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a white sunday.
And bloomed and breathed in our humanity,
That we might be as Thou, and know no death.
The life we live is Thine, not ours. We bloom
To gladden earth with sacrifice like Thine,
So clad in Thy white robes of righteousness.
Keep us! for here the blossoms blight so fast!
The fruit is flawed in turning from Thy beams
To the biting east, to folly and to sin.
And let all trees, the wildings of the wood,
And grafts of rarest culture, waft Thee praise.
That we might be as Thou, and know no death.
The life we live is Thine, not ours. We bloom
To gladden earth with sacrifice like Thine,
So clad in Thy white robes of righteousness.
Keep us! for here the blossoms blight so fast!
The fruit is flawed in turning from Thy beams
To the biting east, to folly and to sin.
And let all trees, the wildings of the wood,
And grafts of rarest culture, waft Thee praise.
My apple-tree, thy dome of rose and pearl
Will vanish on the morrow, like a dream.
Yet every spring, the springs when I am dead,
A tabernacle thou wilt build for men;
And they will look up through thee into heaven,
And hear the hum of bees among thy boughs,
A faint sky-music. I shall worship then,
With friends beloved, under other shade.
Are only palms in Eden? I shall miss
The tree whereby Eve fell,—if that thou wert,—
Not seeing it beside the River of Life.
Thou art too beautiful to be dropped out
Of human vision, even beatified.
Will vanish on the morrow, like a dream.
Yet every spring, the springs when I am dead,
A tabernacle thou wilt build for men;
And they will look up through thee into heaven,
And hear the hum of bees among thy boughs,
A faint sky-music. I shall worship then,
With friends beloved, under other shade.
Are only palms in Eden? I shall miss
The tree whereby Eve fell,—if that thou wert,—
Not seeing it beside the River of Life.
Thou art too beautiful to be dropped out
Of human vision, even beatified.
