Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

George Willis Cooke, comp. The Poets of Transcendentalism: An Anthology. 1903.

‘Who wert and art and evermore shalt be’

William Channing Gannett (1840–1923)

BRING, O Morn, thy music! Bring, O Night, thy hushes!

Oceans, laugh the rapture to the storm-winds coursing free!

Suns and stars are singing, Thou art Creator,

Who wert, and art, and evermore shalt be!

Life and Death, thy creatures, praise thee, Mighty Giver!

Praise and prayer are rising in thy beast and bird and tree:

Lo! they praise and vanish, vanish at thy bidding,—

Who wert, and art, and evermore shalt be!

Light us! lead us! love us! cry thy groping nations,

Pleading in the thousand tongues but naming only thee,

Weaving blindly out thy holy, happy purpose,—

Who wert, and art, and evermore shalt be!

Life nor Death can part us, O thou Love Eternal,

Shepherd of the wandering star and souls that wayward flee!

Homeward draws the spirit to thy Spirit yearning,—

Who wert, and art, and evermore shalt be!