Sehnsucht
Or Longing for Home*
How many seek and weep for home,
Knowing not the aching's cause
But finding sometimes soft and still
A longing in the pause.
A longing in the pause, I say,
For it strikes when life is still.
How many men through busyness
Will never know the thrill?
A thrill for home beyond my home
A place I've never been
Sometimes I find a smell, a sound
Of it upon the wind
The sorrow-thrill, the joyous-ache,
Are more than I can bear
And oft I tear when in the Fall
I smell home in the air
Home, o home, the halls above
An ache, a prayer still
I know my Maker made me thus
All longings full to fill.
For my Maker says some day
He’ll bring the wanderer home
Oh weary reader, would you seize
This chance no more to roam?
No more to roam; to cease to seek
To rest in the promised home
Known and loved and sheltered thus
Are all of the Maker’s own.
*Sehnsucht is, “an inconsolable longing in the human heart “for which we know not what.” It is a haunting sense of longing which C. S. Lewis said touched him throughout his life. It has elements of nostalgia and joy, but also an intense awareness of missing something. “A golden echo.” These stabs of joy and longing were pointing us toward something, and Lewis posits that this sense of longing is harkening toward a deeper spiritual world.” The blue flower is a symbol of Sehnsucht.
Beautiful! Really enjoyed this poem, Judah