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 | The Poems of Richard Watson Gilder |  |
GEORGE MACDONALD
Ah, loving, exquisite, enraptured soul,
Who wert to me a father and a friend;
Who imaged and brought near, all humanly,
The sweetness and the majesty of him
Who in Judea melted human hearts,
And won the world by loveliness and love;
Dear spirit, who to the Infinite Purity
Past, without change, and humbly unabashed—
If farewell we must say, it is that thou
So far beyond, above, we,—alien so
From grace like thine,—may hardly follow close
Thy shining feet in fields of endless light
When to the goal of souls reborn we pass.
Yet couldst thou not rest happy in that world
Thou saw'st with eyes anointed, near that Christ
Who was to thee a human brother and friend,
If we, thy brothers, with thee came not nigh.
If ever saint with the Eternal strove,
Then wouldst thou, wilt thou, strive and supplicate
That not one soul be lost or suffer ill,
If so may be, but win to the Infinite Love
That was the faith, strength, life of all thy days.
Who wert to me a father and a friend;
Who imaged and brought near, all humanly,
The sweetness and the majesty of him
Who in Judea melted human hearts,
And won the world by loveliness and love;
Dear spirit, who to the Infinite Purity
Past, without change, and humbly unabashed—
394
So far beyond, above, we,—alien so
From grace like thine,—may hardly follow close
Thy shining feet in fields of endless light
When to the goal of souls reborn we pass.
Yet couldst thou not rest happy in that world
Thou saw'st with eyes anointed, near that Christ
Who was to thee a human brother and friend,
If we, thy brothers, with thee came not nigh.
If ever saint with the Eternal strove,
Then wouldst thou, wilt thou, strive and supplicate
That not one soul be lost or suffer ill,
If so may be, but win to the Infinite Love
That was the faith, strength, life of all thy days.
Our hearts are heavy; O, yet give we thanks,
As thou didst give when died one dear to thee,
Thanks that thou livedst—that we knew and loved,
Even in the flesh, one who was one with God.
As thou didst give when died one dear to thee,
Thanks that thou livedst—that we knew and loved,
Even in the flesh, one who was one with God.
| The Poems of Richard Watson Gilder | |