O God, for Truth, or some faint glimpse of Truth,
To smite through mists of night, and pierce the sense,
And drive away the dreary vast offence
That 'wilders all the desperate heart of youth !
Mazes of life and death, of guilt and ruth.
And all that binds the world in one intense
Creative whole, that understanding dense
Can compass not, nor know a whit in sooth.
Yet grant us, wretched as we are, and weak,
Grant to our earth-dimm'd spirit and fleshly mind
Even here, through this world, like some twilight-streak
Of dawn, a vision of that which lies behind;
Or if Thou wiliest we must ever seek,
Yet, ever seeking, may we ever find !