When I see her face to face,
At home a-front the rolling sea,
A buoyant tide of life flows over me,
With quickened, joyful pace.
A breath from perfumed hills I inbreathe
That is purer than the breeze
From sun-lit seas;
And I perceive a beauty incarnate,
Not far below the gifted gods,
Who for others mediate,
And to men bequeathe
The best from Him immaculate.
She is a symphony,
A living, moving harmony,
Where doomed discord would rampant be;
Face to be studied like Art’s masterpiece, and more,
For somehow it charms one beyond self and toil and the beaten shore.
If I cannot tell,
Nor explain the spell,
In my own heart’s depths
I know why
She has eyes that image, please and edify.
In smiles which come and go and quick return,
I feel the ebb and flow of a fuller Fount and vaster,
The symbols visible of unseen verities,
For which I yearn,
And those high born, universal sympathies,
Pouring ever forth from the highest Master.
Her altruistic thoughts and every word,
Like the spontaneous out-burst of a joy-filled bird,
Looking near and far to lighten human needs—
More fruitful than Pomona are her deeds—
All these point to heights where one’s transferred,
Softly, safely, faster.
Her life is one of many links and spans,
Unbroken and unbreakable—
For joyless mortals joy unspeakable—
Forged links, not made with human hands,
In mystery joining together heaven and earth,
Till the day of fullness and our greatest birth,
Day of fulfillment,
And at-one-ment.
And then?
_Ah Then!_
[15] This beautiful character and other proven friends described in
these pages measure up to the standard now, as the author sees it and
them—yet the coveted ideal rises ever higher as we press on toward the
Highest. C. J.