De Profundis

When I am dead unto myself, and let,     O Father, thee live on in me,     Contented to do nought but pay my debt,     And leave the house to thee,     Then shall I be thy ransomed--from the cark     Of living, from the strain for breath,     From tossing in my coffin strait and dark,     At hourly strife with death!     Have mercy! in my coffin! and awake!     A buried temple of the Lord!     Grow, Temple, grow! Heart, from thy cerements break!     Stream out, O living Sword!     When I am with thee as thou art with me,     Life will be self-forgetting power;     Love, ever conscious, buoyant, clear, and free,     Will flame in darkest hour.     Where now I sit alone, unmoving, calm,     With windows open to thy wind,     Shall I not know thee in the radiant psalm     Soaring from heart and mind?     The body of this death will melt away,     And I shall know as I am known;     Know thee my father, every hour and day,     As thou know'st me thine own!