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Oftenest he looks a weary saint,
Embalmed in pallid gleam;
Listless and sad, without complaint,
Like dead man in a dream.

And, at the best, he is uplift
A spectacle, a show:–
The worth of such an outworn gift
I know too much to know!

How find the love to pay my debt?–
He leads me from the sun!–
Yet it is hard men should forget
A good deed ever done!–

Forget that he, to foil a curse,
Did, on that altar-hill,
Sun of a sunless universe,
Hang dying, patient, still!

But what is He, whose pardon slow
At so much blood is priced?–
If such thou art, O Jove, I go
To the Promethean Christ!

XII.

A word within says I am to blame,
And therefore must confess;
Must call my doing by its name,
And so make evil less.

“I could not his false triumph bear,
For he was first in wrong.”
“Thy own ill-doings are thy care,
His to himself belong.”

“To do it right, my heart should own
Some sorrow for the ill.”
“Plain, honest words will half atone,
And they are in thy will.”

The struggle comes. Evil or I
Must gain the victory now.
I am unmoved and yet would try:
O God, to thee I bow.

The skies are brass; there falls no aid;
No wind of help will blow.
But I bethink me:–I am made
A man: I rise and go.

XIII.

To Christ I needs must come, they say;
Who went to death for me:
I turn aside; I come, I pray,
My unknown God, to thee.

He is afar; the story old
Is blotted, worn, and dim;
With thee, O God, I can be bold–
I cannot pray to him.

Pray! At the word a cloudy grief
Around me folds its pall:
Nothing I have to call belief!
How can I pray at all?

I know not if a God be there
To heed my crying sore;
If in the great world anywhere
An ear keeps open door!

An unborn faith I will not nurse,
Pursue an endless task;
Loud out into its universe
My soul shall call and ask!

Is there no God–earth, sky, and sea
Are but a chaos wild!
Is there a God–I know that he
Must hear his calling child!

XIV.

I kneel. But all my soul is dumb
With hopeless misery:
Is he a friend who will not come,
Whose face I must not see?

I do not think of broken laws,
Of judge’s damning word;
My heart is all one ache, because
I call and am not heard.

A cry where there is none to hear,
Doubles the lonely pain;
Returns in silence on the ear,
In torture on the brain.

No look of love a smile can bring,
No kiss wile back the breath
To cold lips: I no answer wring
From this great face of death.

XV.

Yet sometimes when the agony
Dies of its own excess,
A dew-like calm descends on me,
A shadow of tenderness;

A sense of bounty and of grace,
A cool air in my breast,
As if my soul were yet a place
Where peace might one day rest.

God! God! I say, and cry no more,
But rise, and think to stand
Unwearied at the closed door
Till comes the opening hand.

XVI.

But is it God?–Once more the fear
Of No God loads my breath:
Amid a sunless atmosphere
I fight again with death.

Such rest may be like that which lulls
The man who fainting lies:
His bloodless brain his spirit dulls,
Draws darkness o’er his eyes.