VII. Ἀγνωστῳ Θεῳ

Oh, sought of old on misty mountain-tops,
And by the well-heads of long reverenced streams—
Places in which the cool air lapped men so,
And the all-coloured wavings of the trees,
And the soft, dark-blue distance, and the stir
Of black and white upon the ancient stems,
That they forgot their individual heats,
Merging them in the universal; sought
In frozen caves beneath the purple lights!
Thee, not the sounds of timbrel or of yell
In tropic palm-groves, lone among the waves
Displease; Thou dost not shun the narrow faith
That sees thee in misshapen human forms,
Wrought by artificers from fire-wood trunk;
Nor dost Thou hide Thee from the larger pomp
Of stole and alb, and censer-swinging lads,
And aged men who pray in alien tongues,
And fluted swell of organ, when the vaults
Reverberate the clamour, and the heavens
Blush through the tinted oriel, and all else,
Sight, sound, and deed, be ignorant or vain;
And Thou art found by those, austere and hot,
Who sunder from their brethren, and devote
A simple and unsumptuous rite to Thee,
In open field or tabernacle stern:
With each and all I will believe thou art,
Because with each the shrine is still the same,
The matchless temple, made without hands—man.
Life without Thee is life inanimate;
And better far false gods than none at all;
Yet, with them, is it but a fevered sleep
With vague and unintelligible dreams.
Come Thou to me, all lonely; Lo, my heart
Is empty, swept, and garnished, and I bring
There, to thine altar foot, my wingèd thoughts,
My hornèd resolutions, fruits and flowers—
Worthless, unless thy beams have quickened them:
Lo! what I have I sacrifice to Thee.