Spes Unica

By way of comparison here is a link to 'Three Searching Sonnets' written in January 1983 and posted here on 2 April 2012.

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Lines 1, 5 and 9 are taken from Psalm 83 (Douay-Rheims)
 
How lovely are thy tabernacles, O Lord of hosts!
Endraped and candled, glanced by incense mist,
In pin-drop dark, That which made peaks and coasts,
Cupped, bulks with power of its Three-love tryst.

My soul longeth and fainteth for the courts of the Lord:

On flags, limb-twisted men with breaths which hissed,
Kneeling paid homage to that niche, its hoard;
Something-in-nothing leant and each one kissed.

My heart and my flesh have rejoiced in the living God,

Sipped the eternal in each moment’s plash
Fountained from that pyx of well-head food;
Pain is indecent, as is death’s sore gash,
But springs the sluices of the Lord’s rich Blood
In which at last we sink and, thankful, wash.

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© August 2015