Holy Week begins on Palm Sunday. It is the day we celebrate Christ’s triumphal entry into Jerusalem. (Matthew 21:1-11)
The poem we’ll begin with is aptly named “Palm Sunday.” It was written by John Keble in the 1800’s. Keble was a theologian and poet who was educated by his father. He was educated so well, in fact, that he received a scholarship to his father’s college, Corpus Christi, in Oxford, England. He was later ordained a priest and worked with John Henry Newman on the Oxford Movement which sought a renewal of Catholic practices in the Church of England. He was also a professor of poetry at Oxford University. After his death in 1866, Keble College in Oxford was founded in his memory.
Palm Sunday
By John Keble
Ye whose hearts are beating high
With the pulse of Poesy,
Heirs of more than royal race,
Framed by Heaven’s peculiar grace,
God’s own work to do on earth,
(If the word be not too bold,)
Giving virtue a new birth,
And a life that ne’er grows old,
Sovereign masters of all hearts!
Know ye who hath set your parts?
He who gave you breath to sing,
By whose strength ye sweep the string,
He has chosen you, to lead
His Hosannas here below;
Mount, and claim your glorious meed;
Linger not with sin and woe.
But if ye should hold your peace,
Deem not that the song would cease.
Angels round His glory throne,
Stars, His guiding hand that own,
Flowers that grow beneath our feet,
Stones in earth’s dark womb that rest,
High and low in choir shall meet,
Ere His name shall be unblest.
Lord, by every minstrel tongue
Be Thy praise so duly sung,
That Thine angels’ harps may ne’er
Fail to find fit echoing here:
We the while, of meaner birth,
Who in that divinest spell
Dare not hope to join on earth,
Give us grace to listen well.
But should thankless silence seal
Lips, that might half Heaven reveal,
Should bards in idol hymns profane
The sacred, soul-enthralling strain,
(As in this bad world below
Noblest things find vilest using,)
Then, Thy power and mercy show,
In vile things noble breath infusing;
Then waken into sound divine
The very pavement of Thy shrine,
Till we, like Heaven’s star-sprinkled floor.
Faintly give back what we adore.
Childlike though the voices be,
And untunable the parts,
Thou wilt own the minstrelsy,
If it flow from childlike hearts.
* * *
I don’t know about you, but I especially liked the last stanza of this piece. The part about “childlike hearts” serves to remind me that we must be “like little children in order to enter into the kingdom of heaven,” just as Jesus said.
I hope you enjoyed this poem written for Palm Sunday. Next week, we’ll continue to have a poem for each day of the week to celebrate Holy Week. I look forward to seeing you then.