Three Songs

I.

A heart as deep as the sea,
A heart as vast as the sky,
Thou shouldest have given to me,
O Spirit, since I must die!

For how shall I feel and attain
The joy and the fear and the strife,
The hope of the world and the pain
In the few short years of a life?

II.

The flocks that bruise the mountain grass
Send out beneath their feet
Such thymy fragrance as they pass,
That all the fell is sweet.

Sometimes a stranger breathes thy name,
O Love of long ago!
And in my heart there leaps to flame
A long-remembered woe.

III.

Thou sentest them an angel, Lord,
Since they were precious in Thine eyes,
An angel with a flaming sword,
To drive them out of Paradise.

For thus they kept the dream of bliss,
The hope in something out of sight,
Nor ever knew how sad it is
To weary of our best delight.