The Bliss That Once Was Ours

Here I live my days in cloistered peace

And yet the world flows freely through these veins

And all its tribulations seem to sum

The question that inhabits every heart

That seeks for freedom in the chains of fate.

Escape is but a door to another cell

Who would leave the earth and all its woes behind.

A saving hand above our suffering state,

A force divine upon our tortured race

Awaits the turning of the soul to light,

Conversion of the aim of life to That

Which silent sits within unsounded deeps

Preparing through the centuries a path

Sun-strewn on which we may proceed with joy

To find the bliss that once in time was ours.