The HyperTexts

Scáth Beorh

Scáth Beorh began telling stories when he was two, writing stories when he was eight, had his first work published at fourteen, and since that momentous day has written, to date, 2,000 poems, 250 short stories, and five novels, and has edited a dozen or so magazines since 1985, including the well-received Darc Colours ('86-'88). Today he acquires for Beorh Quarterly. He is also the author of the novels Black Fox In Thin Places (Emby Press), Always After Thieves Watch (Wildside Press), Children & Other Wicked Things (JWK Fiction), and a number of other books including the forthcoming Emby novels Ghosts of St. Augustine, October House, and Blood: A Vampire Chronicle. Beorh has lived in Hollywood, Ireland, Portland ME, and St. Augustine FL, and once flew to India on a weird whim. Raised a Christian, but then falling into apostasy for a long while before being called back from the Abyss, today he is married to a beautiful girl called Ember, and is a writer of Horror and Dark Fantasy influenced by the authors of the Bible, Arthur Machen, Charles Dickens, Sylvia Plath, J. R. R. Tolkien, George Mackay Brown, Ernest Hemingway, Francis Marion Crawford, J. S. Le Fanu, and many other writers of the strange, the realistic, the sacred, and the macabre. His vision is to continue telling the good news to anyone who, finally sick of themselves, longs for release from this tragedy we call "the world."

O Thou Fount Of Joy, I Praise Thee
 
In my dark night He brought His joy
   by an ancient melody.
I was young then, did not know that
   what He taught me by degree
was a way to remain with Him
   when the storms of each new year
gathered o’erhead in defiance
   as if Death were that to fear.
Then came time for valediction
   and I wandered from His sight.
I was dragged then hither, tither
   ’til my eyes could find no light.
Ev’ry path which first seemed easy
   later proved to be a mire.
Then I heard Him, softly, clearly,
   calling me Home from my dire
circumstances, false romances,
   hateful word and hateful hand;
for my fear had made me wonder
   if there truly was a land
filled with joy and readied for the
   one submitting all to Love.
Had I listened and not trusted
   in my self but looked above
I would have seen there in my sorrow
   that a kingdom overlays
this dark valley where death lingers,
   disappearing in our praise.
O, Thou Fount of Joy, I humbly
   give my very life to Thee.
Use me as Thou will, and guide me
   ev’ry step ’til I will be
in Thy Presence, there to never
   leave again Thy sweet embrace.
I am saddened for believing
   in a lesser source of Grace.
O, my Shepherd, how I love Thee—
   I now give my all to Thee.
Waking, sleeping, I am yearning
   that Thy Light burn bright in me.

The HyperTexts