Henry Charles Beeching, ed. (1859–1919). Lyra Sacra: A Book of Religious Verse. 1903.
By Richard Chenevix Trench (18071886)Lines written after hearing some beautiful singing in a Convent Church at Rome
SWEET voices! seldom mortal ear | |
Strains of such potency might hear; | |
My soul that listened seemed quite gone, | |
Dissolved in sweetness, and anon | |
I was borne upward, till I trod | 5 |
Among the hierarchy of God. | |
And when they ceased, as time must bring | |
An end to every sweetest thing, | |
With what reluctancy came back | |
My spirits to their wonted track, | 10 |
And how I loathed the common life, | |
The daily and recurring strife | |
With petty sins, the lowly road, | |
And being’s ordinary load. | |
—Why, after such a solemn mood, | 15 |
Should any meaner thought intrude? | |
Why will not heaven hereafter give, | |
That we for evermore may live | |
Thus at our spirit’s topmost bent? | |
So asked I in my discontent. | 20 |
But give me, Lord, a wiser heart; | |
These seasons come, and they depart, | |
These seasons, and those higher still, | |
When we are given to have our fill | |
Of strength and life and joy with Thee, | 25 |
And brightness of Thy face to see. | |
They come, or we could never guess | |
Of heaven’s sublimer blessedness; | |
They come, to be our strength and cheer | |
In other times, in doubt or fear, | 30 |
Or should our solitary way | |
Lie through the desert many a day. | |
They go, they leave us blank and dead, | |
That we may learn, when they are fled, | |
We are but vapours which have won | 35 |
A moment’s brightness from the sun, | |
And which it may at pleasure fill | |
With splendour, or unclothe at will. | |
Well for us they do not abide, | |
Or we should lose ourselves in pride, | 40 |
And be as angels—but as they | |
Who on the battlements of day | |
Walked, gazing on their power and might, | |
Till they grew giddy in their height. | |
Then welcome every nobler time, | 45 |
When out of reach of earth’s dull chime | |
’Tis ours to drink with purgèd ears | |
The music of the solemn spheres, | |
Or in the desert to have sight | |
Of those enchanted cities bright, | 50 |
Which sensual eye can never see: | |
Thrice welcome may such seasons be: | |
But welcome too the common way, | |
The lowly duties of the day, | |
And all which makes and keeps us low, | 55 |
Which teaches us ourselves to know, | |
That we who do our lineage high | |
Draw from beyond the starry sky, | |
Are yet upon the other side | |
To earth and to its dust allied. | 60 |