Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

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

By Rose’s Diary (1850). “What mean these slow returns of love?”

Henry Septimus Sutton (1825–1901)

WHAT mean these slow returns of love; these days

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?

Lo, time is precious as it was before;

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.

Dear Lord, what can I do? I come to Thee:

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.

Wake, wake me, God of love! and let Thy fire

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.