Henry Charles Beeching, ed. (1859–1919). Lyra Sacra: A Book of Religious Verse. 1903.
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JOY, 1 sweetest lifeborn Joy, where dost thou dwell? | |
Upon the formless moments of our being | |
Flitting, to mock the ear that heareth well, | |
To escape the trainèd eye that strains in seeing, | |
Dost thou fly with us whither we are fleeing; | 5 |
Or home in our creations, to withstand | |
Black-wingèd Death, that slays the making hand? | |
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The making mind, that must untimely perish | |
Amidst its work which time may not destroy, | |
The beauteous forms which man shall love to cherish, | 10 |
The glorious songs that combat Earth’s annoy? | |
Thou dost dwell here, I know, divinest Joy: | |
But they who build thy towers fair and strong, | |
Of all that toil, feel most of care and wrong. | |
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Sense is so tender, O and hope so high, | 15 |
That common pleasures mock their hope and sense; | |
And swifter than doth lightning from the sky | |
The ecstasy they pine for flashes hence, | |
Leaving the darkness and the woe immense, | |
Wherewith it seems no thread of life was woven, | 20 |
Nor doth the track remain where once ’twas cloven. | |
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And heaven and all the stable elements | |
That guard God’s purpose mock us, though the mind | |
Be spent in searching: for His old intents | |
We see were never for our joy designed: | 25 |
They shine as doth the bright sun on the blind, | |
Or like His pensioned stars, that hymn above | |
His praise, but not toward us, that God is love. | |
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For who so well hath wooed the maiden hours | |
As quite to have won the worth of their rich show, | 30 |
To rob the night of mystery, or the flowers | |
Of their sweet delicacy ere they go? | |
Nay, even the dear occasion when we know, | |
We miss the joy, and on the gliding day | |
The special glories float and pass away. | 35 |
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Only life’s common plod: still to repair | |
The body and the thing which perisheth: | |
The soil, the smutch, the toil and ache and wear, | |
The grinding enginry of blood and breath, | |
Pain’s random darts, the heartless spade of Death: | 40 |
All is but grief, and heavily we call | |
On the last terror for the end of all. | |
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Then comes the happy moment: not a stir | |
In any tree, no portent in the sky: | |
The morn doth neither hasten nor defer, | 45 |
The morrow hath no name to call it by, | |
But life and joy are one,—we know not why,— | |
As though our very blood long breathless lain | |
Had tasted of the breath of God again. | |
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And having tasted it I speak of it, | 50 |
And praise Him thinking how I trembled then | |
When His touch strengthened me, as now I sit | |
In wonder, reaching out beyond my ken, | |
Reaching to turn the day back, and my pen | |
Urging to tell a tale which told would seem | 55 |
The witless phantasy of them that dream. | |
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But O most blessèd truth, for truth thou art, | |
Abide thou with me till my life shall end. | |
Divinity hath surely touched my heart; | |
I have possessed more joy than earth can lend: | 60 |
I may attain what time shall never spend. | |
Only let not my duller days destroy | |
The memory of thy witness and my joy. | |