Shame to all my thoughts now
How they skip and stray,
This will be my danger
On the Judgment day.
At the singing of the psalms
My thoughts take another road,
Giddy, fretful always
Forgetting about God.
With wanton women
Beckoning in the mind
Through woods, through cities –
swifter than any wind
Now in a sweet meadow
Now in a place of shame
Now in a banquet-hall
In a country without a name.
Unhelped by even the slightest craft
They make light of every sea;
One leap from earth to heaven
Proves their agility.
They run the race of folly
Far and near;
After a daft spin through time and space
They come back here.
And if I shackled their hands, fettered their feet,
Tethered them to my own breast,
Do you think that would stop them?
They’d never rest.
Sword and whip are helpless
To keep them down,
Eels bellying through grasses
Of the mind’s moist ground.
No lock of jail or dungeon
Can hold them back,
No man-made chains will keep them
From their crazy track.
O Christ
To You such things are clear
Help me to net these thoughts
To keep them here.
Locked in my mind’s cold cell,
Feeling the chill
Discipline that makes me hope
I do Your will.
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