Let Your Light So Shine

Sometimes, O Lord, thou lightest in my head
A lamp that well might pharos all the lands;
Anon the light will neither rise nor spread:
Shrouded in danger gray the beacon stands!

A pharos? Oh dull brain! poor dying lamp
Under a bushel with an earthy smell!
Mouldering it stands, in rust and eating damp,
While the slow oil keeps oozing from its cell!

For me it were enough to be a flower
Knowing its root in thee, the Living, hid,
Ordained to blossom at the appointed hour,
And wake or sleep as thou, my Nature, bid;

But hear my brethren in their darkling fright!
Hearten my lamp that it may shine abroad
Then will they cry--Lo, there is something bright!
Who kindled it if not the shining God?