The Salutation

These little limbs, these eyes and hands which I here find,

This panting heart wherewith my life begins;

Where have ye been? Behind what curtain were ye from me hid so long?

Where was, in what abyss, my new made tongue?

When silent I so many thousand thousand years

Beneath the dust did in a chaos lie, how could I smiles, or tears,

Or lips, or hands, or eyes, or ears perceive?

Welcome, ye treasures which I now receive.

From dust from I rise and out of nothing now awake,

These brighter regions which salute my eyes,

A gift from God I take, the earth, the seas, the light, the lofty skies,

The sun and stars are mine: if these I prize.

A stranger here, strange things doth meet, strange glory see,

Strange treasures lodged in this fair world appear,

Strange, all, and new to me: But that they mine should be who nothing was,

That strangest is of all; yet brought to pass.