Some original poems and songs by Colin Symes
Contents
Speak, Holy Spirit
(Haiku form)
Upon the Sudden Death of Diana, Princess of Wales, 31st August 1997
In The Heart of the Angel
Adiutor Laborantium
adapted from the acrostic Latin hymn of St Columba.
1997 was the 1400th anniversary of the death of St Columba, responsible for the advance of the Message of Jesus Christ across Scotland; this is a translation and adaptation of his hymn,'O Help of the Labourer', written in acrostic form, in celebration of his life and his work.
O help of the labourer, O King of all good,
Who lifts up the lowly, and brings low the proud,
My guard on the ramparts, defender most sure,
Opposing all evil, keeps the faithful secure;
O judge of all judges, chastising the stray,
Great Father of lights, pure and life-giving way,
Illumined with splendour, my hope’s constant spring,
My help and my strength , hear the prayer that I bring;
Though tiny and trembling and wretched I come,
As I row through this age’s dark, infinite storm,
May Christ draw me with Him to His haven of peace,
Where He reigns, and the strains of His praise never cease.
So released from the thrall of the foe,
To your bright paradise I shall go;
Jesus Christ, living, reigning King,
Through Your name hear the song I now sing.
© Colin Symes, 9th June 1997
Columba’s 1400th Anniversary
Latin original;
Adiutor laborantium, Bonorum rector omnium,
Custos ad propugnaculum, Defensorque credentium,
Exaltator humilium, Fractor superbientum,
Gubernator fidelium, Hostis impoenitentium,
Iudex cunctorum iudicum, Castigator errantium,
Casta vita viventium, Lumen et pater luminum,
Magna luce lucentium, Nulli negans sperantium,
Opem atque auxilium, Precor ut me homunculum,
Quassatum ac miserrimum, Remigantem per tumultum
Saeculi istius infinitum, Trahat post se ad supernum
Vitae portum pulcherimum Xristus; infinitum
Ymnum sanctum in seculum Zelo subtrahas hostium
Paradisi in gaudium. Per te, Christe Ihesu, Qui vivis at regnas.
Roger is an old schoolfriend and fellow believer from Brentwood days; while on holiday in Norfolk in summer 1995 we took Roger's sailing dinghy out onto the River Yare on a beautiful summer evening and had a great time. Out of it came this poem.
Closing my eyes
I still can visualise
The sunset, the moon’s rise
Over the Yare reedbanks,
Under Norfolk skies
And our sharing
A two-man craft,
Catching the wind,
Silent, but for the slip of water
As the river unwinds before us,
Sailing against the tide.
In this eternal moment
The timelessness of brotherhood suprises,
Finding we still share
The One Life-Preserver.
Barnham Broom, Norfolk ,14th July 1995
Top
Speak, Holy Spirit
(Haiku form)
Incarnation - Sonnet XXX
Confined, a holy seed in virgin womb,
Divinity and humankind unite
In Him; polarities of day and night
Are woven into one upon the loom
Of flesh - the child who is the looked - for doom
Of hell's inferior forces, who is Might
Destined to put demonic hordes to flight
And by his masterstroke, death to consume -
Now, in the quietly-dividing cells
The young, obedient, faithful mother bears,
The God of all the universes dwells,
Our forming, unremembered moments shares;
Such unimagined empathy compels
Our love of Him, to whom none else compares.
Edinburgh. 2nd November 1987
Sonnet XXXIII
An Elegy
Upon the Sudden Death of Diana, Princess of Wales, 31st August 1997
And should it end, so sudden and so mean,
A grim fatality beside the Seine,
And shall we never see her smile again,
Which once we thought to light on us as Queen ?
And can life be as frail as hers has been,
A champagne foam atop a draught of bane,
A bitter taste and ache all that remain
Of one too-hurried life, now lost, unseen.
A sea of mourning flowers covers the land,
A nation in a state of disbelief,
Still praying for a way to understand
Such tragedy, a Hand to soothe its grief;
‘The silver cord is severed’, as unplanned
As our day yet to come, the unwelcome thief.
Edinburgh, 6th September 1997, The day of her funeral at Westminster Abbey.
In The Heart of the Angel
This poem was written just before Christmas 1994, and looks at the story of the Incarnation from another perspective - that of heaven, looking down to earth at the moment of Jesus the Son's departure for our planet.
I still can't quite believe He's gone.
As I hung His robe of jasper
I could still smell His sweet fragrance..
I just can't quite believe He's gone.
We all assembled to bid him farewell,
Watched His Father look deep into His eyes,
Saying nothing - yet saying all we knew
Was in His desperately- loving heart.
The moment came as Gabriel returned,
Earth prepared, the mother now expectant;
Laying down the sceptre and the orb,
He turned to us and raised a blessing hand.
We groaned as one as the Spirit wrapped Him
In a cloud of glory and carried Him
Out of our dimension into their time,
Through the brilliant firmament descending.
We gazed as He reduced from view into
A microscopic nothingness, a seed
Of Godhead implanted in the maiden,
Enfleshed in terrestrial mortality.
I heard a whisper in the robing-room
That He might be betrayed and suffer harm,
That this was His intent, to let Himself
Become the victim that they might be freed.
They should not use Him so, and I for one
Am ready with my bow to fire on all
Who'd dare to raise a hand against His person,
Were He to call on me for His defence...
But now we wait, and as I place
His Grace's robes of power here,
My tears fall on my hands, and all
Heaven's quiet with hope of His return.
Edinburgh, 6th December 1994
St Cuthbert's Island, Lindisfarne
Enclose me, cast me off by this pure flow
Of living water's separating tide,
From every commerce with the world I know,
And leave me at my Saviour's wounded side.
Here turmoil may but glare at my repose
From earth's crass, teeming, noisome further shore;
Though all my darkest heart my Father knows,
He grants me space to bide here and adore.
What need have I of man's fickle acclaim,
Which wanes and dies like unsubstantial fire ?
Here close me in with Jesus, only name
Whose sound can satisfy my soul's desire.
© Colin Symes February 1999