Pairings: Justin Welby

Justin Welby

Alumnus; Archbishop of Canterbury

This is the beginning of Canto 3, from Five Quintets, an unpublished poem by Micheal O’Siadhail. ‘Abundance’ – the title of the section from which this is taken – speaks in the context of Dante, but for me it resonates with Newton, with my memories of International Law supervisions as an undergraduate, which took place in Newton’s rooms in Great Court, and with all that is inspiring in Trinity.

You’re polymath and eager pioneer
Who doubling back becomes a daring scout,
Defining our modernity’s frontier
By summing up what somehow opens out.
A fluke of birth, a lucky floruit,
As banished and uncoddled by soft fame,
You blame defectors’ sham and counterfeit;
Unhampered your cold hell will name and shame.
But more! As certain as the second thief,
This day in paradise you too are shown
The smile whose warmth unzips the lily’s leaf,
The light eternal in itself alone.
You’re stretching still my mind and my desire
To walk our daring God of love’s high wire.

by kind permission of the author