You loose me and I go: O see the arms Spread for me! lo, His lips break your charms. From the deep did He rise And round me set His Love for net.
O hide me in Thy love, secure From this earth-clinging meanness. Lave my uncleanness In Thy compassionating love!
Bury this treachery as deep As mercy is enrooted. My days ill-fruited Shake till the shrivelled burden fall.
Put by those righteous arrows, Lord, Put even Thy justice by Thee; So I come nigh Thee As came the Magdalen to Thy feet.
And like a heavy stone that's cast In a pool, on Thee I throw me, And feel o'erflow me Ripples of pity, deep waves of love.
If ever Thou didst love me, love me now, When round me beat the flattering vans of life, Kissing with rapid breath my lifted brow. Love me, if ever, when the murmur of strife, In each dark byway of my being creeps, When pity and pride, passion and passion's loss Wash wavelike round the world's eternal cross, Till 'mid my fears a new-born love indignant leaps.
If ever Thou canst love me, love me yet, When sweet, impetuous loves within me stir And the frail portals of my spirit fret-- The love of love, that makes Heaven heavenlier, The love of earth, of birds, children and light, Love of this bitter, lovely native land.... O, love me when sick with all these I stand And Death's far-rumoured wings beat on the lonely night.
Oh, like a tree Let me grow up to Thee! And like a Tree Send down my roots to Thee.
Let my leaves stir In each sigh of the air, My branches be Lively and glad in Thee;
Each leaf a prayer, And green fire everywhere ... And all from Thee The sap within the Tree.
And let Thy rain Fall--or as joy or pain So that I be Yet unforgot of Thee.
Then shall I sing The new song of Thy Spring, Every leaf of me Whispering Love in Thee!
What is the soul? Is it the wind Among the branches of the mind? Is it the sea against Time's shore Breaking and broken evermore? Is it the shore that breaks Time's sea, The verge of vast Eternity? And in the night is it the soul Sleep needs must hush, must needs kiss whole? Or does the soul, secure from sleep, Safe its bright sanctities yet keep? And oh, before the body's death Shall the confined soul ne'er gain breath, But ever to this serpent flesh Subdue its alien self afresh? Is it a bird that shuns earth's night, Or makes with song earth's darkness bright? Is it indeed a thought of God, Or merest clod-fellow to clod? A thought of God, and yet subdued To any passion's apish mood? Itself a God--and yet, O God, As like to earth as clod to clod?