O glad sun, creeping through the casement wide,
A million blossoms have you kissed since morn,
But none so fair as this one at my side-
Touch soft the bit of love, the babe new born.
Towards all the world my love and pity flow,
With high resolves, with trust, with sympathy.
This happy heart of mine is all aglow-
This heart that was so cold-God's warmth is she.
God of love, whose truth and grace
Reach unbounded as the skies,
Hear thy creature's feeble praise,
Let my ev'ning sacrifice
Mount as incense to thy throne,
On the merits of thy Son.
Me thy providence has led
Through another busy day:
Over me thy wings were spread,
Chasing sin and death away:
Thou hast been my faithful shield,
Thou my footsteps hast upheld.
Tho' the sable veil of night
Hides the cheering face of heav'n,
Let me triumph in the sight
Of my guilt in thee forgiv'n.
GOD is eternity, the sky, the sea,
The consciousness of universal space,
The source of energy and living grace,
Of life and light, of love and destiny,
God is that deep, ethereal ocean, free,
Whose billows keep their wide unbarriered place
Amid the stars that move before His face
In robes of hurricane and harmony.
A light that twinkles in a distant star,
A wave of ocean surging on the shore,
One substance with the sea; a wing to soar
Forever onward to the peaks afar,
Thou who pervadest all the worlds below,
Yet sitst above,
Master of all who work and rule and know,
Servant of Love!
Thou who disdainest not the worm to be
Nor even the clod,
Therefore we know by that humility
That thou art God.
Go, lovely rose!
Tell her that wastes her time and me
That now she knows,
When I resemble her to thee,
How sweet and fair she seems to be.
Tell her that's young,
And shuns to have her graces spied,
That hadst thou sprung
In deserts, where no men abide,
Thou must have uncommended died.
Small is the worth
Of beauty from the light retired;
Bid her come forth,
Suffer herself to be desired,
And not blush so to be admired.
Then die! that she
The common fate of all things rare
Go to that impenetrable realm
That death himself trembles to look upon.
There plays the fountain of love
With swans sporting on its waters.
There the company of holy men is available,
And one may talk of spiritual knowledge.
There one can mediate on Shyam
And purify one's mind.
There one may bind on
The anklets of good-conduct,
And dance the dance of inner contentment.
There one may adopt a headpiece of gold
And the sixteen kinds of adornment,
Let there be love for Shyam
Go seek her out all courteously,
And say I come,
Wind of spices whose song is ever
Epithalamium.
O, hurry over the dark lands
And run upon the sea
For seas and lands shall not divide us
My love and me.
Now, wind, of your good courtesy
I pray you go,
And come into her little garden
And sing at her window;
Singing: The bridal wind is blowing
For Love is at his noon;
And soon will your true love be with you,
Soon, O soon.
Go now, Love,
Since staying's joy no longer!
Leave me to prove
If Time can make me stronger!
Nay, look not over thy shoulder so,
Pleading so sweetly to remain,
Where thou workest so much pain:
Look not behind thee, haste and go!
Ah, how should I
Deal to thee such hard measure,
As force thee fly,
Who broughtest heavenly pleasure?
Take pity, Love, and be kind
To him that could not refuse thee!
Is it not grief enough to lose thee?
Haste, O haste, nor look behind!
Dead art thou? No more dead than was the maid
Over whose couch the saving God did stand-
'She is not dead but sleepeth,' said,
And took her by the hand!
Thee knowledge never from Life's pathway wiled,
But following still where life's great father led,
He turned, and taking up his child,
Raised thee too from the dead,
O living, thou hast passed thy second birth,
Found all things new, and some things lovely strange;
But thou wilt not forget the earth,
Or in thy loving change!
Maid of my love! sweet Genevieve!
In beauty's light you glide along;
Your eye is like the star of eve,
And sweet your voice, as seraph's song.
Yet not your heavenly beauty gives
This heart with passion soft to glow:
Within your soul a voice there lives!
It bids you hear the tale of woe.
When sinking low the suff'rer wan
Beholds no hand outstretched to save,
Fair, as the bosom of the swan
That rises graceful o'er the wave,
I've seen your breast with pity heave
