When was choruses from the rock written

Where the bricks are fallen We will build with new stone Where the beams are rotten We will build with new timbers Where the word is unspoken We will build with new speech There is work together A Church for all And a job for each Every man to his work.

What life have you, if you have not life together? There is not life that is not in community, And no community not lived in praise of GOD. And now you live dispersed on ribbon roads, And no man knows or cares who is his neighbor Unless his neighbor makes too much disturbance, But all dash to and fro in motor cars, Familiar with the roads and settled nowhere. I have given you the power of choice, and you only alternate Between futile speculation and unconsidered action.

Do you huddle close together because you love each other? Oh my soul, be prepared for the coming of the Stranger. Be prepared for him who knows how to ask questions.

There is one who remembers the way to your door: Life you may evade, but Death you shall not. You shall not deny the Stranger. They constantly try to escape From the darkness outside and within By dreaming of systems so perfect that no one will need to be good. But the man that is shall shadow The man that pretends to be. Then it seemed as if men must proceed from light to light, in the light of the Word, Through the Passion and Sacrifice saved in spite of their negative being; Bestial as always before, carnal, self seeking as always before, selfish and purblind as ever before, Yet always struggling, always reaffirming, always resuming their march on.

But it seems that something has happened that has never happened before: though we know not just when, or why, or how, or where. Men have left GOD not for other gods, they say, but for no God; and this has never happened before That men both deny gods and worship gods, professing first Reason, And then Money, and Power, and what they call Life, or Race, or Dialectic.

What have we to do but stand with empty hands and palms turned upwards in an age which advances progressively backwards? The God-shaken, in whom is the truth inborn. I have trodden the winepress alone, and I know That it is hard to be really useful, resigning The things that men count for happiness, seeking The good deeds that lead to obscurity, accepting With equal face those that bring ignominy, The applause of all or the love of none.

All men are ready to invest their money But most expect dividends. I say to you: Make perfect your will. I say: take no thought of the harvest, But only of proper sowing. The world turns and the world changes, But one thing does not change. In all of my years, one thing does not change. However you disguise it, this thing does not change: The perpetual struggle of Good and Evil. Forgetful, you neglect your shrines and churches; The men you are in these times deride What has been done of good, you find explanations To satisfy the rational and enlightened mind.

Second, you neglect and belittle the desert. The desert is not remote in southern tropics, The desert is not only around the corner, The desert is squeezed in the tube-train next to you. The desert is in the heart of your brother.

The good man is the builder, if he build what is good. I will show you the things that are now being done, And some of the things that were long ago done, That you may take heart. Make perfect your will. Let me show you the work of the humble. In the vacant places We will build with new bricks There are hands and machines And clay for new brick And lime for new mortar Where the bricks are fallen We will build with new stone Where the beams are rotten We will build with new timbers Where the word is unspoken We will build with new speech There is work together A Church for all And a job for each Every man to his work.

From farther away, they are answered by voices of the Unemployed. Noman has hired us With pocketed hands And lowered faces We stand about in open places And shiver in unlit rooms. Only the wind moves Over empty fields, untilled Where the plough rests, at an angle To the furrow. In this land There shall be one cigarette to two men, To two women one half pint of bitter Ale. In this land No man has hired us. The river flows, the seasons turn, The sparrow and starling have no time to waste.

If men do not build How shall they live? When the field is tilled And the wheat is bread They shall not die in a shortened bed And a narrow sheet. In this street There is no beginning, no movement, no peace and no end But noise without speech, food without taste. Without delay, without haste We would build the beginning and the end of this street. We build the meaning: A Church for all And a job for each Each man to his work.

But you, have you built well, that you now sit helpless in a ruined house? Where many are born to idleness, to frittered lives and squalid deaths, embittered scorn in honey-hives, And those who would build and restore turn out the palms of their hands, or look in vain towards foreign lands for alms to be more or the urn to be filled.

Your building not fitly framed together, you sit ashamed and wonder whether and how you may be builded together for a habitation of God in the Spirit, the Spirit which moved on the face of the waters like a lantern set on the back of a tortoise. For love must be made real in act, as desire unites with desired; we have only our labour to give and our labour is not required.

We wait on corners, with nothing to bring but the songs we can sing which nobody wants to hear sung; Waiting to be flung in the end, on a heap less useful than dung. Talking of right relations of men, but not of relations of men to God.

When your fathers fixed the place of God, And settled all the inconvenient saints, Apostles, martyrs, in a kind of Whipsnade, Then they could set about imperial expansion Accompanied by industrial development. Exporting iron, coal and cotton goods And intellectual enlightenment And everything, including capital And several versions of the Word of God: The British race assured of a mission Performed it, but left much at home unsure.

Of all that was done in the past, you eat the fruit, either rotten or ripe. And the Church must be forever building, and always decaying. For every ill deed in the past we suffer the consequence: For sloth, for avarice, gluttony, neglect of the Word of God. For pride, for lechery, treachery, for every act of sin. And of all that was done that was good, you have the inheritance. For good and ill deeds belong to a man alone, when he stands alone on the other side of death, But here upon earth you have the reward of the good and ill that was done by those who have gone before you.

And all that is ill you may repair if you walk together in humble repentance, expiating the sins of your fathers; And all that was good you must fight to keep with hearts as devoted as those of your fathers who fought to gain it. The Church must be forever building, for it is forever decaying within and attacked from without; For this is the law of life; and you must remember that while there is time of prosperity The people will neglect the Temple, and in time of adversity they will decry it.

What life have you if you have not life together? There is no life that is not in community, And no community not lived in praise of God. Even the anchorite who meditates alone, For whom the days and nights repeat the praise of God, Prays for the Church, the Body of Christ incarnate. And now you live dispersed on ribbon roads.

And no man knows or cares who is his neighbour Unless his neighbour makes too much disturbance, But all dash to and fro in motor cars, Familiar with the roads and settled nowhere. Nor does the family even move about together.

But every son would have his motor cycle, And daughters ride away on casual pillions. Much to cast down, much to build, much to restore; Let the work not delay, time and the arm not waste; Let the clay be dug from the pit, let the saw cut the stone.

Let the fire not be quenched in the forge. Sold by the proceeds of your proper inventions: I have given you hands which you turn from worship, I have given you speech, for endless palaver, I have given you my Law, and you set up commissions, I have given you lips, to express friendly sentiments, I have given you hearts, for reciprocal distrust.

I have given you power of choice, and you only alternate Between futile speculation and unconsidered action. Many are engaged in writing books and printing them. Many desire to see their names in print. Many read nothing but the race reports.

Will you build me a house of plaster, with corrugated roofing, To be filled with a litter of Sunday newspapers? Will you leave my people forgetful and forgotten To idleness, labour, and delirious stupor? There shall be left the broken chimney, The peeled hull, a pile of rusty iron.

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