I’m dealing with exhaustion and blurred vision due to my eyes being dilated today for an opthalmology consult so I’m just going to give you the poem that I’m reading for my devotion next week at Ladies’ Night Out. It’s a 19th century work by Sidney Lanier, a former Confederate soldier and fellow at Johns Hopkins University specializing in English lit.

I chose this one because I sang a setting of it during Lent 14 years ago. I found the arrangement but no audio file. Sorry!

Into the woods my Master went,
Clean forspent, forspent.
Into the woods my Master came,
Forspent with love and shame.
But the olives they were not blind to Him,
The little gray leaves were kind to Him:
The thorn-tree had a mind to Him
When into the woods He came.

Out of the woods my Master went,
And He was well content.
Out of the woods my Master came,
Content with death and shame.
When Death and Shame would woo Him last,
From under the trees they drew Him last:
‘Twas on a tree they slew Him — last
When out of the woods He came.

(HT: Poem Hunter)