Confiteri: ‘The Shrine of St Cuthbert’

To the tomb of Halig Cuthbert

The Reformers came, full of wrath and spite.

To the shrine of Halig Cuthbert

The marauders came, to steal and to spoil.

Bone rot they thought to find,

Being darkened in their minds.

But a body instead they saw,

Sweet-smelling and whole.

For God had not abandoned him,

The Lord, Who has hallowed him.

The Christ-hating band fell back,

But forward went again.

The Christ-hating mob,

No one could stay nor stop.

His wealth they robbed,

His leg they broke,

Leaving him forgot and fornaught--

Or so to them it seemed.

But the fathers are not the bairns;

Arise O Southron!

But the fathers are not the bairns;

Go forth O South son!

With your feet or in your heart,

Run to Durham, to the grace-filled relics

Of our God-bearing Father,

Cuthbert of Lindisfarne,

The holiest saint of Angle-kin,

And ask him with meekness and love

And tear after tear

To pray for the stricken Southland,

Until, uplifted by his labors,

She becomes the Eden

She has always striven to be:

The Garden of the Trinity.

Note: ‘Halig’ is Old English for ‘holy’.

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