Thy creatures suffer, O Most High!
And yet thy sons rejoice;
Thy birds sing on to dying men
With clear, exulting voice;
Thy sunbeams dance among the flowers
That veil our dead from sight,
And sorrow lays a harmless hand
On ever-fresh delight.
O sacred Unity of Love!
This life and death behind,
Attracting heart aloof from heart
And mind at war with mind.
To the worn spirit grieved for thee
At every passing jar,
How touching in their fearless tone,
How sweet thy concords are!
If out of depths that sin has made,
And would have filled with woe,
We hear above creation's groan
Her music soft and low,
It is that lovely things on earth
The atoning truth declare —
The hallelujah of thy heaven
Receives an answer there.
Thou hast a spring of endless health,
With issues great and wide,
In the free heart that dares to live
Because thy Christ has died;
An element of bliss divine
That passes mortal bound,
And worships with the heavenly host
At every joyful sound.
When through the haunting shades of death
We take our hallowed way,
And see in resurrection dawn
The place where Jesus lay,
Still love to love in quest of him
The word of comfort gives;
Still angels watching at his grave.
Bear witness that he lives.
A gloom may gather as we go,
And sound and sight grow dim;
But day has risen on the paths
That lead his friends to him.
All through the dull decline of sense
And even while we die,
His triumph finds the listening ear
And fills the expecting eye.
We follow him, and earth shines on,
From our faint gaze set free;
Her psalms, that call no more on us,
Pursue their praise of thee.
While thou, on our eternal life
Through all decay intent,
Art keeping for the day of power
Thy human instrument.
Then may our silence in thy hand,
Mid sickness and distress,
Take part in that ascending hymn
Which serves thee none the less;
Till the whole Church's bridal joy,
Unblemish'd and complete,
Shall win a blessed universe
To its Redeemer's feet.