G.A.Studdert Kennedy: "The Sorrow of God": a poem originally published in Rough Rhymes of a Padre (one of two volumes of war-time poems issued in 1914-18 under the pseudonym "Woodbine Willie"); then re-published under Studdert Kennedy's own name in The Sorrows of God and Other Poems 1921; and again in Rhymes 1929, a one-volume re-print of the Rough Rhymes series. (Note plural `Sorrows' in the book title, but singular in the poem.)
In The Sorrows of God &c. 1921 it is one of two items described as `Dialect Poems'.
Transcription of part of the poem, from a copy of the 1929 book in the Birmingham Reference Library, War Poems Collection.
- Yes, I used to believe i' Jesus Christ,
- And I used to go to Church,
- But sin' I left 'ome and came to France,
- I've been clean knocked off my perch.
- For it seemed orlright at 'ome, it did,
- To believe in a God above
- And in Jesus Christ 'Is only Son,
- What died on the Cross through Love.
- When I went for a walk o' a Sunday morn
- On a nice fine day in the spring,
- I could see the proof o' the living God
- In every living thing.
- For 'ow could the grass and the trees grow up,
- All along o' their bloomin' selves?
- Ye might as well believe i' the fairy tales,
- And think they was made by elves.
- So I thought as that long-'aired atheist
- Were nubbat a silly sod,
- For 'ow did 'e 'count for my Brussels sprouts
- If 'e didn't believe i' God?
- But it ain't the same out 'ere, ye know.
- It's as different as chalk fro' cheese,
- For 'arf on it's blood and t'other 'arf's mud,
- And I'm damned if I really sees
- 'Ow the God, wo 'as made such a cruel world,
- Can 'ave Love in 'Is 'eart for men,
- And be deaf to the cries of the men as dies
- And never comes 'ome again.
- . . .
[ 120 lines omitted: the author sees a young corporal lying dead in the trench in front of him; he rails at the death, and at the grief of a bereaved mother and father; then he realises that God in Jesus has experienced the same death and that God (himself) has known the grief at the loss of a Son . . . ]
- The beacon light of the sorrow of God
- 'As been shinin' down the years,
- A flashin' its light through the darkest night
- Of our 'uman blood and tears.
- There's a sight o' things what I thought was strange,
- As I'm just beginnin' to see:
- `Inasmuch as ye did it to one of these
- Ye 'ave done it unto Me.'
- So it isn't just only the crown o' thorns
- What 'as pierced and torn God's 'ead;
- 'E knows the feel of a bullet, too,
- And 'E's 'ad 'Is touch o' the lead.
- And 'E's standin' wi' me in this 'ere sap,
- And the corporal stands wi' 'Im,
- And the eyes of the laddie is shining bright,
- But the eyes of the Christ burn dim.
- O, laddie, I thought as ye'd done for me
- And broke my 'eart wi' your pain.
- I thought as ye'd taught me that God were dead,
- But ye've brought 'Im to life again.
- And ye've taught me more of what God is
- Than ever I thought to know,
- For I never thought 'E could come so close
- Or that I could love 'Im so.
- For the voice of the Lord, as I 'ears it now,
- Is the voice of my pals what bled,
- And the call of my country's God to me
- Is the call of my country's dead.
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(The Rejoice & Sing Enchiridion:edited by David Goodall; last amended 14/8/02)