Ps. xci. 1.
How good it is,
when weaned from all beside,
With God alone the
soul is satisfied,
Deep
hidden in His heart!
How good it is,
redeemed, and washed, and shriven,
To dwell, a
cloistered soul, with Christ in heaven,
Joined,
never more to part!
How good the
heart's still chamber thus to close
On
all but God alone--
There in the
sweetness of His love repose,
His
love unknown!
All else for ever
lost--forgotten all
That
else can be;
In rapture
undisturbed, O Lord, to fall
And
worship Thee.
No place, no time,
'neath those eternal skies--
How still, how
sweet, and how surpassing fair
That solitude in
glades of Paradise,
And, as in olden
days, God walking there.
I hear His voice
amidst the stillness blest,
And
care and fear are past--
I lay me down
within His arms to rest
From
all my works at last.
How good it is when
from the distant land,
From lonely
wanderings, and from weary ways,
The soul hath
reached at last the golden strand,
The
Gates of Praise!
There, where the
tide of endless love flows free,
There,
in the sweet and glad eternity,
The
still, unfading Now.
Ere yet the days
and nights of earth are o'er,
Begun the day that
is for evermore--
Such
rest are Thou!
G. T. S.