Alfred H. Miles, ed. The Sacred Poets of the Nineteenth Century. 1907.
By Roses Diary (1850). What mean these slow returns of love?Henry Septimus Sutton (18251901)
N
Of wither’d prayer; of dead unflowering praise?
These hands of twilight laid on me to keep
Dusk veils on holy vision? This most deep,
Most eyelid-heavy, lamentable sleep?
As sinful, sin; my goal as unattain’d;
And yet I drowse, and dream, and am not pain’d
At God far off as ever heretofore,—
At sin as flagrant as of old, or more.
I have none other helper. Thou art free
To save me, or to kill. But I appeal
To Thine own love which will not elsewise deal
Than prove Thyself my help, Thy will my weal.
Loosen these icicles and make them drop
And run into warm tears; for I aspire
To hold Thee faster, dearer, warmer, nigher,
And love and serve Thee henceforth without stop.