Holy kindness deeply swelling, In blest contemplation buried, Heaven in the soul is dwelling With a cloudless breast; In our raiment long and flowing Through spring-meadows are we carried, Where rude winds are never blowing, In this land of perfect rest. Pleasing lure of midnight hours Quiet sphere of hidden powers, Rapture of mysterious pleasure, These alone our prize; Ours alone that highest measure, Where ourselves in streamlets pouring, Then in dew-drops upward soaring, Drink we as we flow or rise. First with us grew life from love; Closely like the elements Do we mangle Being's waves, Foaming heart with heart. Hotly separate the waves, For the strife of elements Is the highest life of love, And the very heart of hearts. Whispered talk of gentle wishes Hear we only, we are gazing Ever into eyes transfigured, Tasting nought but mouth and kiss; All that we are only touching, Change to balmy fruits and glowing, Change to bosoms soft and tender, Offerings to daring bliss. The desire is ever springing, On the loved one to be clinging, Round him all our spirit flinging, One with him to be,-- Ardent impulse ever heeding To consume in turn each other, Only nourished, only feeding On each other's ecstasy. So in love and lofty rapture Are we evermore abiding, Since that lurid life subsiding, In the day grew pale; Since the pyre its sparkles scattered, And the sod above us sinking, From around the spirit shrinking Melted then the earthly veil. Spells around remembrance woven, Holy sorrow's trembling gladness, Tone-like have our spirits cloven, Cooled their glowing blood. Wounds there are, forever paining; A profound, celestial sadness, Within all our hearts remaining, Us dissolveth in one flood. And in flood we forth are gushing, In a secret manner flowing To the ocean of all living, In the One profound; And from out His heart while rushing, To our circle backward going, Spirit of the loftiest striving Dips within our eddying round. All your golden chains be shaking Bright with emeralds and rubies, Flash and clang together making, Shake with joyous note. From the damp recesses waking, From the sepulchres and ruins, On your cheeks the flush of heaven, To the realm of Fable float. O could men, who soon will follow To the spirit-land, be dreaming That we dwell in all their joyance, All the bliss they taste, They would burn with glad upbuoyance To desert the life so hollow,-- O, the hours away are streaming, Come, beloved, hither haste.