Poem: The Killing

Altarpiece by Ernst Hildebrand - Courtesy Wikipedia

The Killing is by the Scottish poet, novelist, and translator: Edwin Muir (1887–1959). It was published in 1956, along with One Foot in Eden in his final collection of poetry. The Killing is included in the Religious Poetry Appendix for Lent and Easter of the Divine Office (1974).

Poem: One Foot in Eden

From These Beclouded Skies

One Foot in Eden is by the Scottish poet, novelist, and translator: Edwin Muir (1887–1959). Published in 1956, the poem delves into the predominant theme that carries through much of his work: Man's expulsion from Eden. He saw it as a kind of archetypal journey (in the Jungian sense) that is repeated again and again in each of our lives. To express this, he often drew upon his own family's move in 1901 from the agrarian and idyllic world of his childhood home on the Orkney Islands to the the gritty industrial city of Glasgow where his mother, father, and two brothers all died within 5 years of arriving. One Foot in Eden is included in the Religious Poetry Appendix for Lent and Easter of the Divine Office (1974).


Reading by Fr. John J. O'Riordain, CSsR from Mt. St. Alphonsus, Limerick


By Nicholas Maw (1935-2009), Performed by the Helsinki Chamber Choir

Poem: O Perpetual Revolution of Configured Stars

O Perpetual Revolution of Configured Stars is an excerpt from Choruses from The Rock by T.S. Eliot (1888-1965). The Rock is a play that Elliot wrote in the form of a medieval pageant which included music by Martin Shaw and was first performed in 1934. O Perpetual Revolution of Configured Stars is included in the Religious Poetry Appendix for Lent and Easter of the Divine Office (1974). The excerpt therein begins at Line 3 of the Choruses and ends at Line 13 (But nearness to death no nearer to God). The full text can be found here.


Reading  (Excerpt Times - 0:10 to 0:55)