Henry Charles Beeching, ed. (1859–1919). Lyra Sacra: A Book of Religious Verse. 1903.
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HAPPY 1 those early days, when I | |
Shined in my angel-infancy! | |
Before I understood this place | |
Appointed for my second race, | |
Or taught my soul to fancy ought | 5 |
But a white, celestial thought; | |
When yet I had not walk’d above | |
A mile or two from my first Love, | |
And looking back, at that short space, | |
Could see a glimpse of His bright face; | 10 |
When on some gilded Cloud or Flow’r | |
My gazing soul would dwell an hour, | |
And in those weaker glories | |
Some shadows of eternity; | |
Before I taught my tongue to wound | 15 |
My conscience with a sinful sound, | |
Or had the black art to dispense | |
A sev’ral sin to ev’ry sense, | |
But felt through all this fleshly dress | |
Bright shoots of everlastingness. | 20 |
O how I long to travel back, | |
And tread again that ancient track! | |
That I might once more reach that plain, | |
Where first I left my glorious train; | |
From whence th’enlightened spirit sees | 25 |
That shady city of palm trees. | |
But ah! my soul with too much stay | |
Is drunk, and staggers in the way. | |
Some men a forward motion love, | |
But I by backward steps would move; | 30 |
And, when this dust falls to the urn, | |
In that state I came, return. | |