THE DREAM OF THE ROOD

For the Church of St Michael and All Angels, Bedford Park

The day's deep midnight, once it was,

When all earth's creatures’ exhausted eyes

Closed, and sleep their shadows shrouded.

Then night's vast womb a dream delivered:

The fairest of all fantasies. An astounding structure

I seemed to see soar in the sky,

Its beams bathed in the brightest of light.

Gleaming gold enveloped that vision:

A scatter of jewels sparkled on its shaft,

Yet brighter the stones that encrusted its cross-beam.

This was no gangster's gallows, no cross for a criminal:

For all Creation's creatures, all sons of soil,

And a heavenly host of all God's angels,

In beauty of paradise perpetually bright

Admired eternally this vision of victory,

This cross of conquest, that triumphal tree.

I was smeared with sin, diseased

With gangrene of guilt, foul with my faults;

Yet I saw this wondrous work, gay and glorious

With glimmering gold, joyfully jewelled,

Shimmer in splendour: the cross of Christ.

Still through the gold my eyes descried

An ancient injury, the world's first wound,

Purple on gold, the passion and the glory,

As blood broke forth from the rood's right side.

Pierced with pity, and filled with fear

I was, as I saw that shifting sign

Alter its appearance, its colour change:

Now it was wet with the sweat of agony,

Now with brilliance of treasure bedecked.

A long while I lay, struck to my soul,

Saddened at the sight of the Saviour's tree;

But imagine the wonder, when this wood

Words uttered, silence broke, spoke

To me!

‘From time's dark backward

And abyss, I imagine the hour of my hewing,

When from the wood's end my trunk was toppled,

Wrenched from its roots by the fiercest of foes.

With power they impounded, and made me a spectacle,

A picture of punishment, to rack and to crack

The ribs of their criminals. On their shoulders they hefted me,

And on a hill hoisted.

It was then that I saw a splendid Saviour

Approach with alacrity and courage to climb.

Hastily, the young hero stripped Him

For action, girded like a gladiator

Ready for the ring. In the sight of spectators,

Fearless and firm, keen for the combat,

He clambered on the cross.