Out of the Depths

“O Father! not my will, but Thine be done!”

Thus with my lips I say;

Yet lags the heart, the while the lips would run—

My heart, it sayeth “Nay.”

“Be comforted, O child of My delight,

Though yet thy heart complain;

For I would have thee suffer when I smite,

Or pain would not be [g]ain.

“Were it a chastening if it were not grief?

Yet for a moment tears—

Then glows the spring where fell the yellow leaf,

Of Heaven's eternal years.

“For sorrow is the sorrow of an hour,

And is eternal love;

The dusky bud enfolds the glorious flower

For God's delight above.”

O Lord, whose lips are lilies, sweet to me

As psaltery and as psalm,

Thy blessed words of glory that shall be,

Of song, and crown, and palm.

Yet sweeter even now to see Thy Face,

To find Thee now my rest—

My sorrow comforted in Thine embrace,

And soothed upon Thy breast.

Lord, there to weep is better than the joy

Of all the sons of men;

For there I know the love without alloy,

I cannot lose again.

“O child, My heart's beloved, sweet to me,

As psaltery and as psalm,

The voice of him who on the midnight sea

Can praise through storm and calm.

“And who is he who seeks the haven fair,

The everlasting Home?

The lonely and the outcast enter there—

The glad heart will not come.

“To Me the weary cometh when the way

Is steep and long and lone—

To Me the friendless, when the golden day

Behind the hills is gone.”

......

Then spake my heart, “For him who comes are pain

And bitter tears and scars;

The briars of the wilderness remain

Griefs countless as the stars.

“As he who from the poor his garment takes

When drives the storm and sleet,

Is he who singeth to the heart that breaks

How then may grief be sweet?”

And lo! in vision fair did I behold

One who a psaltery strung—

Two threads he stretched above the strings of gold,

Across, and all along.

Then with the threads thus crosswise o'er the strings,

Gave he the harp to me—

Thus know I how the broken-hearted sings,

O Lamb of God, to Thee.