“You are drunk, but not with wine.”
—Isaiah 51:21
O God of too much giving, whence is this
inebriation that possesses me,
that the staid road now wanders all amiss
and that the wind walks much too giddily,
clutching a bush for balance, or a tree?
How then can dignity and pride endure
with such inordinate mirth upon the land,
when steps and speech are somewhat insecure
and the light heart is wholly out of hand?
If there be indecorum in my songs,
fasten the blame where rightly it belongs:
on Him who offered me too many cups
of His most potent goodness—not on me,
a peasant who, because a king was host,
drank out of courtesy.
This poem was originally published in the Catholic World 173 (April 1951), and then in The House at Rest (privately printed, 1984), and is compiled in The Selected Poetry of Jessica Powers, ed. Regina Siegfried and Robert Morneau (ICS Publications, 1989).
Jessica Powers (1905–1988) was an American poet and cloistered nun from Wisconsin. She took vows at the Carmel of the Mother of God in Milwaukee (later relocated to Pewaukee) in 1942, taking the monastic name Sister Miriam of the Holy Spirit, OCD. She had an active writing career for over sixty years, publishing under her birth name. She was influenced by the works of other Carmelite writers, such as Teresa of Ávila, John of the Cross, and Thérèse of Lisieux.
(Related posts: “Hurrahing in Harvest” by Gerard Manley Hopkins; “Tripping over Joy” by Daniel Ladinsky)
