THE HOLDFAST.

I THREATNED to observe the strict decree
        Of my deare God with all my power and might :
        But I was told by one, it could not be ;
Yet I might trust in God to be my light.

Then will I trust, said I, in him alone.
        Nay, ev’n to trust in him, was also his :
        We must confesse, that nothing is our own.
Then I confesse that he my succour is :

But to have nought is ours, not to confesse
        That we have nought. I stood amaz’d at this,
        Much troubled, till I heard a friend expresse,
That all things were more ours by being his.
        What Adam had, and forfeited for all,
        Christ keepeth now, who cannot fail or fall.

—George Herbert

Just Peachy

The peach tree on the southern wall
  Has basked so long beneath the sun,
Her score of peaches great and small
  Bloom rosy, every one.

A peach for brothers, one for each,
  A peach for you and a peach for me;
But the biggest, rosiest, downiest peach
  For Grandmamma with her tea.

—Christina Rossetti in Sing-Song: A Nursery Rhyme Book

Hooray! It’s peach season again. Here are my previously posted instructions for putting up peaches.

Poetry of the Cross: Crucifixion to the World by the Cross of Christ

But far be it from me to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.

Galatians 6:14

W

hen I survey the wondrous cross
On which the Prince of Glory died,
My richest gain I count but loss,
And pour contempt on all my pride.

Forbid it, Lord, that I should boast,
Save in the death of Christ my God,
All the vain things that charm me most,
I sacrifice them to His blood.

See from His head, His hands, His feet,
Sorrow and love flow mingled down,
Did e’er such love and sorrow meet,
Or thorns compose so rich a crown?

His dying crimson, like a robe,
Spreads o’er His body on the tree;
Then I am dead to all the globe,
And all the globe is dead to me.

Were the whole realm of nature mine,
That were a present far too small;
Love so amazing, so divine,
Demands my soul, my life, my all.

—Isaac Watts

More Poetry of the Cross

• Dorothy at Field Stone Cottage: Not All the Blood of Beasts
• Update: Brandon of Siris: Dream of the Rood