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ELIOT,
T.S.
Lord, shall we not
bring these gifts to Your service?
Shall we
not bring to Your service all our powers
For life,
for dignity, grace and order,
And
intellectual pleasures of the senses?
The Lord
who created must wish us to create
And employ
our creation again in His service
Which is
already His service in creating.
(Smidt,
1961, 55)
We build in vain unless the Lord
build with us.
(Buxton, 520)
O weariness of men who turn from God
To the grandeur of your
mind and the glory of your action,
To arts and inventions
and daring enterprises,
To the schemes of human
greatness thoroughly discredited,
Binding the earth and
the water to your service,
Exploiting the seas and
developing the mountains,
Dividing the stars into
common and preferred,
Engaged in devising the
perfect refrigerator,
Engaged in working out a
rational morality,
Engaged in printing as
many books as possible,
Plotting of happiness
and flinging empty bottles,
Turning from your
vacancy to fevered enthusiasm
For nation or race or
what you call humanity;
Though You forget the
way to the Temple,
There is one who
remembers the way to your door:
Life you may evade, but
Death you shall not.
You shall not deny the
stranger.
(Ibid.,
520-521)
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