Song-Prayer: After King David.

I shall be satisfied
With the seeing of thy face.
When I awake, wide-eyed,
I shall be satisfied
With what this life did hide,
The one supernal grace!
I shall be satisfied
With the seeing of thy face.



DECEMBER 27, 1879

Every time would have its song
    If the heart were right,
Seeing Love all tender-strong
    Fills the day and night.


Weary drop the hands of Prayer
    Calling out for peace;
Love always and everywhere
    Sings and does not cease.

Fear, the caitiff, through the night
    Silent peers about;
Love comes singing with a light
    And doth cast him out.

Hate and Guile and Wrath and Doubt
    Never try to sing;
If they did, oh, what a rout
    Anguished ears would sting!

Pride indeed will sometimes aim
    At the finer speech,
But the best that he can frame
    Is a peacock-screech.

Greed will also sometimes try:
    Happiness he hunts!
But his dwelling is a sty,
    And his tones are grunts.

Faith will sometimes raise a song
    Soaring up to heaven,
Then she will be silent long,
    And will weep at even.

Hope has many a gladsome note
    Now and then to pipe;
But, alas, he has the throat
    Of a bird unripe.

Often Joy a stave will start
    Which the welkin rends,
But it always breaks athwart,
    And untimely ends.

Grief, who still for death doth long,
    Always self-abhorred,
Has but one low, troubled song,
I am sorry, Lord.

But Love singeth in the vault.
    Singeth on the stair;
Even for Sorrow will not halt,
    Singeth everywhere.

For the great Love everywhere
    Over all doth glow;
Draws his birds up trough the air,
    Tends his birds below.

And with songs ascending sheer
    Love-born Love replies,
Singing Father in his ear
    Where she bleeding lies.

Therefore, if my heart were right
    I should sing out clear,
Sing aloud both day and night
    Every month in the year!