| Nicholson & Lee, eds. The Oxford Book of English Mystical Verse. 1917. |
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| 308. An Easter Hymn |
| By Arthur Shearly Cripps (b. 1869) |
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(Easter in South Africa falls in Autumn)
HIS wide Hands fashioned us white grains and red | |
| His Eyes weep rains to swell them in their bed, | |
| Whereby the dust-grains of our lives are fed. | |
| Alleluia! | |
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| In Earth our mother’s bosom undecayed | 5 |
| The Seed-corn of the Flesh He took, He laid— | |
| One white small Grain beneath a sealed rock’s shade. | |
| Alleluia! | |
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| How blind that Seed lay till this autumn morn | |
| When forth it sprouted blade and flower and corn, | 10 |
| And with Its lifted Head the seal was torn! | |
| Alleluia! | |
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| Hope of men’s bodies’ grains both red and white— | |
| Shrivelled and sere and void of speech and sight, | |
| Is that blind Seed Who burst His way to light. | 15 |
| Alleluia! | |
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| We, God’s red millet grains, men hold so cheap, | |
| Innumerable beneath our grey rocks sleep, | |
| Yet He that cared to sow us cares to reap. | |
| Alleluia! | 20 |
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