| |
| THROUGH that pure virgin shrine, | |
| That sacred veil drawn o’er Thy glorious noon, | |
| That men might look and live, as glow-worms shine, | |
| And face the moon: | |
| Wise Nicodemus saw such light | 5 |
| As made him know his God by night. | |
| |
| Most blest believer he! | |
| Who in that land of darkness and blind eyes | |
| Thy long-expected healing wings could see | |
| When Thou didst rise! | 10 |
| And, what can never more be done, | |
| Did at midnight speak with the Sun! | |
| |
| O who will tell me, where | |
| He found Thee at that dead and silent hour? | |
| What hallow’d solitary ground did bear | 15 |
| So rare a flower; | |
| Within whose sacred leaves did lie | |
| The fulness of the Deity? | |
| |
| No mercy-seat of gold, | |
| No dead and dusty cherub, nor carv’d stone, | 20 |
| But His own living works did my Lord hold | |
| And lodge alone; | |
| Where trees and herbs did watch and peep | |
| And wonder, while the Jews did sleep. | |
| |
| Dear Night! this world’s defeat; | 25 |
| The stop to busy fools; care’s check and curb; | |
| The day of spirits; my soul’s calm retreat | |
| Which none disturb! | |
| Christ’s progress, and His prayer-time; | |
| The hours to which high Heaven doth chime. | 30 |
| |
| God’s silent, searching flight, | |
| When my Lord’s head is fill’d with dew, and all | |
| His locks are wet with the clear drops of night; | |
| His still, soft call: | |
| His knocking-time; the soul’s dumb watch, | 35 |
| When spirits their fair kindred catch. | |
| |
| Were all my loud, evil days | |
| Calm and unhaunted as is thy dark tent, | |
| Whose peace but by some angel’s wing or voice | |
| Is seldom rent; | 40 |
| When I in heaven all the long year | |
| Would keep, and never wander here. | |
| |
| But living where the sun | |
| Doth all things wake, and where all mix and tire | |
| Themselves and others, I consent and run | 45 |
| To ev’ry mire; | |
| And by this word’s ill-guiding light, | |
| Err more than I can do by night. | |
| |
| There is in God—some say— | |
| A deep, but dazzling darkness; as men here | 50 |
| Say it is late and dusky, because they | |
| See not all clear. | |
| O for that Night! where I in Him | |
| Might live invisible and dim! | |
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