Searching those edges of the universe,
  We leave the central fields a fallow part;
To feed the eye more precious things amerce,
      And starve the darkened heart.

Then all goes wrong:  the old foundations rock;
  One scorns at him of old who gazed unshod;
One striking with a pickaxe thinks the shock
      Shall move the seat of God.

A little way, a very little way
  (Life is so short), they dig into the rind,
And they are very sorry, so they say,—­
      Sorry for what they find.

But truth is sacred—­ay, and must be told: 
  There is a story long beloved of man;
We must forego it, for it will not hold—­
      Nature had no such plan.

And then, if “God hath said it,” some should cry,
  We have the story from the fountain-head: 
Why, then, what better than the old reply,
      The first “Yea, hath God said?”

The garden, O the garden, must it go,
  Source of our hope and our most dear regret? 
The ancient story, must it no more show
      How man may win it yet?

And all upon the Titan child’s decree,
  The baby science, born but yesterday,
That in its rash unlearned infancy
      With shells and stones at play,

And delving in the outworks of this world,
  And little crevices that it could reach,
Discovered certain bones laid up, and furled
      Under an ancient beach,

And other waifs that lay to its young mind
  Some fathoms lower than they ought to lie,
By gain whereof it could not fail to find
      Much proof of ancientry,

Hints at a Pedigree withdrawn and vast,
  Terrible deeps, and old obscurities,
Or soulless origin, and twilight passed
      In the primeval seas,

Whereof it tells, as thinking it hath been
  Of truth not meant for man inheritor;
As if this knowledge Heaven had ne’er foreseen
      And not provided for!

Knowledge ordained to live! although the fate
  Of much that went before it was—­to die,
And be called ignorance by such as wait
      Till the next drift comes by.

O marvellous credulity of man! 
  If God indeed kept secret, couldst thou know
Or follow up the mighty Artisan
      Unless He willed it so?

And canst thou of the Maker think in sooth
  That of the Made He shall be found at fault,
And dream of wresting from Him hidden truth
      By force or by assault?

But if He keeps not secret—­if thine eyes
  He openeth to His wondrous work of late—­
Think how in soberness thy wisdom lies,
      And have the grace to wait.

Wait, nor against the half-learned lesson fret,
  Nor chide at old belief as if it erred,
Because thou canst not reconcile as yet
      The Worker and the word.

Either the Worker did in ancient days
  Give us the word, His tale of love and might;
(And if in truth He gave it us, who says
      He did not give it right?)