THE SONG OF SOPHROSYNE

‘Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them. ' John 7:38


The lord’s house called drunken sailors to street shore

Their ship scuttled on a misty bustling moor

Once stranded, spat out of an alehouse harbour

Swaddled in Sophrosyne’s embrace

A patient shield for exposed girls to wield

We bleed clean, empty-handed, expectant

In the face of our husband’s heaviest rain

Our battalion of silence raised its flag repentant

To repel aimless cruelty, no sober man’s game

The church’s mission remains ascendant

To light fires of faith in innocent minds

To bathe their souls in less mead than mercy

For our rain is sweeter nectar than sin

For our font shall thrive beneath His wing

Again the word of the Lord is heard

To provide for poor, preserve the pure

His works endure

Rivers of old promise diverted to new purpose

To relinquish paved roads from a polluted grasp

A new guiding hand arrives to stem its tide

To end their thirst, a small salvation tucked away to hide

Grace a high street stage adorned in thorned crown

The font returns remade, its final foes yet to drown


“But whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a fount of water springing up to eternal life.” – John 4:14