Then quoth the Leader of the young men:  “Sir,
We scorn you not; speak further; yet our thought
First answer.  Not but by a miracle
Can this thing be.  The fashion of the world
We heretofore have never known to change;
And will God change it now?”
                               He then replied: 
“What is thy thought?  THERE is NO MIRACLE? 
There is a great one, which thou hast not read. 
And never shalt escape.  Thyself, O man,
Thou art the miracle.  Lo, if thou sayest,
’I am one, and fashioned like the gracious world,
Red clay is all my make, myself, my whole,
And not my habitation,’ then thy sleep
Shall give thee wings to play among the rays
O’ the morning.  If thy thought be, ’I am one,—­
A spirit among spirits,—­and the world
A dream my spirit dreameth of, my dream
Being all,’ the dominating mountains strong
Shall not for that forbear to take thy breath,
And rage with all their winds, and beat thee back,
And beat thee down when thou wouldst set thy feet
Upon their awful crests.  Ay, thou thyself,
Being in the world and of the world, thyself
Hast breathed in breath from Him that made the world. 
Thou dost inherit, as thy Maker’s son,
That which He is, and that which He hath made: 
Thou art thy Father’s copy of Himself,—­
THOU art thy FATHER’S MIRACLE. 
                                   Behold
He buildeth up the stars in companies;
He made for them a law.  To man He said,
‘Freely I give thee freedom.’  What remains? 
O, it remains, if thou, the image of God,
Wilt reason well, that thou shalt know His ways;
But first thou must be loyal,—­love, O man,
Thy Father,—­hearken when He pleads with thee,
For there is something left of Him e’en now,—­
A witness for thy Father in thy soul,
Albeit thy better state thou hast foregone.

“Now, then, be still, and think not in thy soul,
’The rivers in their course forever run,
And turn not from it.  He is like to them
Who made them,’ Think the rather, ’With my foot
I have turned the rivers from their ancient way,
To water grasses that were fading.  What! 
Is God my Father as the river wave,
That yet descendeth, like the lesser thing
He made, and not like me, a living son,
That changed the watercourse to suit his will?’

“Man is the miracle in nature.  God
Is the ONE MIRACLE to man.  Behold,
‘There is a God,’ thou sayest.  Thou sayest well: 
In that thou sayest all.  To Be is more
Of wonderful, than being, to have wrought,
Or reigned, or rested. 
Hold then there, content;
Learn that to love is the one way to know,
Or God or man:  it is not love received
That maketh man to know the inner life
Of them that love him; his own love bestowed
Shall do it.  Love thy Father, and no more
His doings shall be strange.  Thou shalt not fret
At any counsel, then, that He will send,—­