(best if read aloud)
Adept, refined evasion
My best, most lovely skill
Has led me circled, doubled --
Ingrown to carnal will.
Not yesteryear, but four ago
My heart did quick submit
In praise, in heaves -- in reverie
I saw what errs had spent.
The darkened counsel of silent hours
Full shriveled at first light
And lies and chains which I had donned
Fell, again, from might.
The months to come were lighter still --
No lust could imbrue my praise.
Prayers, songs, valleys, hills --
All joy, all peace,
-- all changed.
There, in a cloud of furied flight
I for the first, against my King,
Supped on earth's foul delights --
No longer could I sing.
From this sip, I full could see
The highest stones were raised.
I felt, from then, that the decade next
My hopes, my grace, would flounder -- vexed.
From then, we know, how days moved on
This step, this sore, this hobbled gait
It seemed would be, at my consent
The traveled path of destined fate.
I know not how it comes to pass
That prodigals find their way
But I say truth now, in full display,
That here I cannot stay.
My will, my hopes -- the one's I forged
In the heat of mercy's flames
I must, with haste, return them there
And find holiness to wait.
I claim that now again, again
My iron will is soft,
And supple to the mighty will
Of Him who left His loft.
