Following up yesterday's Purcell with more Purcell. This time, "How long, great God," which is wonderfully poetic and mournful. (Also, the PLAYLIST is here, and growing.)
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.
Attribution(s): "Many Bells" provided by Unsplash's Igor Ovsyannykov, whose work is made available via a Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal (CC0 1.0) license.