These limbs like ours which are
What must make our Day-star
Much dearer to mankind;
Whose glory bare would blind,
Or less would win man's mind.
Through her we may see Him
Made sweeter, not made dim;
And her hand leaves His light
Sifted, to suit our sight.
There exist but a few other poems bearing Father Hopkins' name. A short but characteristic piece, "Morning, Midday and Evening Sacrifice," should be included among the devotional lyrics; also that direct and manly "Hymn" referred to earlier. And there is one white rose of a fragment, so brief and so exquisite that we give it entire:—
HEAVEN HAVEN.
(A NUN TAKES THE VEIL)
I have desired to go
Where springs not fail,
To fields where flies no sharp and sided hail,
And a few lilies blow.
And I have asked to be
Where no storms come,
Where the green swell is in the havens dumb,
And out of the swing of the sea.
Thinking about Heaven makes all of us wistful; but it is pondering on the tear-stains and blood-stains of earth that crushes out the joy of life. Father Gerard had, seemingly from boyhood, a dangerous realisation of this omnipresent sorrow of living; his own experience did not tend to lighten the burden, and throughout his later years the weight was well-nigh intolerable. Sanely
