Hail, Cross between the antlers beaming,
Brighter than the brightest pain!
Hunted as the wild stag, white as host-to-tongue,
We long to savor Thee!
Wild bread, wilder meat, wending through weeds,
With hooves that wound us, then pursue us.
Our guard has been let down,
And the Game has turned to slay us!
We fear Thee, and we flee Thee,
O Lord of the Raging Love!
All the world has dimmed and brimmed,
With woes of winters and songs of spring.
Thou art born in the fist, and die in the second,
And now, and forever, Thou rise…
And we run!
O Paradox Divine,
Of sweetest flesh and strongest blood,
We are both hound and stag, as Thou art;
We seek Thee, and are sought!
Thy Name is a tangle to our tongues,
But brambles weave regal crowns.
Redemption licks honey from thorns,
And draws milk from stony breasts.
The earth is rumbling;
Our footing is lost.
We hear the stag’s moan,
Arrow in the heart!
Yes, His and Ours the same!
We are dying unto ourselves
And into Thee!
If the Light goes out of our eyes,
We shall yet pursue it,
And be pursued by it,
Into the deep that calls unto deep,
Where the Hunter and the Hunted
Are no longer two,
But One.