-- The Seeds of Mercy –

John Herlihy

Mercy considered a blessing whose ripples encircle the heart,

Spark of compassion to soothe as terminal justice counterpart.

The recipient feels the benevolence of mercy’s luminous glow,

A kind of sacrifice on the merciful the act of mercy to bestow.

The mercy-giver forgives an offence in view of what is dutiful,

The one granted mercy cleansed by this forgiveness beautiful.

A sense of reverence, a worshipful praise, a path of sacrifice,

To offer others what they never offered you the wise advice.

For so long a sense of mercy seemed long departed and gone,

Yet all the while waiting for me when I could no longer go on.

When lost in the pit of despair, what comfort mercy brought,

Never the hope of a relief forborne, never a reprieve sought.

True, we must accept our lot, yet mercy found in every place,

To bear the afflictions thrust upon us with this amazing grace.

Ignored, abandoned, forgotten, but now listened to and heard,

Saving grace of universal sympathy found in this solitary word.

Acts of mercy as tear drops in the flowing river of forgiveness,

Acts of giving and acts of love, with their sense of peacefulness.

No matter how great, how small, they reflect human decency,

We each and every one of us can evolve into a being of mercy.

Reason to govern, imagination to create and mercy to forgive,

The first is law, the second is fantasy, the last our prerogative.

We expect God to have mercy, yet what mercy do we show,

Insight and compassion for others the only mercy we know.

No mercy can come from anyone with no goodness to give,

Everyone suffers anguish, everyone the right happily to live.

In those with hardness of heart, a sense of mercy will cease,

Those with tenderness of heart, a sense of mercy will release.

Justice to be tempered by mercy, we ask nothing less in return,

To plead guilty in the court of high appeals, yet for mercy yearn.

Mercy cannot be freely extended unless we feel another’s woe,

The mercy that I hope be extended to me, I will another show.

The quality of mercy as a gentle rain to fall down from heaven,

To the giver and receptor of mercy upon all earth’s brethren.

An attribute of God himself bestowed to the hearts of kings,

In kings such mercy found, but also in the heart of earthlings.

Everything in the world has a season and mercy seasons justice,

To lift the veil into a purer understanding as willing accomplice.

Neither a king’s crown, the soldier’s sword, the judge’s robe,

Can pursue as effectively as the result of compassion’s probe.

Let us have noble sentiments of compassion and love to burn,

Extend a sense of mercy to others to receive mercy in return.

The seeds of mercy as love nurtured in the ground of the soul,

To be plucked as a flower when we need the guilty to console.

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Copyright © John Herlihy

Wednesday 26 October 2022