Auden on Advent

The Pilgrim Way has led to the Abyss.
Was it to meet such grinning evidence
We left our richly odored ignorance?
Was the triumphant answer to be this?
The Pilgrim Way has led to the Abyss.

We who die must demand a miracle.
How could the Eternal do a temporal act,
The Infinite become a finite fact?
Nothing can save us that is possible:
We who die must demand a miracle.


The Summons
Star of the Nativity
....
Beware. All those who follow me are led
Onto that Glassy Mountain where are no
Footholds for logic, to that Bridge of Dread
Where knowledge but increases vertigo:
Those who pursue me take a twisting lane
To find themselves immediately alone
With savage water or unfeeling stone;
In labyrinths where they must entertain
Confusion, cripples, tigers, thunder, pain.

V

Chorale

Our Father, whose creative Will
Asked Being for us all,
Confirm it that Thy Primal Love
May weave in us the freedom of
The actually deficient on
The justly actual.

Though written by Thy children with
A smudged and crooked line,
Thy Word is ever legible,
Thy Meaning unequivocal,
And for Thy Goodness even sin
Is valid as a sign.

Inflict Thy promises with each
Occasion of distress,
That from our incoherence we
May learn to put our trust in Thee,
And brutal fact persuade us to
Adventure, Art, and Peace.