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143
SWEET IS THE LIGHT!
“Souvent la vie et la mort nous apparaissent comme deux maux dont nous
ne savons quel est le moindre. Quant à l'apôtre, elles lui apparaissent
comme deux biens immenses dont il ne sait quel est le meilleur.”
—Adolphe Monod, Les Adieux.
I.
“Sweet is the light!” they sang,First Singers of our race,—
On each familiar thing,
On each beloved face!
The mighty, conquering light,
Arrowy, keen, and strong!
The dear, familiar light,
Waking the world to song!
Light on the purple seas—
Light in the golden sky;
“Sweet is the light!” they sang;
“And therefore dire to die!”
144
II.
To die! and leave the light,Shadows among the glooms;
Groping 'mid ghosts of joys
For dawn that never comes;
Far from all homely things,
And all familiar ways;
Whilst o'er us, morn by morn,
Still shine the old glad rays,
Waking the fresh green earth
With songs to greet the sky:
“Sweet is the light!” they sang;
“And therefore dire to die!”
III.
Sweet is the light—all light—O Fount of light! we sing,—
On each beloved face,
On each familiar thing!
Thy mighty, probing light,
Keen to part right from wrong!
Thy dear, familiar light,
Waking Thy worlds to song!
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Light in Thy sapphire sky;
“Sweet is the light!” we sing;
And therefore sweet to die!
IV.
To die! and find the light,And never lose it more;
Light on Life's troubled waves,
Where much was dark before,—
The little stormy course
Which tossed us to Thy shore;
Light on the ceaseless storms
Wherein our race is whirled,—
The blindness, battles, sins,
And chaos of the world;
Light on Thy countless worlds,
The order through the strife;—
The Life that moves the Law,
The Love that moves the Life.
Thy mighty conquering light,
Life-giving, keen, and strong!
Thy kind, familiar light,
Proved step by step so long!
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Holy and homelike glow,—
The Home where, one by one,
Our best and dearest go.
Sweet is the light! we sing;
O Light, in Whom we see!
No darkness waiteth us,—
No darkness is in Thee.
Sweet is the light, we sing,
Where Thou art known, on high!
Not darkly—Face to face:
Sweet, therefore, sweet to die!
New Year's Day, 1871.
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