A Fond Farewell

Citing lack of time, energy, commitment, and the unacceptable number of female contributors, I do hereby tender my resignation. I suspect I will from time to time post something as a guest, but I will no longer make regular contributions. I hope you will all remember me, and that you will continue your wonderful writing without my support. Anyway, I found something that seemed apropos, so this will be my last contribution. It is, again, written in tetrameter, which I am beginning to realize is somewhat constrained, as some of you have pointed out, but such as it is:

Song of the Prodigal

I wish to sin, for I am sin,
so have me sin against you, Lord
and let me sin again, again,
though I know that it is absurd.

Lord, I must sin, and sin again,
for only then do I know good
from evil; let me sin, and sin,
until you drown me in the flood.

And while I sin, yet let me sin
still stronger than I sinned before
and have me freeze my heart, and then
incinerate me in the fire.

Lord, I am lost in sin; so then
remove from me my first birthright
and know me not, for I do sin
against your kingdom’s heav’nly state.

Posted at 3:18 am EST on the 28th of June 2009 by N. E. Embrey.

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There are 4 replies.
 
  1. H. G. Roorda says on June 28th, 2009 at 8:09 am

    You probably have anticipated my response to the poem, but here it is anyway: It’s unrealistic. There’s no law and no grace in it. You have to at least have one. It makes me sad.

    I’ll miss you.

  2. P. B. Hilton says on July 3rd, 2009 at 1:02 pm

    That reminds me of St. Augustine. Was this poem influenced by him at all?

    And alas, I’m sorry to see you go. I’ll miss your liberal and noctivagian contributions. Fare thee well.

    A Tennyson poem seems appropriate:

    Dark house, by which once more I stand
    Here in the long unlovely street.
    Doors, where my heart was used to beat
    So quickly, waiting for a hand.

    A hand that can be clasped no more –
    Behold me, for I cannot sleep,
    And like a guilty thing I creep
    At earliest morning to the door.

    He is not here; but far away
    The noise of life begins again,
    And ghastly thro’ the drizzling rain
    On the bald street breaks the blank day.

  3. Nick says on July 12th, 2009 at 1:22 pm

    Han- I’m not sure that a poem like this can be either realistic or unrealistic, since nothing actually happens in the poem that could then be compared to reality. It’s just a sort of despairing prayer. You could argue that the sentiments expressed are themselves unrealistic (i.e. that a person could not realistically have such sentiments, or that they would never express them in this way if they did), but that seems to me to be manifestly untrue.

    Phil- Yes and no. It wasn’t directly influenced by him, and all I’ve really read of Augustine is his Confessions, and that was three years ago. I didn’t like it at the time. Lately his thought has been coming back to me, though, both in remembering parts of the book and encountering some very Augustinian Protestant theology for the first time; and I’ve been finding myself more and more empathetic.

    I’ll miss posting here. It was fun. I may occasionally put something on the blog over at noodlelight.blogspot.com , but it probably won’t be quite the same kind of thing.

  4. Erin says on July 26th, 2009 at 1:13 am

    “Should we sin that Grace may abound? – By no means!”