Ofttimes my great desire doth flatter me With hope on earth yet many years to stay: Still Death, the more I love it, day by day Takes from the life I love so tenderly. What better time for that dread change could be, If in our griefs alone to God we pray? Oh, lead me, Lord, oh, lead me far away From every thought that lures my soul from Thee! Yea, if at any hour, through grace of Thine, The fervent zeal of love and faith that cheer And fortify the soul, my heart assail. Since nought achieve these mortal powers of mine, Plant, like a saint in heaven, that virtue here; For, lacking Thee, all good must faint and fail.
Fain would I wish what my heart cannot will: Between it and the fire a veil of ice Deadens the fire, so that I deal in lies; My words and actions are discordant still. I love Thee with my tongue, then mourn my fill; For love warms not my heart, nor can I rise, Or ope the doors of Grace, who from the skies Might flood my soul, and pride and passion kill. Rend Thou the veil, dear Lord! Break Thou that wall Which with its stubbornness retards the rays Of that bright sun this earth hath dulled for me! Send down Thy promised light to cheer and fall On Thy fair spouse, that I with love may blaze, And, free from doubt, my heart feel only Thee!
Not less elate than smitten with wild woe To see not them but Thee by death undone, Were those blest souls, when Thou above the sun Didst raise, by dying, men that lay so low: Elate, since freedom from all ills that flow From their first fault for Adam's race was won; Sore smitten, since in torment fierce God's son Served servants on the cruel cross below. Heaven showed she knew Thee, who Thou wert and whence, Veiling her eyes above the riven earth; The mountains trembled and the seas were troubled. He took the Fathers from hell's darkness dense: The torments of the damnéd fiends redoubled: Man only joyed, who gained baptismal birth.
Mid weariness and woe I find some cheer In thinking of the past, when I recall My weakness and my sins, and reckon all The vain expense of days that disappear: This cheers by making, ere I die, more clear The frailty of what men delight miscall; But saddens me to think how rarely fall God's grace and mercies in life's latest year. For though Thy promises our faith compel, Yet, Lord, what man shall venture to maintain That pity will condone our long neglect? Still from Thy blood poured forth we know full well How without measure was Thy martyr's pain, How measureless the gifts we dare expect.