For we are exiled children of the skies,
  Lone and lost wanderers from home . . .
The stars come out like lamps in windows lit
  Far, far from where we roam;

Like candles lit to show the long late way,
  Dear kindly beacons sure and bright;
But O, the heavy journeying, and O
  The silence of the night!—

The dark and vasty silences that lie
  Between the going and the goal!
Will not God reach a friendly hand to lift
  And land my weary soul?

Will not God speak a friendly word to me
  Above the tumult and the din
Of earthly things—one little word to hush
  he voice of care and sin?. . .

He speaks! He answers my poor faltering prayer!
  He opens heaven's lattice wide;
He bids me bathe my brow in heavenly airs
  Like to a flowing tide!

He calls; He gives unto my famished soul,
  Unto my eager heart, its meed:
He breathes upon me with the breath of song,
  And O, my soul is freed,

And I am lifted up and up, and held
  A little while—a child, to see
The beauties of my Father's house, which shall
  No more be shut from me!