| |
| THERE ’S heaven above, and night by night, | |
| I look right through its gorgeous roof; | |
| No suns and moons tho’ e’er so bright | |
| Avail to stop me; splendour-proof | |
| I keep the broods of stars aloof: | 5 |
| For I intend to get to God, | |
| For ’tis to God I speed so fast, | |
| For in God’s breast, my own abode, | |
| Those shoals of dazzling glory, pass’d, | |
| I lay my spirit down at last. | 10 |
| I lie where I have always lain, | |
| God smiles as He has always smiled; | |
| Ere suns and moons could wax and wane, | |
| Ere stars were thundergirt, or piled | |
| The heavens, God thought on me his child; | 15 |
| Ordained a life for me, array’d | |
| Its circumstances, every one | |
| To the minutest; aye, God said | |
| This head this hand should rest upon | |
| Thus, ere He fashion’d star or sun. | 20 |
| And having thus created me, | |
| Thus rooted me, He bade me grow, | |
| Guiltless for ever, like a tree | |
| That buds and blooms, nor seeks to know | |
| The law by which it prospers so: | 25 |
| But sure that thought and word and deed | |
| All go to swell his love for me, | |
| Me, made because that love had need | |
| Of something irrevocably | |
| Pledged solely its content to be. | 30 |
| Yes, yes, a tree which must ascend, | |
| No poison-gourd foredoom’d to stoop! | |
| I have God’s warrant, could I blend | |
| All hideous sins, as in a cup, | |
| To drink the mingled venoms up, | 35 |
| Secure my nature will convert | |
| The draught to blossoming gladness fast, | |
| While sweet dews turn to the gourd’s hurt, | |
| And bloat, and while they bloat it, blast, | |
| As from the first its lot was cast. | 40 |
| For as I lie, smiled on, full fed | |
| By unexhausted power to bless, | |
| I gaze below on Hell’s fierce bed, | |
| And those its waves of flame oppress, | |
| Swarming in ghastly wretchedness; | 45 |
| Whose life on earth aspired to be | |
| One altar-smoke, so pure!—to win | |
| If not love like God’s love to me, | |
| At least to keep his anger in; | |
| And all their striving turn’d to sin. | 50 |
| Priest, doctor, hermit, monk grown white | |
| With prayer, the broken-hearted nun, | |
| The martyr, the wan acolyte, | |
| The incense-swinging child,—undone | |
| Before God fashion’d star or sun! | 55 |
| God, whom I praise; how could I praise, | |
| If such as I might understand, | |
| Make out and reckon on His ways, | |
| And bargain for his love, and stand, | |
| Paying a price, at his right hand? | 60 |
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