To live Christ-lorn, to feel no Hand in mine
Thro’ the long way: to wander on, with night
About my eyes, and never find the light.
To hear the inconstant wind in oak and pine,
The pitiless, rhythmic roar of the salt sea,
Ebbing and flowing! To read, thro’ a thousand springs,
The ceaseless drive and swirl of sundering things,
Nature’s vain birth-pangs, and the death to be!
To measure out Time’s day: to mark its morn,
And noon, and eve, wasted in sterile strife
For that it hungers after! And to know
Myself no other than the smiling scorn
Of some brute law, which mocks, in death and life,
My heart’s deep cry:—Ah, God; if it were so!