AT MATINS

Because I ever have gone down Thy ways

With joyous heart and undivided praise,

I pray Thee, Lord, of Thy great loving-kindness,

Thou'lt make to-day even as my yesterdays!”

( At the edge of the yellow dawn I saw them stand,

Body and Soul; and they were hand-in-hand:

The Soul looked backward where the last night's blindness

Lay still upon the unawakened land;

But the Body, in the sun's light well arrayed,

Fronted the east, grandly and unafraid:

I knew that it was one might never falter

Although the Soul seemed shaken as it prayed. )

“O Lord” ( the Soul said ), “I would ask one thing:

Send out Thy rapid messengers to bring

Me to the shadows which about Thine altar

Are ever born and always gathering.

“For I am weary now, and would lie dead

Where I may not behold my old days shed

Like withered leaves around me and above me;

Hear me, O Lord, and I am comforted!”

“O Lord, because I ever deemed Thee kind”

( The Body's words were borne in on the wind );

“Because I knew that Thou wouldst ever love me

Although I sin, and lead me who am blind;

Because of all these things, hear me who pray!

Lord, grant me of Thy bounty one more day

To worship Thee, and thank Thee I am living.

Yet if Thou callest now, I will obey.”

( The Body's hand tightly the Soul did hold;

And over them both was shed the sun's red gold;

And though I knew this day had in its giving

Unnumbered wrongs and sorrows manifold,

I counted it a sad and bitter thing

That this weak, drifting Soul must alway cling

Unto this Body — wrought in such a fashion

It must have set the gods, even, marvelling.

And, thinking so, I heard the Soul's loud cries,

As it turned round and saw the eastern skies )

“O Lord, destroy in me this new-born passion

For this that has grown perfect in mine eyes!

“O Lord, let me not see this thing is fair,

This Body Thou hast given me to wear,—

Lest I fall out of love with death and dying,

And deem the old, strange life not hard to bear!

“Yea, now, even now, I love this Body so —

O Lord, on me Thy longest days bestow!

O Lord, forget the words I have been crying,

And lead me where Thou thinkest I should go!”

( At the edge of the open dawn I saw them stand,

Body and Soul, together, hand-in-hand,

Fulfilled, as I, with strong desire and wonder

As they beheld the glorious eastern land;

I saw them, in the strong light of the sun,

Go down into the day that had begun;

I knew, as they, that night might never sunder

This Body from the Soul that it had won. )