Classic Poem

VOL. 3, C ANTIQUE 92

Source of Love, my brighter Sun,
Thou alone my comfort art;
See my race is almost run;
Hast thou left this trembling heart?

In my youth, thy charming eyes
Drew me from the ways of men;
Then I drank unmingled joys;
Frown of thine, saw never then .

Spouse of Christ was then my name;
And, devoted all to thee,
Strangely jealous I became,
Jealous of this Self, in me.

Thee to love, and none beside,
Was my darling, sole employ;
While alternately I died,
Now of grief, and now of joy.

Through the dark and silent night,
On thy radiant smiles I dwelt;
And to see the dawning light,
Was the keenest pain I felt.

Thou my gracious teacher wert;
And thine eye, so close applied,
While it watch'd thy pupil's heart,
Seem'd to look at none beside.

Conscious of no evil drift,
This, I cried, is Love indeed —
'Tis the Giver, not the Gift,
Whence the joys I feel proceed.

But soon humbled, and laid low,
Stript of all thou hadst conferr'd,
Nothing left, but Sin and woe,
I perceiv'd how I had err'd.

Oh, the vain conceit of man,
Dreaming of a good his own,
Arrogating all he can,
Though the Lord is good alone!

He, the graces Thou hast wrought,
Makes subservient to his pride;
Ignorant, that one such thought
Passes all his sin beside.

Such his folly — prov'd, at last,
By the loss of that repose
Self-complacence cannot taste,
Only Love divine bestows.

'Tis by this reproof severe,
And by this reproof alone,
His defects at last appear,
Man is to himself made known.

Learn, all Earth! that feeble Man,
Sprung from this terrestrial clod,
Nothing is, and nothing can;
Life, and pow'r, are all in God.