Songs for Sufferers :: :: University of Virginia Library

It's but the old and worn that dies and passes,
The soul is greater than the imprisoning flesh
Which weaves about it but a mortal mesh;
Die not the green or glory on lush grasses,
They only fade to shine elsewhere afresh.
And were our eyes not holden, we should mark
Eternal beauty in the deepest dark.

Here as I lie and languish on the pillows
That build for me a temple fine and fair,
I meet the message of a larger air;
The balm that sweetest is in swelling billows,
The wounds that rend the body to repair.
The purifying strokes, the stripes that heal,
What are they but God's sanctifying seal?

Yet nothing dies, but all is surely turning
To something better than hath been of yore,
The crushing kills the dross and leaves the ore;
God's Love is just a fire for ever burning,
The fiercer flame but glorifies the more.
There were no riches were there no dear loss,
There is no shade except the enshrining Cross.