It knows. But when the sudden stress Of passion is resistlessness, It drags the flood that sweeps away, For anchorage, or hold, or stay, Or saving rock of stableness, And there is none,-- No underlying fixedness to fasten on: Unsounded depths; unsteadfast seas; Wavering, yielding, bottomless depths: But these! Yea, sometimes seemeth gone The Everlasting Arm we lean upon! So blind, as well as maimed and halt and lame, What sometimes makes it see? Oppressed with guilt and gnawed upon of shame, What comes upon it so, Faster and faster stealing, Flooding it like an air or sea Of warm and golden feeling? What makes it melt, Dissolving from the earthiness that made it hard and heavy? What makes it melt and flow, And melt and melt and flow,-- Till light, clear-shining through its heart of dew, Makes all things new? Loosed from the spirit of infirmity, listen its cry. "Was it I that longed for oblivion, O wonderful Love! was it I, That deep in its easeful water My wounded soul might lie? That over the wounds and anguish The easeful flood might roll? A river of loving-kindness Has healed and hidden the whole. Lo! in its pitiful bosom Vanish the sins of my youth,-- Error and shame and backsliding Lost in celestial ruth. "O grace too great! O excellency of my new estate! "No more, for the friends that love me, I shall veil my face or grieve Because love outrunneth deserving; I shall be as they believe. And I shall be strong to help them, Filled of Thy fulness with stores Of comfort and hope and compassion. Oh, upon all my shores, With the waters with which Thou dost flood me, Bid me, my Father, o'erflow! Who can taste Thy divineness, Nor hunger and thirst to bestow? Send me, oh, send me! The wanderers let me bring! The thirsty let me show Where the rivers of gladness spring, And fountains of mercy flow! How in the hills shall they sit and sing, With valleys of peace below!" Oh that the keys of our hearts the angels would bear in their bosoms! For revelation fades and fades away, Dream-like becomes, and dim, and far-withdrawn; And evening comes to find the soul a prey, That was caught up to visions at the dawn; Sword of the spirit,--still it sheathes in rust, And lips of prophecy are sealed with dust.