Sacred Poems and Anthems
Contents Updated: Friday, July 14, 2000
The Real Twenty-Third Psalm
Earth Prayers from Around the World, edited by Elizabeth Roberts and Elias Amidon, Harper Collins, San Francisco, 1991, is an excellent source of nature prayers. Many put faith in a god but they are easily changed to Goddess or Great Mother or some other such title of the Nature Goddess. For example, changing the 23rd psalm into a poem to the Goddess shows how artificial it ever was to make a male god into a poetic muse in the first place. Take a look…
Nature my pasture shall prepare,
And feed me with a shepherd’s care;
Her presence shall my wants supply,
And guide me with a watchful eye;
My noonday walks She shall attend,
And all my midnight fears forfend.
When in the humid swamp I faint,
Or in the thirsty deserts pant,
In fertile vales and dewy meads
My weary, wandering steps She leads,
Where peaceful rivers soft and slow,
Amid the verdant landscape flow.
Though in a bare and rugged way,
Through devious lonely wilds I stray,
Thy bounty shall my pains beguile;
The barren wilderness shall smile,
With sudden greens and herbage crowned,
And streams shall murmur all around.
Though in the paths of death I tred
Whose unknown fears I’m taught to dread,
My steadfast heart shall love thee still,
For thou, Goddess, do me no ill,
But show, from selfless sacrifice,
New life shall bless thy paradise.
Adapted from Joseph Addison
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