How sure am I of my translation and notes? Not very. There are always alternative ways of translating and understanding a text. Especially at the start of a translation with notes, I am tentative, choosing some ways rather than others but remaining ready to revise in the light of subsequent discoveries. Does Matthew’s mention of […]

If we think that the Gospels are mainly historical facts, then we end up lying about Jesus. This is what your nice fundamentalist or conservative evangelical believer is doing: saying the thing that is not. Such as, Jesus was born of a virgin, fed 5000 men with a child’s lunch box, and walked on water. […]

O true and tried, so well and long,Demand not thou a marriage lay;In that it is thy marriage dayIs music more than any song. Nor have I felt so much of blissSince first he told me that he lovedA daughter of our house; nor provedSince that dark day a day like this; Tho’ I since […]

  O living will that shalt endureWhen all that seems shall suffer shock,Rise in the spiritual rock,Flow thro’ our deeds and make them pure, That we may lift from out of dustA voice as unto him that hears,A cry above the conquer’d yearsTo one that with us works, and trust, With faith that comes of […]

  Thy voice is on the rolling air;I hear thee where the waters run;Thou standest in the rising sun,And in the setting thou art fair. What art thou then? I cannot guess;But tho’ I seem in star and flowerTo feel thee some diffusive power,I do not therefore love thee less: My love involves the love […]

Dear friend, far off, my lost desire,So far, so near in woe and weal;O loved the most, when most I feelThere is a lower and a higher; Known and unknown; human, divine;Sweet human hand and lips and eye;Dear heavenly friend that canst not die,Mine, mine, for ever, ever mine; Strange friend, past, present, and to […]

The love that rose on stronger wings,Unpalsied when he met with Death,Is comrade of the lesser faithThat sees the course of human things. No doubt vast eddies in the floodOf onward time shall yet be made,And throned races may degrade;Yet, O ye mysteries of good, Wild Hours that fly with Hope and Fear,If all your […]

  And all is well, tho’ faith and formBe sunder’d in the night of fear;Well roars the storm to those that hearA deeper voice across the storm, Proclaiming social truth shall spread,And justice, ev’n tho’ thrice againThe red fool-fury of the SeineShould pile her barricades with dead. But ill for him that wears a crown,And […]

  Love is and was my Lord and King,And in his presence I attendTo hear the tidings of my friend,Which every hour his couriers bring. Love is and was my King and Lord,And will be, tho’ as yet I keepWithin his court on earth, and sleepEncompass’d by his faithful guard, And hear at times a […]

  CXXVWhatever I have said or sung,Some bitter notes my harp would give,Yea, tho’ there often seem’d to liveA contradiction on the tongue, Yet Hope had never lost her youth;She did but look through dimmer eyes;Or Love but play’d with gracious lies,Because he felt so fix’d in truth: And if the song were full of […]