{"id":4557,"date":"2015-04-07T10:11:38","date_gmt":"2015-04-07T14:11:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rayvanneste.com\/?p=4557"},"modified":"2015-04-07T10:11:38","modified_gmt":"2015-04-07T14:11:38","slug":"chesterton-o-god-of-earth-and-altar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rayvanneste.com\/?p=4557","title":{"rendered":"Chesterton, &#8220;O God of Earth and Altar&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>My friend, Greg Thornbury, mentioned this poem recently, and it grabbed me as a fitting poetic prayer for our time. So, this poem from Chesterton is on my door as the poem of the week.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><strong>\u201cO God of Earth and Altar\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><em>by\u00a0<\/em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.chesterton.org\/author\/unclechestnut\/\">G.K. CHESTERTON<\/a><\/p>\n<p>O God of earth and altar,<\/p>\n<p>Bow down and hear our cry,<\/p>\n<p>Our earthly rulers falter,<\/p>\n<p>Our people drift and die;<\/p>\n<p>The walls of gold entomb us,<\/p>\n<p>The swords of scorn divide,<\/p>\n<p>Take not thy thunder from us,<\/p>\n<p>But take away our pride.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>From all that terror teaches,<\/p>\n<p>From lies of tongue and pen,<\/p>\n<p>From all the easy speeches<\/p>\n<p>That comfort cruel men,<\/p>\n<p>From sale and profanation<\/p>\n<p>Of honour and the sword,<\/p>\n<p>From sleep and from damnation,<\/p>\n<p>Deliver us, good Lord.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Tie in a living tether<\/p>\n<p>The prince and priest and thrall,<\/p>\n<p>Bind all our lives together,<\/p>\n<p>Smite us and save us all;<\/p>\n<p>In ire and exultation<\/p>\n<p>Aflame with faith, and free,<\/p>\n<p>Lift up a living nation,<\/p>\n<p>A single sword to thee.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>My friend, Greg Thornbury, mentioned this poem recently, and it grabbed me as a fitting poetic prayer for our time. So, this poem from Chesterton is on my door as the poem of the week. \u201cO God of Earth and Altar\u201d by\u00a0G.K. CHESTERTON O God of earth and altar, Bow down and hear our cry, &#8230;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/rayvanneste.com\/?p=4557\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading &lsquo;Chesterton, &#8220;O God of Earth and Altar&#8221;&rsquo; &raquo;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[338,261],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rayvanneste.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4557"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rayvanneste.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rayvanneste.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rayvanneste.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rayvanneste.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4557"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/rayvanneste.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4557\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4558,"href":"http:\/\/rayvanneste.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4557\/revisions\/4558"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rayvanneste.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4557"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rayvanneste.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4557"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rayvanneste.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4557"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}