Rampolli | Page 6

hinder our return??Long since repose our precious!?Their grave is of our life the bourn;?We shrink from times ungracious!?By not a hope are we decoyed:?The heart is full; the world is void!
Infinite and mysterious,?Thrills through me a sweet trembling,?As if from far there echoed thus?A sigh, our grief resembling:?The dear ones long as well as I,?And send to me their waiting sigh.
Down to the sweet bride, and away?To the beloved Jesus!?Courage! the evening shades grow gray,?Of all our griefs to ease us!?A dream will dash our chains apart,?And lay us on the Father's heart.
SPIRITUAL SONGS.
I.
Without thee, what were life or being!?Without thee, what had I not grown!?From fear and anguish vainly fleeing,?I in the world had stood alone;?For all I loved could trust no shelter;?The future a dim gulf had lain;?And when my heart in tears did welter,?To whom had I poured out my pain?
Consumed in love and longing lonely?Each day had worn the night's dull face?With hot tears I had followed only?Afar life's wildly rushing race.?No rest for me, tumultuous driven!?A hopeless sorrow by the hearth!--?Who, that had not a friend in heaven,?Could to the end hold out on earth?
But if his heart once Jesus bareth,?And I of him right sure can be,?How soon a living glory scareth?The bottomless obscurity!?Manhood in him first man attaineth;?His fate in Him transfigured glows;?On freezing Iceland India gaineth,?And round the loved one blooms and blows.
Life grows a twilight softly stealing;?The world speaks all of love and glee;?For every wound grows herb of healing,?And every heart beats full and free.?I, his ten thousand gifts receiving,?Humble like him, his knees embrace;?Sure that we share his presence living?When two are gathered in one place.
Forth, forth to all highways and hedges!?Compel the wanderers to come in;?Stretch out the hand that good will pledges,?And gladly call them to their kin.?See heaven high over earth up-dawning!?In faith we see it rise and spread:?To all with us one spirit owning--?To them with us 'tis opened.
An ancient, heavy guilt-illusion?Haunted our hearts, a changeless doom;?Blindly we strayed in night's confusion;?Gladness and grief alike consume.?Whate'er we did, some law was broken!?Mankind appeared God's enemy;?And if we thought the heavens had spoken,?They spoke but death and misery.
The heart, of life the fountain swelling--?An evil creature lay therein;?If more light shone into our dwelling,?More unrest only did we win.?Down to the earth an iron fetter?Fast held us, trembling captive crew;?Fear of Law's sword, grim Death the whetter,?Did swallow up hope's residue.
Then came a saviour to deliver--?A Son of Man, in love and might!?A holy fire, of life all-giver,?He in our hearts has fanned alight.?Then first heaven opened--and, no fable,?Our own old fatherland we trod!?To hope and trust we straight were able,?And knew ourselves akin to God.
Then vanished Sin's old spectre dismal;?Our every step grew glad and brave.?Best natal gift, in rite baptismal,?Their own faith men their children gave.?Holy in him, Life since hath floated,?A happy dream, through every heart;?We, to his love and joy devoted,?Scarce know the moment we depart.
Still standeth, in his wondrous glory,?The holy loved one with his own;?His crown of thorns, his faithful story?Still move our hearts, still make us groan.?Whoso from deadly sleep will waken,?And grasp his hand of sacrifice,?Into his heart with us is taken,?To ripen a fruit of Paradise.
II.
Dawn, far eastward, on the mountain!?Gray old times are growing young:?From the flashing colour-fountain?I will quaff it deep and long!--?Granted boon to Longing's long privation!?Sweet love in divine transfiguration!
Comes at last, our old Earth's native,?All-Heaven's one child, simple, kind!?Blows again, in song creative,?Round the earth a living wind;?Blows to clear new flames that rush together?Sparks extinguished long by earthly weather.
Everywhere, from graves upspringing,?Rises new-born life, new blood!?Endless peace up to us bringing,?Dives he underneath life's flood;?Stands in midst, with full hands, eyes caressing--?Hardly waits the prayer to grant the blessing.
Let his mild looks of invading?Deep into thy spirit go;?By his blessedness unfading?Thou thy heart possessed shalt know.?Hearts of all men, spirits all, and senses?Mingle, and a new glad dance commences.
Grasp his hands with boldness yearning;?Stamp his face thy heart upon;?Turning toward him, ever turning,?Thou, the flower, must face thy sun.?Who to him his heart's last fold unfoldeth,?True as wife's his heart for ever holdeth.
Ours is now that Godhead's splendour?At whose name we used to quake!?South and north, its breathings tender?Heavenly germs at once awake!?Let us then in God's full garden labour,?And to every bud and bloom be neighbour!
III.
Who in his chamber sitteth lonely,?And weepeth heavy, bitter tears;?To whom in doleful colours, only?Of want and woe, the world appears;
Who of the Past, gulf-like receding,?Would search with questing eyes the core,?Down into which a sweet woe, pleading,?Wiles him from all sides evermore--
As if a treasure past believing?Lay there below, for him high-piled,?After whose lock, with bosom heaving,?He breathless grasps in longing wild:
He sees the Future, waste and arid,?In hideous length before him stretch;?About he