What sea soever swallow me, that flood Shall be to me an emblem of thy blood; Though thou with clouds of anger do disguise Thy face, yet through that mask I know those eyes, Which, though they turn away […]...
- Christ of Everywhere “Christ of the Andes,” Christ of Everywhere, Great lover of the hills, the open air, And patient lover of impatient men Who blindly strive and sin and strive again, Thou Living Word, larger than any creed, Thou Love Divine, uttered in human deed, Oh, teach the world, warring and wandering still, Thy way of Peace, […]...
- The Robe of Christ (For Cecil Chesterton) At the foot of the Cross on Calvary Three soldiers sat and diced, And one of them was the Devil And he won the Robe of Christ. When the Devil comes in his proper form To the chamber where I dwell, I know him and make the Sign of the Cross Which […]...
- Blue The earth again like a ship steams out of the dark sea over The edge of the blue, and the sun stands up to see us glide Slowly into another day; slowly the rover Vessel of darkness takes the rising tide. I, on the deck, am startled by this dawn confronting Me who am issued […]...
- All or Nothing All or Nothing The final race. the final decision All disgrace or fortune all Either I fall or I stand tall; All or Nothing No compromises this time No catholic design Either I win or I lose; And I, don’t get to choose. All or Nothing The final fight All hells lose in this frenzied […]...
- Hymn on the Morning of Christ's Nativity IT was the Winter wilde, While the Heav’n-born-childe, All meanly wrapt in the rude manger lies; Nature in aw to him Had doff’t her gawdy trim, With her great Master so to sympathize: It was no season then for her To wanton with the Sun her lusty Paramour. Only with speeches fair She woo’s the […]...
- Reliance Not to the swift, the race: Not to the strong, the fight: Not to the righteous, perfect grace: Not to the wise, the light. But often faltering feet Come surest to the goal; And they who walk in darkness meet The sunrise of the soul. A thousand times by night The Syrian hosts have died; […]...
- Do You Hear The Angel Speaking? Do you hear the angel speaking? Do you hear her heavenly voice? Do you hear the song she’s singing? Will you help her to rejoice? Do you hear her when you’re weary And find it hard to cope? Do you hear her inspiration and Her messages of hope? Do you hear her voice of wisdom… […]...
- The Meaning Of The Look I think that look of Christ might seem to say ‘Thou Peter! art thou then a common stone Which I at last must break my heart upon For all God’s charge to his high angels may Guard my foot better? Did I yesterday Wash thy feet, my beloved, that they should run Quick to deny […]...
- The Christ of the 'Never' With eyes that are narrowed to pierce To the awful horizons of land, Through the blaze of hot days, and the fierce White heat-waves that flow on the sand; Through the Never Land westward and nor’ward, Bronzed, bearded, and gaunt on the track, Low-voiced and hard-knuckled, rides forward The Christ of the Outer Out-back. For […]...
- Holy Sonnet XVIII: Show me, dear Christ, thy Spouse, so bright and clear Show me, dear Christ, thy Spouse, so bright and clear. What! is it She, which on the other shore Goes richly painted? or which, robbed and tore, Laments and mourns in Germany and here? Sleeps she a thousand, then peeps up one year? Is she self-truth and errs? now new, now outwore? Doth she, and […]...
- The Windhover: To Christ Our Lord I caught this morning morning’s minion, king- dom of daylight’s dauphin, dapple-dawn-drawn Falcon, in his riding Of the rolling level underneath him steady air, and striding High there, how he rung upon the rein of a wimpling wing In his ecstasy! then off, off forth on swing, As a skate’s heel sweeps smooth on a […]...
- Christ's Nativity 1 Awake, glad heart! get up and sing! 2 It is the birth-day of thy King. 3 Awake! awake! 4 The Sun doth shake 5 Light from his locks, and all the way 6 Breathing perfumes, doth spice the day. 7 Awake, awake! hark how th’ wood rings; 8 Winds whisper, and the busy springs […]...
- Christ Crucified Now ere I slept, my prayer had been that I might see my way To do the will of Christ, our Lord and Master, day by day; And with this prayer upon my lips, I knew not that I dreamed, But suddenly the world of night a pandemonium seemed. From forest, and from slaughter house, […]...
- On the Nativity of Christ RORATE coeli desuper! Hevins, distil your balmy schouris! For now is risen the bricht day-ster, Fro the rose Mary, flour of flouris: The cleir Sone, quhom no cloud devouris, Surmounting Phebus in the Est, Is cumin of his hevinly touris: Et nobis Puer natus est. Archangellis, angellis, and dompnationis, Tronis, potestatis, and marteiris seir, And […]...
- Psalm 103 part 3 v.19-22 S. M. God’s universal dominion; or, Angels praise the Lord. The Lord, the sovereign King, Hath fixed his throne on high; O’er all the heav’nly world he rules, And all beneath the sky. Ye angels, great in might, And swift to do his will, Bless ye the Lord, whose voice ye hear, Whose pleasure […]...
- Song The weight of the world is love. Under the burden of solitude, Under the burden of dissatisfaction the weight, The weight we carry is love. Who can deny? In dreams It touches the body, In thought constructs A miracle, in imagination Anguishes till born In human Looks out of the heart burning with purity For […]...
- Christ Crucified THY restless feet now cannot go For us and our eternal good, As they were ever wont. What though They swim, alas! in their own flood? Thy hands to give Thou canst not lift, Yet will Thy hand still giving be; It gives, but O, itself’s the gift! It gives tho’ bound, tho’ bound ’tis […]...
- Hope Holds to Christ . . . . . . . . Hope holds to Christ the mind’s own mirror out To take His lovely likeness more and more. It will not well, so she would bring about An ever brighter burnish than before And turns to wash it from her welling eyes And breathes the blots off all […]...
- Psalm 113 Proper tune. The majesty and condescension of God. Ye that delight to serve the Lord, The honors of his name record, His sacred name for ever bless; Where’er the circling sun displays His rising beams, or setting rays, Let lands and seas his power confess. Not time, nor nature’s narrow rounds, Can give his vast […]...
- The Human Face I. Soon Of all the springtimes of the world This one is the ugliest Of all of my ways of being To be trusting is the best Grass pushes up snow Like the stone of a tomb But I sleep within the storm And awaken eyes bright Slowness, brief time ends Where all streets must […]...
- A Leader THOUGH your eyes with tears were blind, Pain upon the path you trod: Well we knew, the hosts behind, Voice and shining of a god. For your darkness was our day: Signal fires, your pains untold Lit us on our wandering way To the mystic heart of gold. Naught we knew of the high land, […]...
- 90 North At home, in my flannel gown, like a bear to its floe, I clambered to bed; up the globe’s impossible sides I sailed all night-till at last, with my black beard, My furs and my dogs, I stood at the northern pole. There in the childish night my companions lay frozen, The stiff fur knocked […]...
- First Sight Lambs that learn to walk in snow When their bleating clouds the air Meet a vast unwelcome, know Nothing but a sunless glare. Newly stumbling to and fro All they find, outside the fold, Is a wretched width of cold. As they wait beside the ewe, Her fleeces wetly caked, there lies Hidden round them, […]...
- Last Word To Childhood Ice-cold fear has slowly decreased As my bones have grown, my height increased. Though I shiver in snow of dreams, I shall never Freeze again in a noonday terror. I shall never break, my sinews crumble As God-the-headmaster’s fingers fumble At the other side of unopening doors Which I watch for a hundred thousand years. […]...
- In Former Songs 1 IN former songs Pride have I sung, and Love, and passionate, joyful Life, But here I twine the strands of Patriotism and Death. And now, Life, Pride, Love, Patriotism and Death, To you, O FREEDOM, purport of all! (You that elude me most-refusing to be caught in songs of mine,) I offer all to […]...
- Dust When the white flame in us is gone, And we that lost the world’s delight Stiffen in darkness, left alone To crumble in our separate night; When your swift hair is quiet in death, And through the lips corruption thrust Has stilled the labour of my breath When we are dust, when we are dust! […]...
- Hymn 37 part 1 Christ’s humiliation, exaltation, and triumph. Phil. 2:8,9; Mark 15:20,24,29; Col. 2:15. The mighty frame of glorious grace, That brightest monument of praise That e’er the God of love designed, Employs and fills my lab’ring mind. Begin, my soul, the heav’nly song, A burden for an angel’s tongue: When Gabriel sounds these awful things, He tunes […]...
- A Birthday Song. To S. G For ever wave, for ever float and shine Before my yearning eyes, oh! dream of mine Wherein I dreamed that time was like a vine, A creeping rose, that clomb a height of dread Out of the sea of Birth, all filled with dead, Up to the brilliant cloud of Death o’erhead. This vine bore […]...