2 Cor. iv. 17.
"O Father! not my
will, but Thine be done!"
Thus
with my lips I say;
Yet lags the heart,
the while the lips would run--
My
heart, it sayeth "Nay."
"Be comforted, O
child of My delight,
Though
yet thy heart complain;
For I would have
thee suffer when I smite,
Or
pain would not be [g]ain.
"Were it a
chastening if it were not grief?
Yet
for a moment tears--
Then glows the
spring where fell the yellow leaf,
Of
Heaven's eternal years.
"For sorrow is the
sorrow of an hour,
And
is eternal love;
The dusky bud
enfolds the glorious flower
For
God's delight above."
O Lord, whose lips
are lilies, sweet to me
As
psaltery and as psalm,
Thy blessed words
of glory that shall be,
Of
song, and crown, and palm.
Yet sweeter even
now to see Thy Face,
To
find Thee now my rest--
My sorrow comforted
in Thine embrace,
And
soothed upon Thy breast.
Lord, there to weep
is better than the joy
Of
all the sons of men;
For there I know
the love without alloy,
I
cannot lose again.
"O child, My
heart's beloved, sweet to me,
As
psaltery and as psalm,
The voice of him
who on the midnight sea
Can
praise through storm and calm.
"And who is he who
seeks the haven fair,
The
everlasting Home?
The lonely and the
outcast enter there--
The
glad heart will not come.
"To Me the weary
cometh when the way
Is
steep and long and lone--
To Me the
friendless, when the golden day
Behind
the hills is gone."
. . . . . .
Then spake my
heart, "For him who comes are pain
And
bitter tears and scars;
The briars of the
wilderness remain
Griefs
countless as the stars.
"As he who from the
poor his garment takes
When
drives the storm and sleet,
Is he who singeth
to the heart that breaks
How
then may grief be sweet?"
And lo! in vision
fair did I behold
One
who a psaltery strung--
Two threads he
stretched above the strings of gold,
Across,
and all along.
Then with the
threads thus crosswise o'er the strings,
Gave
he the harp to me--
Thus know I how the
broken-hearted sings,
O
Lamb of God, to Thee.
H. Suso.