When I am dead unto myself, and let, <br />O Father, thee live on in me, <br />Contented to do nought but pay my debt, <br />And leave the house to thee, <br /> <br />Then shall I be thy ransomed-from the cark <br />Of living, from the strain for breath, <br />From tossing in my coffin strait and dark, <br />At hourly strife with death! <br /> <br />Have mercy! in my coffin! and awake! <br />A buried temple of the Lord! <br />Grow, Temple, grow! Heart, from thy cerements break! <br />Stream out, O living Sword! <br /> <br />When I am with thee as thou art with me, <br />Life will be self-forgetting power; <br />Love, ever conscious, buoyant, clear, and free, <br />Will flame in darkest hour. <br /> <br />Where now I sit alone, unmoving, calm, <br />With windows open to thy wind, <br />Shall I not know thee in the radiant psalm <br />Soaring from heart and mind? <br /> <br />The body of this death will melt away, <br />And I shall know as I am known; <br />Know thee my father, every hour and day, <br />As thou know'st me thine own!<br /><br />George MacDonald<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/de-profundis-9/
