| |
| WE sow the glebe, we reap the corn, | |
| We build the house where we may rest, | |
| And then, at moments, suddenly, | |
| We look up to the great wide sky, | |
| Inquiring wherefore we were born … | 5 |
| For earnest, or for jest? | |
| |
| The senses folding thick and dark | |
| About the stifled soul within, | |
| We guess diviner things beyond, | |
| And yearn to them with yearning fond; | 10 |
| We strike out blindly to a mark | |
| Believed in, but not seen. | |
| |
| We vibrate to the pant and thrill | |
| Wherewith Eternity has curled | |
| In serpent-twine about God’s seat; | 15 |
| While, freshening upward to his feet, | |
| In gradual growth his full-leaved will | |
| Expands from world to world. | |
| |
| And, in the tumult and excess | |
| Of act and passion under sun, | 20 |
| We sometimes hear—oh, soft and far, | |
| As silver star did touch with star, | |
| The kiss of Peace and Righteousness | |
| Through all things that are done. | |
| |
| God keeps His holy mysteries | 25 |
| Just on the outside of man’s dream. | |
| In diapason slow, we think | |
| To hear their pinions rise and sink, | |
| While they float pure beneath His eyes, | |
| Like swans adown a stream. | 30 |
| |
| And, sometimes, horror chills our blood | |
| To be so near such mystic Things, | |
| And we wrap round us, for defence, | |
| Our purple manners, moods of sense— | |
| As angels, from the face of God, | 35 |
| Stand hidden in their wings. | |
| |
| And, sometimes, through life’s heavy swound | |
| We grope for them!—with strangled breath | |
| We stretch our hands abroad and try | |
| To reach them in our agony,— | 40 |
| And widen, so, the broad life-wound | |
| Which soon is large enough for death. | |
| |
