Conscience
by Grant Thorpe
 |
| Ah
conscience tutored in the ways of |
| Rightness |
| Practised
in the ways of |
| Rectitude |
| Raging
still until each aberration |
| Is
made good |
| And
raging too until |
| Each
thought is |
| Pure
and steady |
| |
| Ah
conscience never satisfied |
| Working
on until |
| The
flesh is limp and |
| Mind
exhausted |
| Urging
on to kingdoms that will |
| Compensate
and camouflage |
| The
lack that still remains |
| |
| Ah
conscience |
| Meet
your Master |
| Even
God |
| Not
with face all stern |
| And
whip in hand |
| But
in the face of Christ |
| Sin
bearer |
| |
| See
there the |
| Thefts,
adulteries and murders |
| And
many lesser crimes |
| All
lovingly embraced and borne |
| Before
the Father’s holy love |
| Not
one wild deed |
| Omitted |
| All
atoned, all washed |
| Not
one thing left to lurk or spoil |
| The
reconciliation |
| |
| Conscience |
| Meet
your Maker |
| Who
decreed that love |
| His
love |
| Be
motive all alone |
| Enough |
| To
move the race to duty |
| And
to zeal. |
| |
| Make
me acknowledge only |
| My
great need of |
| Love |
| Exposure
to the very heart of God |
| Pulsating
with affections |
| Great
and tender |
| Tell
me when I err |
| In
this respect alone |
| |
| Do
not |
| Stir
up to |
| Greater
deeds to |
| Compensate,
annul or |
| Catch
up with the past |
| It
is against my God |
| I
sin |
| ‘Gainst
him alone |
| And
sin against |
| His
loving me |
| And
‘tis to move against his love |
| To
look for other |
| Things
to change |
| |
| Ah
crime of deepest import |
| Ah
deed of greatest shame |
| To
have thought his love austere |
| His
pleasure hard to gain |
| And
to have turned |
| To
idols |
| Enamoured
so with idols |
| That
his love laid |
| Unreceived |
| |
| Tell
me of this |
| Alert
me at first sign |
| And
turn your vigilance to |
| Any
wandering from grace |
| |
| Ah
conscience |
| Be
you tutored by the cross |
| Of
Christ |
| Do
not presume to have |
| A
charter outside this |
| Call
sin what God calls sin |
| That
sin to death |
| Which
spurns his grace |
| |
| Alert
me then alone |
| To
seek outpourings of |
| That
love—none else |
| What
business do I have |
| With
deeds which merely satisfy |
| Convention |
| Or
my longing for |
| Relationships—patched
up and thin |
| With
no true love? |
| Require
of me alone that |
| I
ask, receive, be thankful for, and give |
| His
love. |
| |
| ©
Grant Thorpe, July 1991, August 2002 |
