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Sunday, March 3, 2013

Poem: “A Prodigal Son” By Christina Rossetti


Does that lamp still burn in my father’s house,
Which he kindled the night I went away?
I turned once beneath the cedar boughs,
              And marked it gleam with a golden ray;
              Did he think to light me home some day?

Hungry here with the crunching swine,
              Hungry harvest have I to reap;
In a dream I count my Father’s kine,*
              I hear the tinkling bells of his sheep,
              I watch his lambs that browse and leap.

There is plenty of bread at home,
              His servant have bread enough and to spare;
The purple wine-fat froths with foam,
              Oil and spices make sweet the air,
              While I perish hungry and bare.

                           Rich and blessed those servants, rather
                                         Than I who see not my Father’s face!
                           I will arise and go to my Father –
“Fallen from sonship, beggared of grace,
Grant me, Father, a servant’s place.”


*Kine: archaic plural for “cow”

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