Let it flow on, till all thine earthly heart
   In penitential drops have ebbed away,
Then fearless turn where Heaven hath set thy part,
   Nor shudder at the Eye that saw thee stray.

O lost and found! all gentle souls below
   Their dearest welcome shall prepare, and prove
Such joy o’er thee, as raptured seraphs know,
   Who learn their lesson at the Throne of Love.

FOURTH SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY

For the earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God.  For the creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by the reason of Him who hath subjected the same in hope, because the creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God.  For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now.  Romans viii 19-22.

It was not then a poet’s dream,
   An idle vaunt of song,
Such as beneath the moon’s soft gleam
   On vacant fancies throng;

Which bids us see in heaven and earth,
   In all fair things around,
Strong yearnings for a blest new birth
   With sinless glories crowned;

Which bids us hear, at each sweet pause
   From care and want and toil,
When dewy eve her curtain draws
   Over the day’s turmoil,

In the low chant of wakeful birds,
   In the deep weltering flood,
In whispering leaves, these solemn words —
   “God made us all for good.”

All true, all faultless, all in tune
   Creation’s wondrous choir,
Opened in mystic unison
   To last till time expire.

And still it lasts; by day and night,
   With one consenting voice,
All hymn Thy glory, Lord, aright,
   All worship and rejoice.

Man only mars the sweet accord
   O’erpowering with “harsh din”
The music of Thy works and word,
   Ill matched with grief and sin.

Sin is with man at morning break,
   And through the livelong day
Deafens the ear that fain would wake
   To Nature’s simple lay.

But when eve’s silent footfall steals
   Along the eastern sky,
And one by one to earth reveals
   Those purer fires on high,

When one by one each human sound
   Dies on the awful ear,
Then Nature’s voice no more is drowned,
   She speaks, and we must hear.

Then pours she on the Christian heart
   That warning still and deep,
At which high spirits of old would start
   E’en from their Pagan sleep.

Just guessing, through their murky blind
   Few, faint, and baffling sight,
Streaks of a brighter heaven behind,
   A cloudless depth of light.

Such thoughts, the wreck of Paradise,
   Through many a dreary age,
Upbore whate’er of good and wise
   Yet lived in bard or sage: