OUT OF THE DEPTHS

"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 pain.

 

"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.

2 Cor 4: 17

"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.

By Henry Suso (died 1366)