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Home  »  The Sacred Poets of the Nineteenth Century  »  Thomas Toke Lynch (1818–1871)

Alfred H. Miles, ed. The Sacred Poets of the Nineteenth Century. 1907.

By Memorials of Theophilus Trinal, Student (1850). IV. The Heaven

Thomas Toke Lynch (1818–1871)

CALL not the heaven Vacancy—

Whose colour, soft and deep,

Compels a tear to every eye

That gazing long will keep;

Whose beauty rests so silently,

Like a maiden’s in a sleep.

O Father great! this heaven high

Is of Thy love the token;

As sweet and deep as anciently,

Of stillness yet unbroken;

A love is imaged in the sky,

Too great to be outspoken.

Our earth, the featured Definite,

Has meanings all Divine;

But oneness of the Infinite

Doth in the azure shine;

We seem to see Thee in the height,

Around we look on Thine.

By works for uses and delight

We learn Thee part by part;

Thy world reveals to gradual sight

How manifold Thou art;

But read at once in heaven bright

Is the fulness of Thy heart.

When gazing on the open blue,

Our heart and Thine seem near;

Thy love in ours is imaged true,

As skies in water clear;

Clouds come and pass, but still in view

The depths of heart appear.

We feel—and all our spirit through,

As through the air a bell,

Or odour of a blossom new

Through all a hidden dell,

Spreads joy as deep as heaven’s hue,

Which utterance cannot tell.