WHAT art thou, and what hidest thou,
Thou veil of fair material sense,
So thin, of baffling permanence?
What art thou, and what hidest thou,
Thick curtain, viewless to my sight,
But shutting me from power and light?
Grey clouds of morning barring rosy skies,
Barring the Hand which made me from mine eyes.
Sometimes from that most glorious shore
Where Christ the Lord sits evermore
Comes a faint wind; aside one moment rolls
The awful curtain; on our trembling souls
A vision of the Eternity which is,
Hath been, and ever shall be, very nigh
To the dear dreaming earth sweeps gloriously.
A moment hear we symphonies of Heaven.
A moment see blue depths thro' vapours riven,--
Then darkness steals upon us, and we seem
As though our hearts had fir'd at some unstable dream
Again the stern and soulless laws of nature drag
Us unrelenting, crushing those who lag;
We hear no spheral hymns; the subtle soul
Which works or sobs around us flies our coarse control;
The oratorio of the waves is dumb,
Nor from the sighing groves do any voices come.
The household angels who walk'd with us melt
Into thin air, their present love unfelt;

And while their white wings glimmer far and faint,
Lo! where the prophet preach'd, men seek the sculptur'd saint.

Ah! we have glorious days when we seem knit
To some great Heart, whose loving beat is round,
Above, below us, and the waves reply,
And the winds whisper when they catch the sound.
We walk as gods; a power is in our eyes,
Constraining others; and a finer flow,
A deeper meaning, in our utterance lies,
A grander breadth of purpose on our brow.
Is this the Possible held up before us,
In the warm summer of our fitful spring,
When Christ's full bounteous presence shall be o'er us,
And like a sun shall perfect everything?

And thou, and thou, great Nature, soul'd with beauty,
Which is unto thee as my mind to me,--
No dead conglomerate of dust and forces,
But instinct with a vital energy.
Science, in uttering thy relations, knows not,
And cannot utter of the soul within;
But the dear love we bear thee is a witness
Thou and humanity are near of kin.
Oh! church or chapel preacheth not the fulness
Wrapt in the life of Nature: she can teach
To watchful shepherds how great mysteries circle
Our little life; and ever as we reach
The heart of some great truth, retreating flieth
Her all-surrounding essence, and we find,
Tho' we perchance half fancy that we seize it,
Impenetrable mystery lie behind.