 | Songs for Sufferers |  |
16
MY JEWELS.
My jewels are works of the knife, white scars
That the Saviour Himself hath written,
And to me they are bright as the midnight stars;
They raze with their wounding bounds and bars,
And for healing my flesh was smitten.
I felt, if forlorn, the nail and thorn,
By their rending I to new birth was born.
That the Saviour Himself hath written,
And to me they are bright as the midnight stars;
They raze with their wounding bounds and bars,
And for healing my flesh was smitten.
I felt, if forlorn, the nail and thorn,
By their rending I to new birth was born.
My jewels are stigmata these have left,
And I treasure not gains but losses,
For we keep the joys whereof all bereft;
And a sorrow escaped, is but a theft
From my pilgrim path of crosses.
Ah, I prize the stains of my heavy chains,
And my pearls and diamonds are but pains.
And I treasure not gains but losses,
For we keep the joys whereof all bereft;
And a sorrow escaped, is but a theft
From my pilgrim path of crosses.
Ah, I prize the stains of my heavy chains,
And my pearls and diamonds are but pains.
My jewels are cut with the biting blade,
They shine as a radiant morning
When it sheds in a moment the last shade;
For they do not alter, they cannot fade,
They cling like a bride's adorning.
For, whenever I feel the cruel steel,
I see Christ at my bedside serve and kneel.
They shine as a radiant morning
When it sheds in a moment the last shade;
For they do not alter, they cannot fade,
They cling like a bride's adorning.
For, whenever I feel the cruel steel,
I see Christ at my bedside serve and kneel.
| Songs for Sufferers | |