Henry Charles Beeching, ed. (1859–1919). Lyra Sacra: A Book of Religious Verse. 1903.
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HOW 1 long, great God, how long must I | |
Immured in this dark prison lie; | |
Where at the grates and avenues of sense, | |
My soul must watch to have intelligence; | |
Where but faint gleams of Thee salute my sight, | 5 |
Like doubtful moonshine in a cloudy night; | |
When shall I leave this magic sphere, | |
And be all mind, all eye, all ear? | |
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How cold this clime! And yet my sense | |
Perceives e’en here Thy influence. | 10 |
E’en here Thy strong magnetic charms I feel, | |
And pant and tremble like the amorous steel. | |
To lower good, and beauties less divine, | |
Sometimes my erroneous needle does incline; | |
But yet, so strong the sympathy, | 15 |
It turns and points again to Thee. | |
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I long to see this excellence | |
Which at such distance strikes my sense. | |
My impatient soul struggles to disengage | |
Her wings from the confinement of her cage. | 20 |
Would’st Thou, great Love, this prisoner once set free, | |
How would she hasten to be link’d to Thee! | |
She’d for no angel’s conduct stay, | |
But fly, and love on all the way. | |