Through Contemplation's optics I have seen

Him Who is 'fairer than the sons of men':

The source of good, the light archetypal,

Beauty in the original,

'The fairest of ten thousand,' He,

Proportion all and harmony;

All mortal beauty's but a ray

Of His bright ever-shining day;

A little, feeble, twinkling star,

Which, now the Sun's in place, must disappear:--

There is but One that's good, there is but One that's fair.

To Thee, Thou only Fair, my soul aspires

With holy breathings, languishing desires.

To thee m' inamoured panting heart does move,

By efforts of ecstatic love.

How do Thy glorious streams of light

Refresh my intellectual sight!

Tho' broken, and strain'd through a screen

Of envious flesh that stands between!

When shall m' imprison'd soul be free,

That she Thy native uncorrected light may see,

And gaze upon Thy beatific face to all eternity?