Lambs

Isn't it amazing that some people who so delight in the beauty and refreshing joy of new-born lambs can then think nothing of seeing these beautiful creatures taken from their mothers, slaughtered and put upon their plates....Hmm...man's inhumanity to man is one thing; man's inhumanity to creatures goes to another level!

Here's John Clare's lovely poem about the new-born lamb...

The spring is coming by a many signs;
The trays are up, the hedges broken down,
That fenced the haystack, and the remnant shines
Like some old antique fragment weathered brown.
And where suns peep, in every sheltered place,
The little early buttercups unfold
A glittering star or two—till many trace
The edges of the blackthorn clumps in gold.
And then a little lamb bolts up behind
The hill and wags his tail to meet the yoe,
And then another, sheltered from the wind,
Lies all his length as dead—and lets me go
Close bye and never stirs but baking lies,
With legs stretched out as though he could not rise.

All the Blessings of Easter-tide

Wishing you the loveliest of Easters and the resurrection of all that is finest in all of us in this season of new life!

"Behold I Stand At The Gate and Knock"

G.A. Studdert-Kennedy was a Leeds-born poet and Anglican priest who, during the First World War, became known as 'Woodbine Willie' as he handed out cigarettes to dying soldiers.

His wonderful poem: "When Jesus Came to Birmingham" is so approriate for Good Friday and, I think, suits well Holman Hunt's: Light of the World - 'Behold I stand at the gate and knock':

When Jesus came to Golgotha, they hanged Him on a tree,
They drove great nails through hands and feet, and made a Calvary;
They crowned Him with a crown of thorns, red were His wounds and deep,
For those were crude and cruel days, and human flesh was cheap.

When Jesus came to Birmingham, they simply passed Him by.
They would not hurt a hair of Him, they only let Him die;
For men had grown more tender, and they would not give Him pain,
They only just passed down the street, and left Him in the rain.

Still Jesus cried, 'Forgive them, for they know not what they do,'
And still it rained the winter rain that drenched Him through and through;
The crowds went home and left the streets without a soul to see,
And Jesus crouched against a wall, and cried for Calvary.