By love doth love grow mighty in its love: Once thou shalt love us, child, as we love thee. Father of loves, is it not thy decree That, by our long, far-wandering remove From thee, our life, our home, our being blest, We learn at last to love thee true and best, And rush with all our loves back to thy infinite rest? DECEMBER. 1. I AM a little weary of my life-- Not thy life, blessed Father! Or the blood Too slowly laves the coral shores of thought, Or I am weary of weariness and strife. Open my soul-gates to thy living flood; I ask not larger heart-throbs, vigour-fraught, I pray thy presence, with strong patience rife. 2. I will what thou will'st--only keep me sure That thou art willing; call to me now and then. So, ceasing to enjoy, I shall endure With perfect patience--willing beyond my ken Beyond my love, beyond my thinking scope; Willing to be because thy will is pure; Willing thy will beyond all bounds of hope. 3. This weariness of mine, may it not come From something that doth need no setting right? Shall fruit be blamed if it hang wearily A day before it perfected drop plumb To the sad earth from off its nursing tree? Ripeness must always come with loss of might. The weary evening fall before the resting night. 4. Hither if I have come through earth and air, Through fire and water--I am not of them; Born in the darkness, what fair-flashing gem Would to the earth go back and nestle there? Not of this world, this world my life doth hem; What if I weary, then, and look to the door, Because my unknown life is swelling at the core? 5. All winged things came from the waters first; Airward still many a one from the water springs In dens and caves wind-loving things are nursed:-- I lie like unhatched bird, upfolded, dumb, While all the air is trembling with the hum Of songs and beating hearts and whirring wings, That call my slumbering life to wake to happy things. 6. I lay last night and knew not why I was sad. "'Tis well with God," I said, "and he is the truth; Let that content me."--'Tis not strength, nor youth, Nor buoyant health, nor a heart merry-mad, That makes the fact of things wherein men live: He is the life, and doth my life outgive; In him there is no gloom, but all is solemn-glad, 7. I said to myself, "Lo, I lie in a dream Of separation, where there comes no sign; My waking life is hid with Christ in God, Where all is true and potent--fact divine." I will not heed the thing that doth but seem; I will be quiet as lark upon the sod; God's will, the seed, shall rest in me the pod. 8.