How long, great God

How long, great God, must I

Immured in this dark prison lie?

Where, at the grates and avenues of sense

My soul must watch to have intelligence;

Where but faint gleam of thee salute my sight,

Like doubtful moonshine in a cloudy night.

When shall I see this magic sphere

And be all mind, all eye, all ear?

How cold this clime! And yet my sense

Perceives ev'n here thy influence;

Ev'n here thy strong magnetic charms I feel,

And pant and tremble like the amorous steel;

To lower good, and beauties not divine,

Sometimes my erroneous needle does decline;

But yet so strong the sympathy,

It turns and points again to thee.

I long to see this excellence

Which at such distance strikes my sense;

My impatient soul struggles to disengage

Her wings from the confinement of her cage.

Would'st thou, great Love, this prisoner once set free:

How she would hasten to be linked to thee.

She'd for no angel's conduct stay,

But fly and love on all the way.