I SOMETIMES feel so passionate a yearning

‘For spiritual perfection here below,

This vigorous frame with healthful fervor burning,

Seems my determined foe.

So actively it makes a stern resistance,

 So cruelly it sometimes wages war

Against the higher spiritual existence,

Which I am striving for.

It interrupts my soul’s intense devotions;

Some hope it strangles at its very birth

With a swift rush of violent emotions

Which link me to the earth.

It  is as if two mortal foes contended

 Within my bosom in a deadly strife;

One for the loftier aims Jesus intended,

One for the “Mammon” life.

And yet I know this very war within me,

Which brings out all my will-power and control;

This very conflict yet through Christ shall win me

 The loved and longed-for goal.               

And when in the immortal ranks enlisted,

 Sometimes I wonder if we shall not find

That not for deeds alone, but also what’s resisted,

 Our places were assigned.

*******

↑Return to Calendar ↑