O love, and life,
O world, and can it be that this is all? 
Leave him to tread expectance underfoot;
Let him alone to tame down his great hope
Before it breaks his heart:  “Give me my share
That I foresaw, my place, my draught of life. 
This that I bear, what is it?—­me no less
It binds, I cannot disenslave my soul.”

There is but halting for the wearied foot. 
The better way is hidden; faith hath failed—­
One stronger far than reason mastered her. 
It is not reason makes faith hard, but life. 
The husks of his dead creed, downtrod and dry,
Are powerless now as some dishonoured spell,
Some aged Pythia in her priestly clothes,
Some widow’d witch divining by the dead. 
Or if he keep one shrine undesecrate
And go to it from time to time with tears,
What lies there?  A dead Christ enswathed and cold,
A Christ that did not rise.  The linen cloth
Is wrapped about His head, He lies embalmed
With myrrh and spices in His sepulchre,
The love of God that daily dies;—­to them
That trust it the One Life, the all that lives.

O mother Eve, who wert beguiled of old,
Thy blood is in thy children, thou art yet
Their fate and copy; with thy milk they drew
The immortal want of morning; but thy day
Dawned and was over, and thy children know
Contentment never, nor continuance long. 
For even thus it is with them:  the day
Waxeth, to wane anon, and a long night
Leaves the dark heart unsatisfied with stars.

A soul in want and restless and bereft
To whom all life hath lied, shall it too lie? 
Saying, “I yield Thee thanks, most mighty God,
Thou hast been pleased to make me thus and thus. 
I do submit me to Thy sovereign will
That I full oft should hunger and not have,
And vainly yearn after the perfect good,
Gladness and peace”?

No, rather dare think thus: 
“Ere chaos first had being, earth, or time,
My Likeness was apparent in high heaven,
Divine and manlike, and his dwelling place
Was the bosom of the Father.  By His hands
Were the worlds made and filled with diverse growths
And ordered lives.  Then afterward they said,
Taking strange counsel, as if he who worked
Hitherto should not henceforth work alone,
‘Let us make man;’ and God did look upon
That Divine Word which was the form of God,
And it became a thought before the event. 
There they foresaw my face, foreheard my speech,
God-like, God-loved, God-loving, God-derived.

“And I was in a garden, and I fell
Through envy of God’s evil son, but Love
Would not be robbed of me for ever—­Love
For my sake passed into humanity,
And there for my first Father won me home. 
How should I rest then?  I have NOT gone home;
I feed on husks, and they given grudgingly,
While my great Father—­Father—­O my God,
What shall I do?”

Ay, I will dare think thus: 
“I cannot rest because He doth not rest
In whom I have my being.  THIS is GOD—­
My soul is conscious of His wondrous wish,
And my heart’s hunger doth but answer His
Whose thought has met with mine.