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| WHY dost thou shade thy lovely face? O why | |
| Does that eclipsing hand of thine deny | |
| The sunshine of the Sun’s enlivening eye? | |
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| Without thy light what light remains in me? | |
| Thou art my life; my way, my light’s in thee; | 5 |
| I live, I move, and by thy beams I see. | |
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| Thou art my life—if thou but turn away | |
| My life’s a thousand deaths. Thou art my way— | |
| Without thee, Love, I travel not but stay. | |
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| My light thou art—without thy glorious sight | 10 |
| My eyes are darken’d with eternal night. | |
| My Love, thou art my way, my life, my light. | |
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| Thou art my way; I wander if thou fly. | |
| Thou art my light; if hid, how blind am I! | |
| Thou art my life; if thou withdraw’st, I die. | 15 |
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| My eyes are dark and blind, I cannot see: | |
| To whom or whither should my darkness flee, | |
| But to that light?—and who’s that light but thee? | |
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| If I have lost my path, dear lover, say, | |
| Shall I still wander in a doubtful way? | 20 |
| Love, shall a lamb of Israel’s sheepfold stray? | |
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| My path is lost, my wandering steps do stray; | |
| I cannot go, nor can I safely stay; | |
| Whom should I seek but thee, my path, my way? | |
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| And yet thou turn’st thy face away and fly’st me! | 25 |
| And yet I sue for grace and thou deny’st me! | |
| Speak, art thou angry, Love, or only try’st me? | |
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| Thou art the pilgrim’s path, the blind man’s eye, | |
| The dead man’s life. On thee my hopes rely: | |
| If I but them remove, I surely die. | 30 |
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| Dissolve thy sunbeams, close thy wings and stay! | |
| See, see how I am blind, and dead, and stray! | |
| —O thou that art my life, my light, my way! | |
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| Then work thy will! If passion bid me flee, | |
| My reason shall obey, my wings shall be | 35 |
| Stretch’d out no farther than from me to thee! | |
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