Is. xli. 17.
O Lord, the most
fair, the most tender,
My
heart is adrift and alone;
My heart is aweary
and thirsty--
Athirst
for a joy unknown.
From a child I have
followed it--chased it,
By
wilderness, wold, and hill--
I never have
reached it or seen it,
yet
must I follow it still.
In those olden
years did I seek it
In
the sweet fair things around,
But the more I
sought and I thirsted,
The
less, O my Lord, I found.
When nearest it
seemed to my grasping,
It
fled like a wandering thought;
I never have known
what it is, Lord--
Too
well know I what it is not.
"It is I, it is I,
the Eternal,
Who
chose thee Mine own to be--
Who chose thee
before the ages--
Who
chose thee eternally.
I stood in the way
before thee,
In
the ways thou wouldest have gone;
For this is the
mark of My chosen,
That
they shall be Mine alone."
H. Suso.