"The Country Clergy" by R. S. Thomas

“Young priest reading” by Martinus Rørbye, from the collection of the National Museum of Art in Norway

With a summer full of ordinations and ordination anniversaries behind us, and with the start of many catechism and confirmation classes just ahead, the following poem by R. S. Thomas seems worthy of consideration.

I see them working in old rectories
By the sun’s light, by candlelight,
Venerable men, their black cloth
A little dusty, a little green
With holy mildew. And yet their skulls,
Ripening over so many prayers,
Toppled into the same grave
With oafs and yokels. They left no books,
Memorial to their lonely thought
In grey parishes; rather they wrote
On men’s hearts and in the minds
Of young children sublime words
Too soon forgotten. God in his time
Or out of time will correct this.