The document presents a profound exploration of themes such as divine presence, human suffering, and existential struggle through poetic imagery and metaphor. It delves into the tension between assent and resistance towards God, reflecting on personal anguish and the quest for redemption. The author grapples with the nature of faith, love, and the desire for spiritual transformation amidst the complexities of life and mortality.

2. "Their hands push closed the
doors that God holds open".
An Exploration of Assent and
Resistance.

10. I sing of a maiden
That is makelees:
King of alle kinges
To her sone she chees.
He cam also stille
Ther his moder was
As dewe in Aprille
That falleth on the gras.
He cam also stille
To his modres bowr
As dewe in Aprille
That falleth on the flowr.
He cam also stille
Ther his moder lay
As dewe in Aprille
That falleth on the spray.
Moder and maiden
Was nevere noon but she:
Wel may swich a lady
Godes moder be.

15. But ah, but O thou terrible, why wouldst
thou rude on me
Thy wring-world right foot rock? lay a
lionlimb against me? scan
With darksome devouring eyes my bruisèd
bones? and fan,
O in turns of tempest, me heaped there;
me frantic to avoid thee and flee? …
I wretch lay wrestling with (my God!) my
God.

19. Beyond where we dumped our
refuse and old bottles:
Unverdant ever, almost
beneath notice.

20. …. a deep-littered silence
Off odourless, untainting, fibrous
horsedung …

22. Shemkel
is black and nervous
and has been fined many
times
for illegal import of sinners
(The Seventh Angel)

23. The Great Yes
For some people the day comes
when they have to declare the great Yes
or the great No. It's clear at once who has the
Yes
ready within him; and saying it,
he goes from honor to honor, strong in his
conviction.
He who refuses does not repent. Asked again,
he'd still say no. Yet that no--the right no--
drags him down all his life.

24. … I am carried towards the west,
This day, when my soul's form bends to the East.
There I should see a Sun by rising set,
And by that setting endless day beget…
Yet dare I almost be glad, I do not see
That spectacle of too much weight for me.
Who sees Gods face, that is self-life, must die ;
What a death were it then to see God die ? …
Could I behold those hands, which span the poles
And tune all spheres at once, pierced with those holes ?
Could I behold that endless height, which is
Zenith to us and our antipodes,
Humbled below us ? …

25. If on these things I durst not look, durst I
On His distressed Mother cast mine eye …
Though these things as I ride be from mine eye,
They're present yet unto my memory,
For that looks towards them ; and Thou look'st towards me,
O Saviour, as Thou hang'st upon the tree.
I turn my back to thee but to receive
Corrections till Thy mercies bid Thee leave.
O think me worth Thine anger, punish me,
Burn off my rust, and my deformity ;
Restore Thine image, so much, by Thy grace,
That Thou mayst know me, and I'll turn my face.

27. On Sundays
The forgotten comes
On crowsfeet with spurs
They carve in the parquet for me
A pattern
When the rose-coloured
Wallpaper opens
And expels the drawer full
Of emaciated Jewish heads
When through the insulated
Clean polished floor penetrates
Nothing. Just the foul smoke
Of rotten ones.

28. It is cut out for us
The nettle-cloth ….
Thus
We are clothed
With what we deserve ……….
In smoke and nettles
Especially on Sundays

29. … like a rich man entering heaven
Through the ear of a raindrop. Listen
now again

31. Who, if I cried out, would hear me
then, out of the orders
of angels ? and even supposing
one suddenly took me
close to the heart, I would perish
from that stronger existence.

32. Are we perhaps here to say: house,
bridge, fountain, gate, pitcher, fruit tree,
window,
at best: pillar, tower … but to say, mind you,
as the things themselves never believed deeply
to be, oh to say in that way.
Here is the time of the sayable, here is its
homeland

34. Batter my heart, three-person'd God, for you
As yet but knock, breathe, shine, and seek to mend;
That I may rise and stand, o'erthrow me, and bend
Your force to break, blow, burn, and make me new.
I, like an usurp'd town to'another due,
Labor to'admit you, but oh, to no end;
Reason, your viceroy in me, me should defend,
But is captiv'd, and proves weak or untrue.
Yet dearly'I love you, and would be lov'd fain,
But am betroth'd unto your enemy;
Divorce me,'untie or break that knot again,
Take me to you, imprison me, for I,
Except you'enthrall me, never shall be free,
Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me.

35. Are we perhaps here to say: house,
bridge, fountain, gate, pitcher, fruit tree, window,
---
at best: pillar, tower … but to say, mind you,
as the things themselves never believed deeply
to be, oh to say in that way.