Before the mountains were settled,
before the hills was I brought forth :
While as yet he had not made the earth nor the fields,
nor the first dust of the world.
When he prepared the heavens, I was there :
when he set a compass upon the face of the deep : In his empowering of the clouds above:
in the strong gathering of the fountains of the deep:
When he gave to the sea its boundary
that the waters should not pass his commandment :
when he determined the foundations of the earth :
Then was I by him as a master-workman:
and I was daily his delight, rejoicing always before him; Rejoicing in his habitable earth:
and my delight was with the sons of men
Blessed is the man that heareth me,
watching daily at my gates,
waiting at the posts of my doors;
For whoso findeth me findeth life . .
but he that misseth me wrongeth his own soul.
All they that hate me love death.
IN the beginning was MIND*,
and that Mind was with God,
and the Mind was God.
The same was in the beginning with God.
All things were made by it:
and without it was not anything made that was made.
and the life was the light of men.
And the light shineth in the darkness,
and the darkness overpowered it not...
* i. e. the
mind of God, and its
expression. See note.
O HOW may I ever express that secret word?
O how can I say, He is unlike this, He is like that?
If I should say, He is within me, the universe were shamed.
If I say, He is without me, it is false.
He maketh the inner & the outer worlds to be indivisibly one.
The conscious and the unconscious, both are his footstools.
He is neither manifest nor hidden :
He is neither revealed nor unrevealed:
There are no words to tell what He is.
O LORD, Thou hast searchèd me out and known me,
Thou knowest my downsitting and mine uprising,
Thou understandest my thoughts afar.
Thou discernest my path and my bed,
and art acquainted with all my ways.
For lo! ere the word is on my tongue,
Thou, O Lord, knowest it altogether.
Thou dost compass me behind and before,
and over me Thou hast laid thine hand.
Such knowledge is too wonderful for me;
it is high, I cannot attain unto it.
Whither shall I go then from thy spirit,
or whither shall I flee then from thy face? If I climb up into heaven, Thou art there:
if I lay me down in hell, Thou art there also.
If I take the wings of the morning, and remain in the
uttermost parts of the sea,
even there also should thy hand lead me, and thy
right hand hold me.
If I say, Peradventure the darkness may whelm me;
let my day be turnèd into night,—
The darkness is no darkness with Thee,
the night is as clear as the day,
darkness and light to Thee are both alike.
The stirrings of my heart were of Thee;
Thou didst knit me together in my mothers womb.
I will give thanks unto Thee in my fear and wonder:
Marvellous are Thy works, and that my soul knoweth
right well.
My frame was not hid from Thee,
when I was made secretly and richly wrought in the
deep of the earth.
Thine eyes did see my substance yet being imperfect:
And in thy book they were all written,
The days that were outshapen for me,
when as yet there was none of them.
How dear are thy thoughts unto me, O God;
O how great is the sum of them!
Should I tell them, they are more in number than the sand.
My spirit awaketh, and still I am with Thee. . .
Try me, O God, and seek the ground of my heart;
prove me and examine my thoughts.
Look well if there be any way of sorrow in me,
and lead me in the way everlasting.
THE everlasting universe of things
Flows thro' the mind, and rolls its rapid waves,
Now dark, now glittering, now reflecting gloom,
Now lending splendour, where from secret springs
* The Ravine of the Arve. See note.
The source of human thought its tribute brings
Of waters, with a sound but half its own . . .
Thou art the path of that unresting sound,
Dizzy Ravine!* and when I gaze on thee
I seem as in a trance sublime and strange
To muse on my own separate phantasy,
My own, my human mind, which passively
Now renders and receives fast influencings,
Holding an unremitting interchange
With the clear universe of things around;
One legion of wild thoughts, whose wandering wings
Now float above thy darkness, and now rest
Where that or thou art no unbidden guest,
In the still cave of the witch Poesy,
Seeking among the shadows that pass by,
Ghosts of all things that are, some shade of thee,
Some phantom, some faint image; till the breast
From which they fled recalls them, thou art there!
Some say that gleams of a remoter world
Visit the soul in sleep,—that death is slumber,
And that its shapes the busy thoughts outnumber
Of those who wake and live. I look on high;
Has some unknown omnipotence unfurled
The veil of life and death? or do I lie
In dream, and does the mightier world of sleep
Spread far around and inaccessibly
Its circles? For the very spirit fails,
Driven like a homeless cloud from steep to steep
That vanishes among the viewless gales!
Far, far above, piercing the infinite sky,
Mont Blanc appears,-still, snowy, and serene:
Its subject mountains their unearthly forms
Pile around it, ice and rock . . .
Where the old Earthquake-dæmon taught her young
Ruin? Were these their toys? or did a sea
Of fire envelope once this silent snow?
None can reply: all seems eternal now.
The wilderness has a mysterious tongue
Which teaches awful doubt, or faith so mild,
So solemn, so serene, that man may be
But for such faith with nature reconciled.
Thou hast a voice, great Mountain, to repeal
Large codes of fraud and woe; not understood
By all, but which the wise, and great, and good
Interpret, or make felt, or deeply feel.
The fields, the lakes, the forests, and the streams,
Ocean, and all the living things that dwell
Within the dædal earth; lightning, and rain,
Earthquake, and fiery flood, and hurricane;
The torpor of the year when feeble dreams
Visit the hidden buds, or dreamless sleep
Holds every future leaf and flower; the bound
With which from that detested trance they leap;
The works and ways of man, their death and birth,
And that of him, and all that his may be ;-
All things that move and breathe with toil and sound
Are born and die; revolve, subside, and swell.
Power dwells apart in its tranquillity,
Remote, serene, and inaccessible ...
And whence are we? Of thy divine love-store,
Loving, hast Thou our slender love-life made,
That unafraid
We may thy dazzling love see and adore.
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