 | The Poetical Works of Walter C. Smith |  |
May, 18—
Sick! I am sure death is coming: I never have felt like this;
Such giddy sinkings and swimmings, and fainting away into bliss!
Life in the swooning of life, as if the soul fluttered within,
Panting, exhausted, in hope to escape from the body of sin!
Heart, O my heart so unquiet, why wilt thou not be at rest?
Clinging to this life of trouble, shrinking from life of the blest!
Better to be with Jesus! yet husband and home too are dear;
And oh if my love be a sin, I cannot help sinning, I fear.
All other idols are broken, this one I never can break.
Could I be shout out of heaven because of the heaven that I make
Out of my true love to him, and out of his great love to me,
Arching as deep blue sky still over a deep blue sea?
Such giddy sinkings and swimmings, and fainting away into bliss!
Life in the swooning of life, as if the soul fluttered within,
Panting, exhausted, in hope to escape from the body of sin!
Heart, O my heart so unquiet, why wilt thou not be at rest?
Clinging to this life of trouble, shrinking from life of the blest!
Better to be with Jesus! yet husband and home too are dear;
And oh if my love be a sin, I cannot help sinning, I fear.
All other idols are broken, this one I never can break.
Could I be shout out of heaven because of the heaven that I make
Out of my true love to him, and out of his great love to me,
Arching as deep blue sky still over a deep blue sea?
If this be death, as I take it, one thing fain would I do,
Ere I go hence to the world where all things are made new:
Again with my husband I'd walk, on the quiet Sabbath day,
When bells from the old kirk chiming call Christian souls to pray,
Down by the green footpath, and the sweet-briar hedge that leads
Straight to the house of the Lord through the clover-scented meads;
Under the high-arched roof there meekly to sit by his side,
In love to remember the Love that bled for us once and died.
Oh it were good to think, if I should be taken from him,
That once we sat there together, where falls the light chastened and dim
Through the tall thin-shafted windows, on hallowed bread and wine,
And vows that we vowed together, of life for the love divine.
I cannot die till we do it: God would not call me hence,
A broken life and unfinished, with a fruitless influence.
Ere I go hence to the world where all things are made new:
Again with my husband I'd walk, on the quiet Sabbath day,
When bells from the old kirk chiming call Christian souls to pray,
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Straight to the house of the Lord through the clover-scented meads;
Under the high-arched roof there meekly to sit by his side,
In love to remember the Love that bled for us once and died.
Oh it were good to think, if I should be taken from him,
That once we sat there together, where falls the light chastened and dim
Through the tall thin-shafted windows, on hallowed bread and wine,
And vows that we vowed together, of life for the love divine.
I cannot die till we do it: God would not call me hence,
A broken life and unfinished, with a fruitless influence.
| The Poetical Works of Walter C. Smith | |