The awakening of a Spirit.

Note. – These verses were written spontaneously by means of a basket, touched by a young lady and a boy. We imagine that more than one poet would feel honored by their authorship. They were communicated to us by one of our subscribers. How beautiful is Nature and how sweet is this air! Lord! I render you grace, on my knee loving you there! In a hymn of joy and of thanksgiving expressed I wish to raise to you all that my heart has possessed; As once before the eyes, then, of Martha and of Mary, When Lazarus from the tomb you drew, one day, to carry; Of Jairus, you also, the well-beloved daughter Returned to her the voice, reviving her thereafter; In the same way, O God! you stretched your hand to me; n "Arise!" – you said. And not in vain did you decree. Why I, who am no more than mire, in vile array? I wished to praise you and with an angel's voice to pray; Your work has never seemed to me so beautiful! I am like one who comes from night or from a cell Into a purer day and of a dazzling light, Of a sun radiant and warm in life inebriate bright. Sweeter the air then is than milk and honey too; In the heaven, the sounds combine in a concert true. And the voice of the winds breathes forth a harmony That creates, in a void, an eternal symphony. What the Spirit sees, what touches its gaze and sight There, in the book of the heavens, it can read and dream aright; Of the seas in the vastness, in deep billows rolled, In the oceans, at last, the abysses, the worlds untold, All becomes a sphere and, amid its rays that run In convergence, praying one comes at last to God, the One. O you, whose gaze thus glides above the stars on high, And you hide yourself in heaven like a king to spy, What is your greatness, then, at last, in this universe Which is no more than a point, to your gaze immersed Of the seas upon space, in resplendence intense? What, then, is your greatness and your power immense? What palace so vast, O king, you have constructed there! To be parted from you would be too sad to bear. The sun set at your feet, in power without measure, Seems the onyx that a king has in his shoe, his treasure. Yet, what I love most in you, O majesty above, Far less than the greatness, is that Goodness of your love Which reveals itself in all, even in the light that warms My impotent being in the exaltation of prayer's forms. Jodelle. n