Under the Hammer of God The hour of chrysanthemum's arrives And the languorous display of Autumn gold. I have no recollection of past lives But in my body feel the ancient cold Pressing on these brisk and short-lived days. I am still trying under the hammer of God Beneath his fashioned stars and quickened moon To let him mould this dense resistant clod To heightened beauty and the heart attune To bliss and set the aspiring soul ablaze.

God Reborn Down I fell in sorrow and despair No glint of light could hope to reach me there, Only my faith and that by the thinnest thread Held me from communion with the dead. The passing of the years not too unkind Have brought a healing solace to the mind I see, though still not clearly, beauty's face Divine even in the commonplace Despite a world in tears with mocking Death Astride the innocent slain with fiery breath And earth benumbed by plunder and rapine Undying hope, the human spirit's sign, The soul that can alone survive the night Arisen now to end our human plight And lift men's hearts to the ennobling view, God reborn who lives in t

Where Now the Beauty? Rushing madly towards its own death-bed The world in violent anger moves It hearkens not to the thunderous tread Of the Rider and the trampling hooves. Violence hanging like a bloody shroud Upon the present's battered face we see, And the stigmata of two thousand years Wears heavily on the future that is to be. A void of darkness now before us yawns Where now the beauty of those early morns?

With God Apace I know somewhere beyond there lies The peaceful land where I shall find All the lost infinities When first we ventured nude and blind Into a world where our first cries In the labyrinth of space Signalled our future destiny. From matter's plinth to heaven's base We shall wed ourselves to infinity And one day walk with God apace.

Towards the Source of Life In former days the flowers spoke to me In silent tongues of worship blossoming, Joyous in the soil's fecundity A fragrant riot of colours worshipping. As I learned their simple language of delight Thrusting from the hard protecting seed Replete with knowledge or divine insight They taught me the uncomplicated need To grow with roots in earth and lifted high Their brilliant masses singing in the sun To flourish in a rapture of the sky Towards the source of life, the radiant One.

The Golden Singer There is no company but one who lives A hidden presence deep behind the heart, He is that which in us hopes and believes. We actors playing out each minor part Forget he gave us all a leading role And though we stumble and we often fail There is the continuity of soul, There is the searching for the Holy Grail, Our path a graded spiral winding high. Above our dark misfortunes, darker deeds We see descending through an aureate sky The golden singer with the new world's seeds.

God in Human Hearts Not as a pleasant picture in a frame Do I a seeker kneel and worship thee Or by endless repetitions of thy name Call down the power that would set me free. In a cabin made of clay I took first breath And woke to wonder in the waking morn. Did I take birth only to meet my death When all the coloured strands of life were worn And all my dark desires turned to dust And nothing left lest soul from ashes soar Above and all my life to thee entrust That God in human hearts might faith restore.

Songs of Ecstasy I have penned my thoughts on shifting sands Obliterated by the sea, What I have built with awkward hands Is but a dreamers' legacy. The depths of being I do not know, The heights remain unrealized, The spirit's lamp is but a glow, Immortal yet undivinized. But my soul is guided through the night In the unfolding mystery, By One who made me for delight To sing my songs of ecstasy.

Country of My Spirit's Birth Winter wraps his arms around my world As desultory leaves drift slowly down To cover beds in which the dreams of spring Shall rise again to greet the year alone. I leave you now to sleep in frozen peace, Flowers of my heart's undying past, And undertake the journey once again To seek my soul's direction in the vast And burning country of my spirit's birth. I will kneel and kiss the sacred ground again And feel the rapture of eternal life, Cast off all doubt, be done with death and pain. Love calls to me a continent away, I soar on wings of steel to that bright day.

Divine Infinities Though I have found in darkest night A harbinger of inner sight, In the compass of this steely world A golden banner late unfurled, I have not joined within this breast The thrust of energy with rest. I see each day the human plight, In darkness long for greater light, To balance the scale of joy and grief And know eternity though brief This life of days through births and deaths Inhaled in deep or shallow breaths, Irreparable loss with gain Of spirit-stature by our pain Illumination through our prayer Or offered selves to heaven's care, To recognize the god within Annulling sorrow, absent sin, To rise from ego a