Sunday, March 13, 2022

Light from the Light of Light

De Profundis
by Lionel Johnson 

Would, that with you I were imparadised,
 White Angels around Christ!
That, by the borders of the eternal sea
 Singing, I too might be:
 Where dewy green the palm trees on the strand,
 Your gentle shelter, stand:
 Where reigns the Victor Victim, and His Eyes
 Control eternities!
 Immortally your music flows in sweet
 Stream round the Wounded Feet;
 And rises to the Wounded Hands; and then
 Springs to the Home of Men,
 The Wounded Heart: and there in flooding praise
 Circles, and sings, and stays.
 My broken music wanders in the night,
 Faints, and finds no delight:
 White Angels! take of it one piteous tone,
 And mix it with your own!
 Then, as He feels your chaunting flow less clear,
 He will but say: I hear
 The sorrow of My child on earth! and send
 Some fair, celestial friend,
 One of yourselves, to help me: and you will,
 Choirs of the Holy Hill,
 Help me, who walk in darkness, far away
 From your enduring day:
 Who have the wilderness for home, till morn
 Break, and my day be born;
 And on the Mount of Myrrh burn golden white
 Light from the Light of Light.