MAKER OF HEAVEN AND EARTH.
(A counterblast to the popular hymn)
All things grand and wonderful,
All creatures large and small;
All things fine and beautiful:
The Lord God fashioned all.
The songsters in the garden
That gorge their living prey;
The kestrel, kite and falcon,
Whose tribute fledglings pay.
All things grand………
The soldier ant and scorpion,
The cobra lurking near;
And all the jungle fauna
His little children fear.
All things grand………
Ichneumon fly whose larva
Small vestige leaves behind;
And Man and all things living
That prey upon their kind
All things grand………
And evolution's dictate,
“The weakest to the wall”,
Was fashioned by our Maker:
Adapt or face his call!
All things grand………
The rich tycoon triumphant,
The poor soul dogged by fate;
He made their pride and heartbreak,
Ordained their earthly state.
All things grand………
And infamy of infamies,
To dare to join the few!
The sickening power of numbers, --
Their democratic due!
All things grand………
Injustice, evil, passion,
Inherent in our line,
Are scarce the marks of Godhead:
And Man was made divine!
All things grand………
Bacterium and virus,
The cancer that erodes,
All ills of old and childhood;
The symptom that forebodes.
All things grand………
The mine wherein disaster
Leaves mother mourning son;
Volcano and tornado
And tempest pitying none
All things grand………
Pompeii, Ypres and Auschwitz,
Titanic, Aberfan,
Glencoe, Back Hole, Lidice;
The fault and fate of Man?
All things grand………
Are these the things supernal,
The attributes of God?
Is this divine creation?
Or did the craftsman nod?
All things grand………
Man made in God’s perfection?
Or God as wrought by Man?
Anthropomorphic bombast!
God pity us - while He can!
All things grand and wonderful;
All creatures large and small;
All things fine and beautiful:
The Lord God fashioned all.
February 1970