Dark is the world to thee: thyself art the reason

why;

For is He not all but thou, that hast power to feel "I am I?"

Glory about thee, without thee; and thou fulfillest thy doom,

Making Him broken gleams, and a stifled splendour and gloom.

Speak to Him thou for He hears, and Spirit with Spirit can meet—

Closer is He than breathing, and nearer than hands and feet.

God is law, say the wise; O Soul, and let us

rejoice,

For if He thunder by law the thunder is yet His

voice.

Law is God, say some: no God at all, says the

fool;

For all we have power to see is a straight staff

bent in a pool;

And the ear of man cannot hear, and the

man cannot see;

eye of

But if we could see and hear, this Vision-were

it not He?

LOWER in the crannied wall,

hand,

I pluck you out of the crannies ;—
Hold you here, root and all, in my

Little flower-but if I could understand

What you are, root and all, and all in all,

I should know what God and man is.

A DEDICATION.

EAR, near and true-no truer Time

himself

Can prove you, tho' he make you

evermore

Dearer and nearer, as the rapid of life

Shoots to the fall-take this and pray that he,
Who wrote it, honouring your sweet faith in him,
May trust himself; and after praise and scorn,
As one who feels the immeasurable world,

Attain the wise indifference of the wise;
And after Autumn past-if left to pass
His autumn into seeming-leafless days—
Draw toward the long frost and longest night,
Wearing his wisdom lightly, like the fruit
Which in our winter woodland looks a flower.*

* The fruit of the Spindle-tree (Euonymus Europæus).