24.
What if, when I at last, at the long last, Shall see thy face, my Lord, my life's delight, It should not be the face that hath been glassed In poor imagination's mirror slight! Will my soul sink, and shall I stand aghast, Beggared of hope, my heart a conscious blight, Amazed and lost--death's bitterness come and not passed?
25.
Ah, no! for from thy heart the love will press, And shining from thy perfect human face, Will sink into me like the father's kiss; And deepening wide the gulf of consciousness Beyond imagination's lowest abyss, Will, with the potency of creative grace, Lord it throughout the larger thinking place.
26.
Thus God-possessed, new born, ah, not for long Should I the sight behold, beatified, Know it creating in me, feel the throng Of speechless hopes out-throbbing like a tide, And my heart rushing, borne aloft the flood, To offer at his feet its living blood-- Ere, glory-hid, the other face I spied.
27.
For out imagination is, in small, And with the making-difference that must be, Mirror of God's creating mirror; all That shows itself therein, that formeth he, And there is Christ, no bodiless vanity, Though, face to face, the mighty perfectness With glory blurs the dim-reflected less.
28.
I clasp thy feet, O father of the living! Thou wilt not let my fluttering hopes be more, Or lovelier, or greater, than thy giving! Surely thy ships will bring to my poor shore, Of gold and peacocks such a shining store As will laugh all the dreams to holy scorn, Of love and sorrow that were ever born.
29.
Sometimes it seems pure natural to trust, And trust right largely, grandly, infinitely, Daring the splendour of the giver's part; At other times, the whole earth is but dust, The sky is dust, yea, dust the human heart; Then art thou nowhere, there is no room for thee In the great dust-heap of eternity.
30.
But why should it be possible to mistrust-- Nor possible only, but its opposite hard? Why should not man believe because he must-- By sight's compulsion? Why should he be scarred With conflict? worn with doubting fine and long?-- No man is fit for heaven's musician throng Who has not tuned an instrument all shook and jarred.
31.
Therefore, O Lord, when all things common seem, When all is dust, and self the centre clod, When grandeur is a hopeless, foolish dream, And anxious care more reasonable than God,-- Out of the ashes I will call to thee-- In spite of dead distrust call earnestly:-- Oh thou who livest, call, then answer dying me.