The Cloister Garden

How good it is, when weaned from all beside,

With God alone the soul is satisfied,

Deep hidden in His heart!

How good it is, redeemed, and washed, and shriven,

To dwell, a cloistered soul, with Christ in heaven,

Joined, never more to part!

How good the heart's still chamber thus to close

On all but God alone—

There in the sweetness of His love repose,

His love unknown!

All else for ever lost—forgotten all

That else can be;

In rapture undisturbed, O Lord, to fall

And worship Thee.

No place, no time, ‘neath those eternal skies—

How still, how sweet, and how surpassing fair

That solitude in glades of Paradise,

And, as in olden days, God walking there.

I hear His voice amidst the stillness blest,

And care and fear are past—

I lay me down within His arms to rest

From all my works at last.

How good it is when from the distant land,

From lonely wanderings, and from weary ways,

The soul hath reached at last the golden strand,

The Gates of Praise!

There, where the tide of endless love flows free,

There, in the sweet and glad eternity,

The still, unfading Now.

Ere yet the days and nights of earth are o'er,

Begun the day that is for evermore—

Such rest are Thou!