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Home  »  Lyra Sacra: A Book of Religious Verse  »  God’s Love and Man’s

Henry Charles Beeching, ed. (1859–1919). Lyra Sacra: A Book of Religious Verse. 1903.

By Thomas Traherne (1637?–1674)

God’s Love and Man’s

 
HE seeks for ours as we do seek for His;
Nay, O my soul, ours is far more His bliss
Than His is ours; at least it so doth seem
    Both in His own and our esteem.
 
His earnest love, His infinite desires,        5
His living, endless, and devouring fires,
Do rage in thirst, and fervently require
    A love ’tis strange it should desire.
 
We cold and careless are, and scarcely think
Upon the glorious spring whereat we drink.        10
Did He not love us we could be content:
    We wretches are indifferent!
 
’Tis death, my soul, to be indifferent;
Set forth thyself unto thy whole extent,
And all the glory of His passion prize,        15
    Who for thee lives, Who for thee dies.