We’ve already heard one poem by T.S. Eliot this week, and over the next two days, we’ll hear two more of his poems. Eliot is my favorite poet, so I may be a bit biased, but how I am thinking about peace these days and what I want to share with you about peace is evoked more clearly in his poems than in any others I know, so I decided I need to share all three with you. Today’s poem is “A Song for Simeon.”
A Song for Simeon
By T.S. Eliot
Lord, the Roman hyacinths are blooming in bowls and
The winter sun creeps by the snow hills;
The stubborn season has made stand.
My life is light, waiting for the death wind,
Like a feather on the back of my hand.
Dust in sunlight and memory in corners
Wait for the wind that chills towards the dead land.
Grant us thy peace.
I have walked many years in this city,
Kept faith and fast, provided for the poor,
Have taken and given honour and ease.
There went never any rejected from my door.
Who shall remember my house, where shall live my children’s children
When the time of sorrow is come?
They will take to the goat’s path, and the fox’s home,
Fleeing from the foreign faces and the foreign swords.
Before the time of cords and scourges and lamentation
Grant us thy peace.
Before the stations of the mountain of desolation,
Before the certain hour of maternal sorrow,
Now at this birth season of decease,
Let the Infant, the still unspeaking and unspoken Word,
Grant Israel’s consolation
To one who has eighty years and no tomorrow.
According to thy word,
They shall praise Thee and suffer in every generation
With glory and derision,
Light upon light, mounting the saints’ stair.
Not for me the martyrdom, the ecstasy of thought and prayer,
Not for me the ultimate vision.
Grant me thy peace.
(And a sword shall pierce thy heart,
Thine also).
I am tired with my own life and the lives of those after me,
I am dying in my own death and the deaths of those after me.
Let thy servant depart,
Having seen thy salvation.
Thanks, as always, for following along here. Throughout this week, the daily Advent poems will continue to be free for all subscribers. If you would like to receive my Friday reflections on the poems, however, along with special holiday meal and drink recipes from me, I would love it if you joined us as a full subscriber. This retreat and the newsletter itself only exists because of reader support, so I am incredibly grateful for every one of you who is already helping me do this work and for those of you who decide to upgrade your subscription today.
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