The Lord's my shepherd. I shall rest content.
With all that can delight the hearts of sheep
he spread my table; by the quiet deep
I slept, and woke, and followed where he went,
and for my sake he kept the wolf at bay.
The grass I ate was his, and thus was mine,
his ewe lamb, with the other ninety-nine;
the Lord's my shepherd. Then I ran away.

I thought to find a crown. I found a sham:
no grass grew east of Eden I could eat.
But as I starved, he heard my dying bleat
the Lord was born my sacrificial lamb;

all we like sheep have gone astray; and yet
the Lord has laid on him the human debt.

(Photo: Lamb at Röe Castle, by W. Carter; public domain)