Good Friday Poems

So we had our usual Good Friday Vigil service last week on, well, Good Friday! Each year we try to have a creative element to the service - two years ago art works to help us reflect on the passion narratives; last year pieces of music... This year, I gathered six poems all with a Good Friday theme... I'd be surprised if you'll find these six thematically linked together in any collections or anthologies, so I thought I'd re-publish them here... I hope you enjoy them (if that's the appropriate thing to do...)

‘Good Friday’ by George Herbert (1593-1633)

O my chief good,


How shall I measure out thy blood? 


How shall I count what thee befell, 


And each grief tell? 



Shall I thy woes 


Number according to thy foes? 


Or, since one star show'd thy first breath, 


Shall all thy death? 



Or shall each leaf, 


Which falls in Autumn, score a grief? 


Or cannot leaves, but fruit be sign 


Of the true vine? 



Then let each hour 


Of my whole life one grief devour: 


That thy distress through all may run, 


And be my sun. 



Or rather let 


My several sins their sorrows get; 


That as each beast his cure doth know, 


Each sin may so. 



‘Beneath Thy Cross’ by Christina Georgina Rossetti (1830-94)

Am I a stone, and not a sheep, 


That I can stand, O Christ, beneath thy cross, 


To number drop by drop Thy Blood's slow loss, 


And yet not weep? 



Not so those women loved 


Who with exceeding grief lamented Thee; 


Not so fallen Peter weeping bitterly; 


Not so the thief was moved; 



Not so the Sun and Moon 


Which hid their faces in a starless sky, 


A horror of great darkness at broad noon-- 


I, only I. 



Yet give not o'er, 


But seek Thy sheep, true Shepherd of the flock; 


Greater than Moses, turn and look once more 


And smite a rock.

‘Crucifying’ (from La Corona) by John Donne (1572-1631)

By miracles exceeding power of man,

He faith in some, envy in some begat,

For, what weak spirits admire, ambitious hate :

In both affections many to Him ran.

But O ! the worst are most, they will and can,

Alas ! and do, unto th' Immaculate,

Whose creature Fate is, now prescribe a fate,

Measuring self-life's infinity to span,

Nay to an inch. Lo ! where condemned He

Bears His own cross, with pain, yet by and by

When it bears him, He must bear more and die.

Now Thou art lifted up, draw me to Thee,

And at Thy death giving such liberal dole,

Moist with one drop of Thy blood my dry soul.

‘Stand To: Good Friday’ by Siegfried Sassoon (1886-1967)

I’d been on duty from two till four. 


I went and stared at the dug-out door. 


Down in the frowst I heard them snore. 


‘Stand to!’ Somebody grunted and swore. 


Dawn was misty; the skies were still; 


Larks were singing, discordant, shrill; 


They seemed happy; but I felt ill. 


Deep in water I splashed my way 


Up the trench to our bogged front line. 


Rain had fallen the whole damned night. 


O Jesus, send me a wound to-day, 


And I’ll believe in Your bread and wine, 


And get my bloody old sins washed white!

‘On Our Crucified Lord, Naked And Bloody’ by Richard Crashaw (1612-49)

Th’ have left thee naked, Lord, O that they had!
This garment too I would they had denied.
Thee with thyself they have too richly clad,
Opening the purple wardrobe of thy side.
O never could be found garments too good
For thee to wear, but these, of thine own blood.

‘The Passion’ by George Herbert (1593-1633)

Since blood is fittest, Lord to write 


Thy sorrows in, and bloody fight; 


My heart hath store, write there, where in 


One box doth lie both ink and sin: 



That when sin spies so many foes, 


Thy whips, thy nails, thy wounds, thy woes 


All come to lodge there, sin may say, 


'No room for me', and fly away. 



Sin being gone, oh fill the place, 


And keep possession with thy grace; 


Lest sin take courage and return, 


And all the writings blot or burn.