VEIL thine eyes, O belovèd, my spouse, | |
| Turn them away, | |
| Lest in their light my life withdrawn | |
| Dies as a star, as a star in the day, | |
| As a dream in the dawn. | 5 |
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| Slenderly hang the olive leaves | |
| Sighing apart; | |
| The rose and silver doves in the eaves | |
| With a murmur of music bind our house. | |
| Honey and wine in thy words are stored, | 10 |
| Thy lips are bright as the edge of a sword | |
| That hath found my heart, | |
| That hath found my heart. | |
| |
| Sweet, I have waked from a dream of thee,— | |
| And of Him. | 15 |
| He Who came when the songs were done. | |
| From the net of thy smiles my heart went free | |
| And the golden lure of thy love grew dim. | |
| I turned to them asking, ‘Who is He, | |
| Royal and sad, who comes to the feast | 20 |
| And sits Him down in the place of the least?’ | |
| And they said, ‘He is Jesus, the carpenter’s son.’ | |
| |
| Hear how my harp on a single string | |
| Murmurs of love. | |
| Down in the fields the thrushes sing | 25 |
| And the lark is lost in the light above, | |
| Lost in the infinite glowing whole, | |
| As I in thy soul, | |
| As I in thy soul. | |
| |
| Love, I am fain for thy glowing grace | 30 |
| As the pool for the star, as the rain for the rill. | |
| Turn to me, trust to me, mirror me | |
| As the star in the pool, as the cloud in the sea. | |
| Love, I looked awhile in His face | |
| And was still. | 35 |
| |
| The shaft of the dawn strikes clear and sharp: | |
| Hush, my harp. | |
| Hush, my harp, for the day is begun, | |
| And the lifting, shimmering flight of the swallow | |
| Breaks in a curve on the brink of morn, | 40 |
| Over the sycamores, over the corn. | |
| Cling to me, cleave to me, prison me | |
| As the mote in the flame, as the shell in the sea, | |
| For the winds of the dawn say, ‘Follow, follow | |
| Jesus Bar-Joseph, the carpenter’s son.’ | 45 |
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