Strong and Gentle Keeper

O strong and gentle keeper of my soul

You bind me not with fortune's fickle chain

But lead me as one helps the halting blind

Nor chidest me for flaws that still remain.

Patiently by grace with love you bind

Your child to beauty dancing through the years

And in recurring births that purify

Add love to love replacing human tears

That all my errant ways might sanctify.

You are the sun who burns away mere sin,

Proclaims the truth our mortal birth reveals,

The symbol of the need to live within,

The radiant light that now upon us steals,

The One alone who lives unseen in all.