From Psalms of Assize

I

Hinc vagantur in tenebris misere, quia non credunt veritati ipsi...
Querunt lumen confisi ipsis et non inueniunt.

Why should I strike you with my name
why made impress of proud wounds
come now belated
patrons of wrath
anxieties are not rectitudes
holiness itself falls
to unholy rejoicing
to ressurect the dead
myth
of our salvation
blasphemies no less
mercies
let us pray
Gabriel descend
as a mood almost
a monody
of chloroform
or florists roses
consensual angel spinning his words
thread
he descends
and light
sensitive darkness
follows him down

Geoffrey Hill, Selected Poems, Penguin Books, 2006