Morning glory, starlit sky,

soaring music, scholar’s truth,

flight of swallows, autumn leaves,

memory’s treasure, grace of youth:

.

Open are the gifts of God,

gifts of love to mind and sense;

hidden is love’s agony,

love’s endeavor, love’s expense.

.

Love that gives, gives ever more,

gives with zeal, with eager hands,

spares not, keeps not, all outpours,

ventures all its all expends.

.

Drained is love in making full,

bound in setting others free,

poor in making many rich,

weak in giving power to be.

.

Therefore he who shows us God

helpless hangs upon the tree;

and the nails and crown of thorns

tell of what God’s love must be.

.

Here is God: no monarch he,

throned in easy state to reign;

here is God, whose arms of love

aching, spent, the world sustain.

W.H. Vanstone (1923-1999 ), Morning Glory: Starlit Sky.