That which we dare invoke to bless; Our dearest faith, our ghastliest doubt; He, They, One, All; within, without; The Power in darkness whom we guess;
I found Him not in world or sun, Or eagle’s wing, or insect’s eye; Nor thro’ the questions men may try, The petty cobwebs we have spun:
If e’er when faith had fall’n asleep, I heard a voice ‘believe no more’ And heard an ever-breaking shore That tumbled in the Godless deep;
A warmth within the breast would melt The freezing reason’s colder part, And like a man in wrath the heart Stood up and answer’d ‘I have felt.’
No, like a child in doubt and fear: But that blind clamour made me wise; Then was I as a child that cries, But, crying, knows his father near;
And what I seem beheld again What is, and no man understands; And out of darkness came the hands That reach thro’ nature, moulding men.