| |
| HE saw my heart’s woe, discovered my soul’s anguish, | |
| How in fever, in thirst, in atrophy it pined; | |
| Knew he could heal, yet looked and let it languish, | |
| To its moans spirit-deaf, to its pangs spirit-blind. | |
| |
| But once a year he heard a whisper low and dreary, | 5 |
| Appealing for aid, entreating some reply; | |
| Only when sick, soul-worn and torture-weary, | |
| Breathed I that prayer—heard I that sigh. | |
| |
| He was mute as is the grave, he stood stirless as a tower; | |
| At last I looked up, and saw I prayed to stone: | 10 |
| I asked help of that which to help had no power, | |
| I sought love where love was utterly unknown. | |
| |
| Idolater, I kneeled to an idol cut in rock, | |
| I might have slashed my flesh and drawn my heart’s best blood, | |
| The Granite God had felt no tenderness, no shock; | 15 |
| My Baal had not seen nor heard nor understood. | |
| |
| In dark remorse I rose. I rose in darker shame, | |
| Self-condemned I withdrew to an exile from my kind; | |
| A solitude I sought where mortal never came, | |
| Hoping in its wilds forgetfulness to find. | 20 |
| |
| Now, Heaven, heal the wound which I still deeply feel; | |
| Thy glorious hosts look not in scorn on our poor race; | |
| Thy King eternal doth no iron judgement deal | |
| On suffering worms who seek forgiveness, comfort, grace. | |
| |
| He gave our hearts to love, he will not love despise, | 25 |
| E’en if the gift be lost, as mine was long ago. | |
| He will forgive the fault, will bid the offender rise, | |
| Wash out with dews of bliss the fiery brand of woe; | |
| |
| And give a sheltered place beneath the unsullied throne, | |
| Whence the soul redeemed may mark Time’s fleeting course around earth; | 30 |
| And know its trial overpast, its sufferings gone, | |
| And feel the peril past of Death’s immortal birth. | |
| |
