Poem: Why are we by all creatures waited on?

A reflection on the supremacy of Man above the rest of God's Creation, by John Donne.



Why are we by all creatures waited on?


Why are we by all creatures waited on?
Why do the prodigal elements supply
Life and food to me, being more pure than I,
Simple, and further from corruption?
Why brook'st thou, ignorant horse, subjection?
Why dost thou, bull and boar, so seelily
Dissemble weakness, and by one man's stroke die
Whose whole kind you might swallow and feed upon?
Weaker I am, woe's me, and worse than you,
You have not sinn'd, nor need be timorous.
But wonder at a greater wonder, for to us
Created nature doth these things subdue,
But their Creator, whom sin nor nature tied,
For us, his Creatures and his foes, hath died.

Poem: Desert

A timeless devotion to God for His creation, the desert, by Henry Vaughan.



I have deserved a thick Egyptian damp,
       Dark as my deeds,
Should mist within me, and put out that lamp
       Thy spirit feeds;
A darting conscience full of stabs and fears,
       No shade but yew,
Sullen and sad eclipses, cloudy spheres,
       These are my due.
But He that with His blood, a price too dear,
       My scores did pay,
Bid me, by virtue from Him, challenge here
       The brightest day;
Sweet, downy thoughts, soft lily-shades, calm streams,
       Joys full and true,
Fresh spicy mornings and eternal beams,
       These are His due.