Love loveth Thee, and wisdom loveth Thee:
The love that loveth Thee sits satisfied;
Wisdom that loveth Thee grows million-eyed,
Learning what was, and is, and is to be.
Wisdom and love are glad of all they see;
Their heart is deep, their hope is not denied;
They rock at rest on time’s unresting tide,
And wait to rest thro’ long eternity.
Wisdom and love and rest, each holy soul
Hath these to-day while day is only night:
What shall souls have when morning brings to light
Love, wisdom, rest, God’s treasure stored above?
Palm shall they have, and harp and aureole,
Wisdom, rest, love—and lo! the whole is love.
Lord, give me love that I may love Thee much,
Yea, give me love that I may love Thee more,
And all for love may worship and adore
And touch Thee with love’s consecrated touch.
I halt to-day; be love ray cheerful crutch,
My feet to plod, some day my wings to soar
Some day; but, Lord, not any day before
Thou call me perfect, having made me such.
This is a day of love, a day of sorrow,
Love tempering sorrow to a sort of bliss;
A day that shortens while we call it long:
A longer day of love will dawn to-morrow,
A longer, brighter, lovelier day than this,
Endless, all love, no sorrow, but a song.
“As a king,...unto the King.”
Love doth so grace and dignify
That beggars treat as king with king
Before the Throne of God most High:
Love recognises love’s own cry,
And stoops to take love’s offering.
A loving heart, tho’ soiled and bruised;
A kindling heart, tho’ cold before;
Who ever came and was refused
By Love? Do, Lord, as Thou art used
To do, and make me love Thee more.
O ye who love to-day,
Turn away
From Patience with her silver ray:
For Patience shows a twilight face,
Like a half-lighted moon
When daylight dies apace.
But ye who love to-morrow
Beg or borrow
To-day some bitterness of sorrow:
For Patience shows a lustrous face,
In depth of night her noon;
Then to her sun gives place.
Life that was born to-day
Must make no stay,
But tend to end
As blossom-bloom of May.
O Lord, confirm my root,
Train up my shoot,
To live and give
Harvest of wholesome fruit.
Life that was born to die
Sets heart on high,
And counts and mounts
Steep stages of the sky.
Two things, Lord, I desire
And I require;
Love’s name, and flame
To wrap my soul in fire.
Life that was born to love
Sends heart above
Both cloud and shroud,
And broods a peaceful dove.
Two things I ask of Thee;
Deny not me;
Eyesight and light
Thy Blessed Face to see.
“Perfect Love casteth out Fear.”
Lord, give me blessed fear,
And much more blessed love
That fearing I may love Thee here
And be Thy harmless dove:
Until Thou cast out fear,
Until Thou perfect love,
Until Thou end mine exile here
And fetch Thee home Thy dove.
Hope is the counterpoise of fear
While night enthralls us here.
Fear hath a startled eye that holds a tear:
Hope hath an upward glance, for dawn draws near
With sunshine and with cheer.
Fear gazing earthwards spies a bier;
And sets herself to rear
A lamentable tomb where leaves drop sere,
Bleaching to congruous skeletons austere:
Hope chants a funeral hymn most sweet and clear,
And seems true chanticleer
Of resurrection and of all things dear
In the oncoming endless year.
Fear ballasts hope, hope buoys up fear,
And both befit us here.
“Subject to like passions as we are.”
Whoso hath anguish is not dead in sin,
Whoso hath pangs of utterless desire.
Like as in smouldering flax which harbours fire,—
Red heat of conflagration may begin,
Melt that hard heart, burn out the dross within,
Permeate with glory the new man entire,
Crown him with fire, mould for his hands a lyre
Of fiery strings to sound with those who win.
Anguish is anguish, yet potential bliss,
Pangs of desire are birth-throes of delight;
Those citizens felt such who walk in white,
And meet, but no more sunder, with a kiss;
Who fathom still unfathomed mysteries,
And love, adore, rejoice, with all their might.
Experience bows a sweet contented face,
Still setting to her seal that God is true:
Beneath the sun, she knows, is nothing new;
All things that go return with measured pace,
Winds, rivers, man’s still recommencing race:—
While Hope beyond earth’s circle strains her view,
Past sun and moon, and rain and rainbow too,
Enamoured of unseen eternal grace.
Experience saith, “My God doth all things well:”
And for the morrow taketh little care,
Such peace and patience garrison her soul:—
While Hope, who never yet hath eyed the goal,
With arms flung forth, and backward floating hair,
Touches, embraces, hugs the invisible.
“Charity never faileth.”
Such is Love, it comforts in extremity,
Tho’ a tempest rage around and rage above,
Tempest beyond tempest, far as eye can see:
Such is Love,
That it simply heeds its mourning inward Dove;
Dove which craves contented for a home to be
Set amid the myrtles or an olive grove.
Dove-eyed Love contemplates the Twelve-fruited Tree,
Marks the bowing palms which worship as they move;
Simply sayeth, simply prayeth, “All for me!”
Such is Love.
“The Greatest of these is charity.”
A moon impoverished amid stars curtailed,
A sun of its exuberant lustre shorn,
A transient morning that is scarcely morn,
A lingering night in double dimness veiled.—
Our hands are slackened and our strength has failed:
We born to darkness, wherefore were we born?
No ripening more for olive, grape, or corn:
Faith faints, hope faints, even love himself has paled.
Nay! love lifts up a face like any rose
Flushing and sweet above a thorny stem,
Softly protesting that the way he knows;
And as for faith and hope, will carry them
Safe to the gate of New Jerusalem,
Where light shines full and where the palm-tree blows.
All beneath the sun hasteth,
All that hath begun wasteth;
Earth-notes change in tune
With the changeful moon,
Which waneth
While earth’s chant complaineth.
Plumbs the deep, Fear descending;
Scales the steep, Hope ascending;
Faith betwixt the twain
Plies both goad and rein,
Half fearing,
All hopeful, day is nearing.
If thou be dead, forgive and thou shalt live;
If thou hast sinned, forgive and be forgiven;
God waiteth to be gracious and forgive,
And open heaven.
Set not thy will to die and not to live;
Set not thy face as flint refusing heaven;
Thou fool, set not thy heart on hell: forgive
And be forgiven.
“Let patience have bet perfect work.”
Can man rejoice who lives in hourly fear?
Can man make haste who toils beneath a load?
Can man feel rest who has no fixed abode?
All he lays hold of, or can see or hear,
Is passing by, is prompt to disappear,
Is doomed, foredoomed, continueth in no stay:
This day he breathes in is his latter day,
This year of time is this world’s latter year.
Thus in himself is he most miserable:
Out of himself, Lord, lift him up to Thee,
Out of himself and all these worlds that flee;
Hold him in patience underneath the rod,
Anchor his hope beyond life’s ebb and swell,
Perfect his patience in the love of God.
Patience must dwell with Love, for Love and Sorrow
Have pitched their tent together here:
Love all alone will build a house to-morrow,
And sorrow not be near.
To-day for Love’s sake hope, still hope, in sorrow,
Rest in her shade and hold her dear:
To-day she nurses thee; and lo! to-morrow
Love only will be near.
“Let everything that hath breath praise the Lord.”
All that we see rejoices in the sunshine,
All that we hear makes merry in the Spring:
God grant us such a mind to be glad after our kind,
And to sing
His praises evermore for everything.
Much that we see must vanish with the sunshine,
Sweet Spring must fail, and fail the choir of Spring:
But Wisdom shall burn on when the lesser lights are gone,
And shall sing
God’s praises evermore for everything.
What is the beginning? Love. What the course? Love still.
What the goal? The goal is Love on the happy hill.
Is there nothing then but Love, search we sky or earth?
There is nothing out of Love hath perpetual worth:
All things flag but only Love, all things fail or flee;
There is nothing left but Love worthy you and me.
Lord, make me pure:
Only the pure shall see Thee as Thou art
And shall endure.
Lord, bring me low;
For Thou wert lowly in Thy blessed heart:
Lord, keep me so.
Love, to be love, must walk Thy way
And work Thy Will;
Or if Thou say, “Lie still,”
Lie still and pray.
Love, Thine own Bride, with all her might
Will follow Thee,
And till the shadows flee
Keep Thee in sight.
Love will not mar her peaceful face
With cares undue,
Faithless and hopeless too
And out of place.
Love, knowing Thou much more art Love.
Will sun her grief,
And pluck her myrtle-leaf,
And be Thy dove.
Love here hath vast beatitude:
What shall be hers
Where there is no more curse,
But all is good?
Lord, I am feeble and of mean account:
Thou Who dost condescend as well as mount,
Stoop Thou Thyself to me
And grant me grace to hear and grace to see.
Lord, if Thou grant me grace to hear and see
Thy very Self Who stoopest thus to me,
I make but slight account
Of aught beside wherein to sink or mount.
Tune me, O Lord, into one harmony
With Thee, one full responsive vibrant chord;
Unto Thy praise all love and melody,
Tune me, O Lord.
Thus need I flee nor death, nor fire, nor sword:
A little while these be, then cease to be,
And sent by Thee not these should be abhorred.
Devil and world, gird me with strength to flee,
To flee the flesh, and arm me with Thy word:
As Thy Heart is to my heart, unto Thee
Tune me, O Lord.
“They shall be as white as snow.”
Whiteness most white. Ah, to be clean again
In mine own sight and God’s most holy sight!
To reach thro’ any flood or fire of pain
Whiteness most white:
To learn to hate the wrong and love the right
Even while I walk thro’ shadows that are vain,
Descending thro’ vain shadows into night.
Lord, not to-day: yet some day bliss for bane
Give me, for mortal frailty give me might,
Give innocence for guilt, and for my stain
Whiteness most white.
Thy lilies drink the dew,
Thy lambs the rill, and I will drink them too;
For those in purity
And innocence are types, dear Lord, of Thee.
The fragrant lily flower
Bows and fulfils Thy Will its lifelong hour;
The lamb at rest and play
Fulfils Thy Will in gladness all the day;
They leave to-morrow’s cares
Until the morrow, what it brings it bears.
And I, Lord, would be such;
Not high or great or anxious overmuch
But pure and temperate,
Earnest to do Thy Will betimes and late,
Fragrant with love and praise
And innocence thro’ all my appointed days;
Thy lily I would be,
Spotless and sweet, Thy lamb to follow Thee.
“When I was in trouble I called upon the Lord.”
A burdened heart that bleeds and bears
And hopes and waits in pain,
And faints beneath its fears and cares,
Yet hopes again:
Wilt Thou accept the heart I bring,
O gracious Lord and kind,
To ease it of a torturing sting,
And staunch and bind?
Alas, if Thou wilt none of this,
None else have I to give:
Look Thou upon it as it is,
Accept, relieve.
Or if Thou wilt not yet relieve,
Be not extreme to sift:
Accept a faltering will to give,
Itself Thy gift.
Grant us such grace that we may work Thy Will
And speak Thy words and walk before Thy Face,
Profound and calm, like waters deep and still:
Grant us such grace.
Not hastening and not loitering in our pace
For gloomiest valley or for sultriest hill,
Content and fearless on our downward race.
As rivers seek a sea they cannot fill
But are themselves filled full in its embrace,
Absorbed, at rest, each river and each rill:
Grant us such grace.
“Who hath despised the day of small things?”
As violets so be I recluse and sweet,
b Cheerful as daisies unaccounted rare,
Still sunward-gazing from a lowly seat,
Still sweetening wintry air.
While half-awakened Spring lags incomplete,
While lofty forest trees tower bleak and bare,
Daisies and violets own remotest heat
And bloom and make them fair.
“Do this, and he doeth it.”
Content to come, content to go,
Content to wrestle or to race,
Content to know or not to know,
Each in his place;
Lord, grant us grace to love Thee so
That glad of heart and glad of face
At last we may sit, high or low,
Each in his place;
Where pleasures flow as rivers flow,
And loss has left no barren trace,
And all that are, are perfect so,
Each in his place.
“That no man take thy Crown.”
Be faithful unto death. Christ proffers thee
Crown of a life that draws immortal breath:
To thee He saith, yea, and He saith to me,
“Be faithful unto death.”
To every living soul that same He saith,
“Be faithful”:—whatsoever else we be,
Let us be faithful, challenging His faith.
Tho’ trouble storm around us like the sea,
Tho’ hell surge up to scare us and to scathe,
Tho’ heaven and earth betake themselves to flee,
“Be faithful unto death.”
“We are come unto mount Zion.”
Fear, Faith, and Hope have sent their hearts above:
Prudence, Obedience, and Humility
Climb at their call, all scaling heaven toward Love.
Fear hath least grace but great expediency;
Faith and Humility show grave and strong;
Prudence and Hope mount balanced equally.
Obedience marches marshalling their throng,
Goes first, goes last, to left hand or to right;
And all the six uplift a pilgrim’s song.
By day they rest not, nor they rest by night:
While Love within them, with them, over them.
Weans them and woos them from the dark to light.
Each plies for staff not reed with broken stem,
But olive branch in pledge of patient peace;
Till Love being theirs in New Jerusalem,
Transfigure them to Love, and so they cease.
Love is the sole beatitude above:
All other graces, to their vast increase
Of glory, look on Love and mirror Love.
“Sit down in the lowest room.”
Lord, give me grace
To take the lowest place;
Nor even desire,
Unless it be Thy Will, to go up higher.
Except by grace,
I fail of lowest place;
Except desire
Sit low, it aims awry to go up higher.
“Lord, it is good for us to be here.”
Grant us, O Lord, that patience and that faith:
Faith’s patience imperturbable in Thee,
Hope’s patience till the long-drawn shadows flee,
Love’s patience unresentful of all scathe.
Verily we need patience breath by breath;
Patience while faith holds up her glass to see,
While hope toils yoked in fear’s copartnery,
And love goes softly on the way to death.
How gracious and how perfecting a grace
Must patience be on which those others wait:
Faith with suspended rapture in her face,
Hope pale and careful hand in hand with fear,
Love—ah, good love who would not antedate
God’s Will, but saith, Good is it to be here.
Lord, grant us grace to rest upon Thy word,
To rest in hope until we see Thy Face;
To rest thro’ toil unruffled and unstirred,
Lord, grant us grace.
This burden and this heat wear on apace:
Night comes, when sweeter than night’s singing bird
Will swell the silence of our ended race.
Ah, songs which flesh and blood have never heard
And cannot hear, songs of the silent place
Where rest remains! Lord, slake our hope deferred,
Lord, grant us grace.
THE WORLD.
SELF-DESTRUCTION.
“A vain Shadow.”
The world,—what a world, ah me!
Mouldy, worm-eaten, grey:
Vain as a leaf from a tree,
As a fading day,
As veriest vanity,
As the froth and the spray
Of the hollow-billowed sea,
As what was and shall not be,
As what is and passes away.
“Lord, save us, we perish.”
O Lord, seek us, O Lord, find us
In Thy patient care;
Be Thy Love before, behind us,
Round us, everywhere:
Lest the god of this world blind us,
Lest he speak us fair,
Lest he forge a chain to bind us,
Lest he bait a snare.
Turn not from us, call to mind us,
Find, embrace us, bear;
Be Thy Love before, behind us,
Round us, everywhere.
What is this above thy head,
O Man?—
The World, all overspread
With pearls and golden rays
And gems ablaze;
A sight which day and night
Fills an eye’s span.
What is this beneath thy feet,
O Saint?—
The World, a nauseous sweet
Puffed up and perishing;
A hollow thing,
A lie, a vanity,
Tinsel and paint.
What is she while time is time,
O Man?—
In a perpetual prime
Beauty and youth she hath;
And her footpath
Breeds flowers thro’ dancing hours
Since time began.
While time lengthens what is she,
O Saint?—
Nought: yea, all men shall see
How she is nought at all,
When her death-pall
Of fire ends their desire
And brands her taint.
Ah, poor Man, befooled and slow
And faint!
Ah, poorest Man, if so
Thou turn thy back on bliss
And choose amiss!
For thou art choosing now:
Sinner,—or Saint.
Babylon the Great.
Foul is she and ill-favoured, set askew:
Gaze not upon her till thou dream her fair,
Lest she should mesh thee in her wanton hair,
Adept in arts grown old yet ever new.
Her heart lusts not for love, but thro and thro’
For blood, as spotted panther lusts in lair;
No wine is in her cup, but filth is there
Unutterable, with plagues hid out of view.
Gaze not upon her, for her dancing whirl
Turns giddy the fixed gazer presently:
Gaze not upon her, lest thou be as she
When, at the far end of her long desire,
Her scarlet vest and gold and gem and pearl
And she amid her pomp are set on fire.
“Standing afar off for the fear of her torment.”
Is this the end? is there no end but this?
Yea, none beside:
No other end for pride
And foulness and besottedness.
Hath she no friend? hath she no clinging friend?
Nay, none at all;
Who stare upon her fall
Quake for themselves with hair on end.
Will she be done away? vanish away?
Yea, like a dream;
Yea, like the shades that seem
Somewhat, and lo! are nought by day.
Alas for her amid man’s helpless moan,
Alas for her!
She hath no comforter:
In solitude of fire she sits alone.
“O Lucifer, Son of the Morning!”
Oh fallen star! a darkened light,
A glory hurtled from its car,
Self-blasted from the holy height:
Oh fallen star!
Fallen beyond earth’s utmost bar,
Beyond return, beyond far sight
Of outmost glimmering nebular.
Now blackness, which once walked in white;
Now death, whose life once glowed afar;
Oh son of dawn that loved the night,
Oh fallen star!
Alas, alas! for the self-destroyed
Vanish as images from a glass,
Sink down and die down by hope unbuoyed:—
Alas, alas!
Who shall stay their ruinous mass?
Besotted, reckless, possessed, decoyed,
They hurry to the dolorous pass.
Saints fall a-weeping who would have joyed,
Sore they weep for a glory that was,
For a fulness emptied into the void,
Alas, alas!
As froth on the face of the deep,
As foam on the crest of the sea,
As dreams at the waking of sleep,
As gourd of a day and a night,
As harvest that no man shall reap,
As vintage that never shall be,
Is hope if it cling not aright,
O my God, unto Thee.
“Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched.”
In tempest and storm blackness of darkness for ever,
A fire unextinguished, a worm’s indestructible swarm;
Where no hope shall ever be more, and love shall be never,
In tempest and storm;
Where the form of all things is fashionless, void of all form;
Where from death that severeth all, the soul cannot sever
In tempest and storm.
Toll, bell, toll. For hope is flying
Sighing from the earthbound soul:
Life is sighing, life is dying:
Toll, bell, toll.
Gropes in its own grave the mole
Wedding darkness, undeserving,
Tending to no different goal.
Self-slain soul, in vain thy sighing:
Self-slain, who should make thee whole?
Vain the clamour of thy crying:
Toll, bell, toll.
DIVERS WORLDS.
TIME AND ETERNITY.
Earth has clear call of daily bells,
A chancel-vault of gloom and star,
A rapture where the anthems are,
A thunder when the organ swells:
Alas, man’s daily life—what else?—
Is out of tune with daily bells.
While Paradise accords the chimes
Of Earth and Heaven, its patient pause
Is rest fulfilling music’s laws.
Saints sit and gaze, where oftentimes
Precursive flush of morning climbs
And air vibrates with coming chimes.
“Escape to the fountain.”
I peered within, and saw a world of sin;
Upward, and saw a world of righteousness;
Downward, and saw darkness and flame begin
Which no man can express.
I girt me up, I pat me up to flee
From face of darkness and devouring flame:
And fled I had, but guilt is loading me
With dust of death and shame.
Yet still the light of righteousness beams pure,
Beams to me from the world of far-off day:—
Lord, Who hast called them happy that endure,
Lord, make me such as they.
I lift mine eyes to see: earth vanisheth.
I lift up wistful eyes and bend my knee:
Trembling, bowed down, and face to face with Death,
I lift mine eyes to see.
Lo, what I see is Death that shadows me:
Yet whilst I, seeing, draw a shuddering breath,
Death like a mist grows rare perceptibly.
Beyond the darkness light, beyond the scathe
Healing, beyond the Cross a palm-branch tree,
Beyond Death Life, on evidence of faith:
I lift mine eyes to see.
“Yet a little while.”
Heaven is not far, tho’ far the sky
Overarching earth and main.
It takes not long to live and die,
Die, revive, and rise again.
Not long: how long? Oh, long re-echoing song!
O Lord, how long?
“Behold, it was very good.”
All things are fair, if we had eyes to see
How first God made them goodly everywhere:
And goodly still in Paradise they be,—
All things are fair.
O Lord, the solemn heavens Thy praise declare;
The multi-fashioned saints bring praise to Thee,
As doves fly home and cast away their care.
As doves on divers branches of their tree,
Perched high or low, sit all contented there
Not mourning any more; in each degree
All things are fair.
“Whatsoever is right, that shall we receive.”
When all the overwork of life
Is finished once, and fallen asleep
We shrink no more beneath the knife,
But having sown prepare to reap;
Delivered from the crossway rough,
Delivered from the thorny scourge,
Delivered from the tossing surge,
Then shall we find—(please God!)—it is enough?
Not in this world of hope deferred,
This world of perishable stuff;
Eye hath not seen, nor ear hath heard,
Nor heart conceived that full “enough”:
Here moans the separating sea,
Here harvests fail, here breaks the heart;
There God shall join and no man part,
All one in Christ, so one—(please God!)—with me.
This near-at-hand land breeds pain by measure:
That far-away land overflows with treasure
Of heaped-up good pleasure.
Our land that we see is befouled by evil:
The land that we see not makes mirth and revel,
Far from death and devil.
This land hath for music sobbing and sighing:
That land hath soft speech and sweet soft replying
Of all loves undying.
This land hath for pastime errors and follies:
That land hath unending unflagging solace
Of full-chanted “Holies.”
Up and away, call the Angels to us;
Come to our home where no foes pursue us,
And no tears bedew us;
Where that which riseth sets again never,
Where that which springeth flows in a river
For ever and ever;
Where harvest justifies labour of sowing,
Where that which budded comes to the blowing
Sweet beyond your knowing.
Come and laugh with us, sing in our singing;
Come, yearn no more, but rest in your clinging.
See what we are bringing;
Crowns like our own crowns, robes for your wearing;
For love of you we kiss them in bearing,
All good with you sharing:
Over you gladdening, in you delighting;
Come from your famine, your failure, your fighting;
Come to full wrong-righting.
Come, where all balm is garnered to ease you;
Come, where all beauty is spread out to please you;
Come, gaze upon Jesu.
“Was Thy Wrath against the Sea?”
The sea laments with unappeasable
Hankering wail of loss,
Lifting its hands on high and passing by
Out of the lovely light:
No foambow any more may crest that swell
Of clamorous waves which toss;
Lifting its hands on high it passes by
From light into the night.
Peace, peace, thou sea! God’s wisdom worketh well,
Assigns it crown or cross:
Lift we all hands on high, and passing by
Attest: God doeth right.
“And there was no more Sea.”
Voices from above and from beneath,
Voices of creation near and far,
Voices out of life and out of death,
Out of measureless space,
Sun, moon, star,
In oneness of contentment offering praise.
Heaven and earth and sea jubilant,
Jubilant all things that dwell therein;
Filled to fullest overflow they chant,
Still roll onward, swell,
Still begin,
Never flagging praise interminable.
Thou who must fall silent in a while,
Chant thy sweetest, gladdest, best, at once;
Sun thyself to-day, keep peace and smile;
By love upward send Orisons,
Accounting love thy lot and love thine end.
Roses on a brier,
Pearls from out the bitter sea,
Such is earth’s desire
However pure it be.
Neither bud nor brier,
Neither pearl nor brine for me:
Be stilled, my long desire;
There shall be no more sea.
Be stilled, my passionate heart;
Old earth shall end, new earth shall be:
Be still, and earn thy part
Where shall be no more sea.
We are of those who tremble at Thy word;
Who faltering walk in darkness toward our close
Of mortal life, by terrors curbed and spurred:
We are of those.
We journey to that land which no man knows
Who any more can make his voice be heard
Above the clamour of our wants and woes.
Not ours the hearts Thy loftiest love hath stirred,
Not such as we Thy lily and Thy rose:—
Yet, Hope of those who hope with hope deferred,
We are of those.
“Awake, thou that sleepest.”
The night is far spent, the day is at hand:
Let us therefore cast off the works of darkness,
And let us put on the armour of light.
Night for the dead in their stiffness and starkness!
Day for the living who mount in their might
Out of their graves to the beautiful land.
Far, far away lies the beautiful land:
Mount on wide wings of exceeding desire,
Mount, look not back, mount to life and to light,
Mount by the gleam of your lamps all on fire
Up from the dead men and up from the night.
The night is far spent, the day is at hand.
We know not when, we know not where,
We know not what that world will be;
But this we know: it will be fair
To see.
With heart athirst and thirsty face
We know and know not what shall be:
Christ Jesus bring us of His grace
To see.
Christ Jesus bring us of His grace,
Beyond all prayers our hope can pray,
One day to see Him face to Face,
One day.
“I will lift up mine eyes unto the bills.”
When sick of life and all the world—
How sick of all desire but Thee!—
I lift mine eyes up to the hills,
Eyes of my heart that see,
I see beyond all death and ills
Refreshing green for heart and eyes,
The golden streets and gateways pearled,
The trees of Paradise.
“There is a time for all things,” saith
The Word of Truth, Thyself the Word;
And many things Thou reasonest of:
A time for hope deferred,
But time is now for grief and fears;
A time for life, but now is death;
Oh, when shall be the time of love
When Thou shalt wipe our tears?
Then the new Heavens and Earth shall be
Where righteousness shall dwell indeed;
There shall be no more blight, nor need,
Nor barrier of the sea;
No sun and moon alternating,
For God shall be the Light thereof;
No sorrow more, no death, no sting,
For God Who reigns is Love.
“Then whose shall those things be?”
Oh what is earth, that we should build
Our houses here, and seek concealed
Poor treasure, and add field to field,
And heap to heap, and store to store,
Still grasping more and seeking more,
While step by step Death nears the door?
“This banner over me was Love.”
In that world we weary to attain,
O Love’s furled banner floats at large unfurled:
There is no more doubt and no more pain
In that world.
There are gems and gold and inlets pearled;
There the verdure fadeth not again;
There no clinging tendrils droop uncurled.
Here incessant tides stir up the main,
Stormy miry depths aloft are hurled:
There is no more sea, or storm, or stain,
In that world.
Beloved, yield thy time to God, for He
Will make eternity thy recompense;
Give all thy substance for His Love, and be
Beatified past earth’s experience.
Serve Him in bonds, until He set thee free;
Serve Him in dust, until He lift thee thence;
Till death be swallowed up in victory
When the great trumpet sounds to bid thee hence.
Shall setting day win day that will not set?
Poor price wert thou to spend thyself for Christ,
Had not His wealth thy poverty sufficed:
Yet since He makes His garden of thy clod,
Water thy lily, rose, or violet,
And offer up thy sweetness unto God.
Time seems not short:
If so I call to mind
Its vast prerogative to loose or bind,
And bear and strike amort
All humankind.
Time seems not long:
If I peer out and see
Sphere within sphere, time in eternity,
And hear the alternate song
Cry endlessly.
Time greatly short,
O time so briefly long,
Yea, time sole battle-ground of right and wrong:
Art thou a time for sport
And for a song?
The half moon shows a face of plaintive sweetness
Ready and poised to wax or wane;
A fire of pale desire in incompleteness,
Tending to pleasure or to pain:—
Lo, while we gaze she rolleth on in fleetness
To perfect loss or perfect gain.
Half bitterness we know, we know half sweetness;
This world is all on wax, on wane:
When shall completeness round time’s incompleteness,
Fulfilling joy, fulfilling pain?—
Lo, while we ask, life rolleth on in fleetness
To finished loss or finished gain.
“As the Doves to their windows.”
They throng from the east and the west,
The north and the south, with a song;
To golden abodes of their rest
They throng.
Eternity stretches out long:
Time, brief at its worst or its best,
Will quit them of ruin and wrong.
A rainbow aloft for their crest,
A palm for their weakness made strong!
As doves breast all winds to their nest,
They throng.
Oh knell of a passing time,
Will it never cease to chime?
Oh stir of the tedious sea,
Will it never cease to be?
Yea, when night and when day,
Moon and sun, pass away.
Surely the sun burns low,
The moon makes ready to go,
Broad ocean ripples to waste,
Time is running in haste,
Night is numbered, and day
Numbered to pass away.
Time passeth away with its pleasure and pain,
Its garlands of cypress and bay,
With wealth and with want, with a balm and a bane,
Time passeth away.
Eternity cometh to stay,
Eternity stayeth to go not again;
Eternity barring the way,
Arresting all courses of planet or main,
Arresting who plan or who pray,
Arresting creation: while grand in its wane
Time passeth away.
“The Earth shall tremble at the Look of Him.”
Tremble, thou earth, at the Presence of the Lord
Whose Will conceived thee and brought thee to the birth,
Always, everywhere, thy Lord to be adored:
Tremble, thou earth.
Wilt thou laugh time away in music and mirth?
Time hath days of pestilence, hath days of a sword,
Hath days of hunger and thirst in desolate dearth.
Till eternity wake up the multicord
Thrilled harp of heaven, and breathe full its organ’s girth
For joy of heaven and infinite reward,
Tremble, thou earth.
Time lengthening, in the lengthening seemeth long:
But ended Time will seem a little space,
A little while from morn to evensong,
A little while that ran a rapid race;
A little while, when once Eternity
Denies proportion to the other’s pace.
Eternity to be and be and be,
Ever beginning, never ending still,
Still undiminished far as thought can see;
Farther than thought can see, by dint of will
Strung up and strained and shooting like a star
Past utmost bound of everlasting hill:
Eternity unswaddled, without bar,
Finishing sequence in its awful sum;
Eternity still rolling forth its car,
Eternity still here and still to come.
“All flesh is Grass.”
So brief a life, and then an endless life
Or endless death;
So brief a life, then endless peace or strife:
Whoso considereth
How man but like a flower
Or shoot of grass
Blooms an hour,
Well may sigh “Alas!”
So brief a life, and then an endless grief
Or endless joy;
So brief a life, then ruin or relief:
What solace, what annoy
Of Time needs dwelling on?
It is, it was,
It is done,
While we sigh “Alas!”
Yet saints are singing in a happy hope
Forecasting pleasure,
Bright eyes of faith enlarging all their scope;
Saints love beyond Time’s measure:
Where love is, there is bliss
That will not pass;
Where love is,
Dies away “Alas!”
Heaven’s chimes are slow, but sure to strike at last:
Earth’s sands are slow, but surely dropping thro’:
And much we have to suffer, much to do,
Before the time be past.
Chimes that keep time are neither slow nor fast:
Not many are the numbered sands nor few:
A time to suffer, and a time to do,
And then the time is past.
“There remaineth therefore a Rest to the people of God.”
Rest remains when all is done,
Work and vigil, prayer and fast,
All fulfilled from first to last,
All the length of time gone past
And eternity begun!
Fear and hope and chastening rod
Urge us on the narrow way:
Bear we now as best we may
Heat and burden of to-day,
Struggling, panting up to God.
Parting after parting,
Sore loss and gnawing pain
Meeting grows half a sorrow
Because of parting again.
When shall the day break
That these things shall not be?
When shall new earth be ours
Without a sea,
And time that is not time
But eternity?
To meet, worth living for;
Worth dying for, to meet;
To meet, worth parting for,
Bitter forgot in sweet:
To meet, worth parting before
Never to part more.
“They put their trust in Thee, and were not confounded.”