Of the Soul’s Complaint, of the Garden, and of the New Song.
Project Gutenberg EPUB edition
Mechthild, of Magdeburg and Bevan, Frances
“When mine eyes are dim with weeping,
And my tongue with grief is dumb;
And it is as if Thou wert sleeping
When my heart calleth, ‘Come;’
When I hunger with bitter hunger,
O Lord, for Thee.
Where art Thou, then, Belovèd?
Speak, speak to me.”
“I am where I was in the ancient days,
I in Myself must be;
In all things I am, and in every place,
For there is no change in Me.
Where the sun is My Godhead, throned above,[8]
For thee, O Mine own, I wait;
I wait for thee in the garden of love,
Till thou comest irradiate
With the light that shines from My Face divine,
And I pluck the flowers for thee;
They are thine, belovèd, for they are Mine,
And thou art one with Me.
In the tender grass by the waters still,
I have made thy resting-place;
Thy rest shall be sweet in My holy will,
And sure in My changeless grace.
And I bend for thee the holy Tree,
Where blossoms the mystic Rod;
The highest of all the trees that be
In the Paradise of God.
And thou of that Tree of life shalt eat,
Of the Life that is in Me;
Thou shalt feed on the fruit that is good for meat,
And passing fair to see.
There overshadowed by mighty wings
Of the Holy Spirit’s peace,
Beyond the sorrow of earthly things,
The toil and the tears shall cease.
And there beneath the eternal Tree,
I will teach thy lips to sing
The sweet new song that no man knows
In the land of his banishing.