Tossed on the deluge Noah swung in heavy seas

His muster of living things a crew to populate the world

Sou’-westers blown in eyes hamper a misted visibility

Weathering through by righteousness wroth God’s decree

A handsome figure Samson brought as blind and captive

Exhibit before the people come to see him low

The mighty man who scattered hundreds corpses on the plains

Is now a fool, a madman, put to ridicule

Stories, stories, longevities of legend,

Bustle about the bible, fresh, alive, and beautiful

Pictures in simple verses offering persons great, profound

Whose characters declare themselves firmly their deeds

They are righteous and faithful because words say so

Appoint them plain and simple, nothing complex, subtleties,

Plain words straightforward hardly more so than child’s

Words, easy enough an oaf to understand

Wonders and feats and trials all such meet with, and act, accomplish,

Their paper person’s scanty sketches tower on mighty deeds

Provided, so called on to do, to make them special

Because they raise themselves and own the struggle

The magic Hebrew language I know only in translation

I know it shows us glories barely asking least description

The wonders of the heart perform before us large and bright

Its Stoic grandeur rimmed with unembellished awed delight

And then Lord Jesus asks also for simple prayers and praise

And like The Preacher much words are to him also vexatious

Let yea be yea, and make nay your nay, he asks, concisely

Lest in too many words a worried people flounders

Fussed to a point that too much said dispels convincement

Poured out a surge of words and bones get tired

Shuffle, shift, putting up with long harangues, and dramas

Words wear out a welcome relishing too long

The dart in the heart which melts a dullard’s hard indifference

Slips like a tip into a waiter’s unbeknowing hand

Uncommon as unexpected, a sharp nip, a razor bezel,

Pinches and blood runs smartly outwards, ruth and warm

Whence had effect that short speech Peter preached before Jerusalem

Pentecost day far long ago when tongues of fire

Had lit him and his fellows, made them holy madmen

Crazy to others’ eyes, but really overcome with truth

His hearty terse Kerygma cut and planted almond blooms

Milk white for seeding penitent and grieving hearts

To men his candour told, no question, they had killed Messiah

Pith opened them right up, a wound resuscitating life

This is The Word of Holy Trinity

The active Word which shall return always fulfilled

The carrier of the deed, the fruit’s commission-maker

About His Father’s business in a flowery world of folly