265. Christ in the Universe by Alice Meynell. Nicholson & Lee, eds. 1917. The Oxford Book of English Mystical Verse

Nicholson & Lee, eds. The Oxford Book of English Mystical Verse. 1917.

265. Christ in the Universe

By Alice Meynell (b. 1847)

WITH this ambiguous earth
His dealings have been told us. These abide:
The signal to a maid, the human birth,
The lesson, and the young Man crucified.

But not a star of all	5
The innumerable host of stars has heard
How He administered this terrestrial ball.
Our race have kept their Lord’s entrusted Word.

Of His earth-visiting feet
None knows the secret, cherished, perilous,	10
The terrible, shamefast, frightened, whispered, sweet,
Heart-shattering secret of His way with us.

No planet knows that this
Our wayside planet, carrying land and wave,
Love and life multiplied, and pain and bliss,	15
Bears, as chief treasure, one forsaken grave.

Nor, in our little day,
May His devices with the heavens be guessed,
His pilgrimage to thread the Milky Way
Or His bestowals there be manifest.	20

But in the eternities,
Doubtless we shall compare together, hear
A million alien Gospels, in what guise
He trod the Pleiades, the Lyre, the Bear.

O, be prepared, my soul!	25
To read the inconceivable, to scan
The myriad forms of God those stars unroll
When, in our turn, we show to them a Man.