STRONG Son of God, immortal Love, | |
| Whom we, that have not seen thy face, | |
| By faith, and faith alone, embrace, | |
| Believing where we cannot prove; | |
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| Thine are these orbs of light and shade; | 5 |
| Thou madest Life in man and brute; | |
| Thou madest Death; and lo, thy foot | |
| Is on the skull which thou hast made. | |
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| Thou wilt not leave us in the dust: | |
| Thou madest man, he knows not why; | 10 |
| He thinks he was not made to die; | |
| And thou hast made him: thou art just. | |
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| Thou seemest human and divine, | |
| The highest, holiest manhood, thou: | |
| Our wills are ours, we know not how; | 15 |
| Our wills are ours, to make them thine. | |
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| Our little systems have their day; | |
| They have their day and cease to be: | |
| They are but broken lights of thee, | |
| And thou, O Lord, art more than they. | 20 |
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| We have but faith: we cannot know; | |
| For knowledge is of things we see; | |
| And yet we trust it comes from thee, | |
| A beam in darkness: let it grow. | |
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| Let knowledge grow from more to more, | 25 |
| But more of reverence in us dwell; | |
| That mind and soul, according well, | |
| May make one music as before, | |
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| But vaster. We are fools and slight; | |
| We mock thee when we do not fear: | 30 |
| But help thy foolish ones to bear; | |
| Help thy vain worlds to bear thy light. | |
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| Forgive what seemed my sin in me; | |
| What seemed my worth since I began; | |
| For merit lives from man to man, | 35 |
| And not from man, O Lord, to thee. | |
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| Forgive my grief for one removed, | |
| Thy creature, whom I found so fair. | |
| I trust he lives in thee, and there | |
| I find him worthier to be loved. | 40 |
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| Forgive these wild and wandering cries, | |
| Confusions of a wasted youth; | |
| Forgive them where they fail in truth, | |
| And in thy wisdom make me wise. | |
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