| Nicholson & Lee, eds. The Oxford Book of English Mystical Verse. 1917. |
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| 137. De Profundis |
| By George Mac Donald (1824–1905) |
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| WHEN I am dead unto myself, and let, | |
| O Father, Thee live on in me, | |
| Contented to do naught but pay my debt, | |
| And leave the house to Thee, | |
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| Then shall I be Thy ransomed—from the cark | 5 |
| Of living, from the strain for breath, | |
| From tossing in my coffin strait and dark, | |
| At hourly strife with death! | |
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| Have mercy! in my coffin! and awake! | |
| A buried temple of the Lord! | 10 |
| Grow, Temple, grow! Heart, from thy cerements break! | |
| Stream out, O living Sword! | |
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| When I am with Thee as thou art with me, | |
| Life will be self-forgetting power; | |
| Love, ever conscious, buoyant, clear, and free, | 15 |
| Will flame in darkest hour. | |
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| 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? | 20 |
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| 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! | |
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