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?