I
JUST as I wonder at the twofold screen | |
| Of twisted innocence that you would plait | |
| For eyes that uncourageously await | |
| The coming of a kingdom that has been, | |
| So do I wonder what God’s love can mean | 5 |
| To you that all so strangely estimate | |
| The purpose and the consequent estate | |
| Of one short shuddering step to the Unseen. | |
| |
| No, I have not your backward faith to shrink | |
| Lone-faring from the doorway of God’s home | 10 |
| To find Him in the names of buried men; | |
| Nor your ingenious recreance to think | |
| We cherish, in the life that is to come, | |
| The scattered features of dead friends again. | |
| |
IL
Never until our souls are strong enough | 15 |
| To plunge into the crater of the Scheme— | |
| Triumphant in the flash there to redeem | |
| Love’s handsel and forevermore to slough, | |
| Like cerements at a played-out masque, the rough | |
| And reptile skins of us whereon we set | 20 |
| The stigma of scared years—are we to get | |
| Where atoms and the ages are one stuff. | |
| |
| Nor ever shall we know the cursed waste | |
| Of life in the beneficence divine | |
| Of starlight and of sunlight and soul-shine | 25 |
| That we have squandered in sin’s frail distress, | |
| Till we have drunk, and trembled at the taste, | |
| The mead of Thought’s prophetic endlessness. | |
