Love Bade Me Welcome

Written By Brian Suntken

The Five Mystical Songs are a musical composition by English composer Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872–1958), written between 1906 and 1911. The work sets four poems ("Easter" divided into two parts) by seventeenth-century Welsh-born English poet and Anglican priest George Herbert (1593–1633), from his 1633 collection The Temple: Sacred Poems.

 

Love Bade Me Welcome – from Love (III)

Love bade me welcome: yet my soul drew back.

Guiltie of dust and sinne.

But quick-ey'd Love, observing me grow slack

From my first entrance in,

Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning

If I lack'd anything.

 

A guest, I answer'd, worthy to be here:

Love said, You shall be he.

I the unkinde, ungrateful? Ah, my deare,

I cannot look on thee.

Love took my hand, and smiling did reply,

Who made the eyes but I?

 

Truth Lord, but I have marr'd them: let my shame

Go where it doth deserve.

And know you not, sayes Love, who bore the blame?

My deare, then I will serve.

You must sit down, sayes Love, and taste my meat:

So I did sit and eat.

Brian Suntken

It’s my sixtieth trip around the sun this year. I share some wisdom, some photography, some poetry and prayers for the journey ahead.

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