LoveIThou, from the first, unborn, undying love,Albeit we gaze not on thy glories near,Before the face of God didst breathe and move,Though night and pain and ruin and death reign here.Thou foldest, like a golden atmosphere,The very throne of the eternal God:Passing through thee the edicts of his fearAre mellowed into music, borne abroadBy the loud winds, though they uprend the sea,Even from his central deeps: thine emperyIs over all: thou wilt not brook eclipse;Thou goest and returnest to His LipsLike lightning: thou dost ever brood aboveThe silence of all hearts, unutterable Love.IITo know thee is all wisdom, and old ageIs but to know thee: dimly we behold theeAthwart the veils of evil which enfold thee.We beat upon our aching hearts with rage;We cry for thee: we deem the world thy tomb.As dwellers in lone planets look uponThe mighty disk of their majestic sun,Hollowed in awful chasms of wheeling gloom,Making their day dim, so we gaze on thee.Come, thou of many crowns, white-robed love,Oh! rend the veil in twain: all men adore thee;Heaven crieth after thee; earth waileth for thee:Breathe on thy winged throne, and it shall moveIn music and in light o’er land and sea.IIIAnd now—methinks I gaze upon thee now,As on a serpent in his agoniesAwestricken Indians; what time laid lowAnd crushing the thick fragrant reeds he lies,When the new year warm breathed on the earth,Waiting to light him with his purple skies,Calls to him by the fountain to uprise.Already with the pangs of a new birthStrain the hot spheres of his convulsed eyes,And in his writhings awful hues beginTo wander down his sable sheeny sides,Like light on troubled waters: from withinAnon he rusheth forth with merry din,And in him light and joy and strength abides;And from his brows a crown of living lightLooks through the thickstemmed woods by day and night.
I
Thou, from the first, unborn, undying love,Albeit we gaze not on thy glories near,Before the face of God didst breathe and move,Though night and pain and ruin and death reign here.Thou foldest, like a golden atmosphere,The very throne of the eternal God:Passing through thee the edicts of his fearAre mellowed into music, borne abroadBy the loud winds, though they uprend the sea,Even from his central deeps: thine emperyIs over all: thou wilt not brook eclipse;Thou goest and returnest to His LipsLike lightning: thou dost ever brood aboveThe silence of all hearts, unutterable Love.
II
To know thee is all wisdom, and old ageIs but to know thee: dimly we behold theeAthwart the veils of evil which enfold thee.We beat upon our aching hearts with rage;We cry for thee: we deem the world thy tomb.As dwellers in lone planets look uponThe mighty disk of their majestic sun,Hollowed in awful chasms of wheeling gloom,Making their day dim, so we gaze on thee.Come, thou of many crowns, white-robed love,Oh! rend the veil in twain: all men adore thee;Heaven crieth after thee; earth waileth for thee:Breathe on thy winged throne, and it shall moveIn music and in light o’er land and sea.
III
And now—methinks I gaze upon thee now,As on a serpent in his agoniesAwestricken Indians; what time laid lowAnd crushing the thick fragrant reeds he lies,When the new year warm breathed on the earth,Waiting to light him with his purple skies,Calls to him by the fountain to uprise.Already with the pangs of a new birthStrain the hot spheres of his convulsed eyes,And in his writhings awful hues beginTo wander down his sable sheeny sides,Like light on troubled waters: from withinAnon he rusheth forth with merry din,And in him light and joy and strength abides;And from his brows a crown of living lightLooks through the thickstemmed woods by day and night.