WITH this ambiguous earth His dealings have been told us. These abide: The signal to a maid, the human birth, The lesson, and the young Man crucified. But not a star of all The innumerable host of stars has heard How He administered this terrestrial ball. Our race have kept their Lord's entrusted Word. Of His earth-visiting feet None knows the secret, cherished, perilous, The terrible, shamefast, frightened, whisperea, sweet, Heart-shattering secret of His way with us. No planet knows that this Our wayside planet, carrying land and wave, Love and life multiplied, and pain and bliss, Bears, as chief treasure, one forsaken grave. Nor, in our little day, May His devices with the heavens be guessed, His pilgrimage to thread the Milky Way, Or His bestowals there be manifest. But, in the eternities, Doubtless we shall compare together, hear A million alien Gospels, in what guise He trod the Pleiades, the Lyre, the Bear. O, be prepared, my soul! To read the inconceivable, to scan The million forms of God those stars unroll When, in our turn, we show to them a Man. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...PROMETHEUS by GEORGE GORDON BYRON THEOLOGY by PAUL LAURENCE DUNBAR PETER QUINCE AT THE CLAVIER by WALLACE STEVENS LYNCHED by FRANK ANKENBRAND JR. CHRIST THE CONSOLER by HENRY WILLIAMS BAKER THE BLIND LEGION by WILLIAM ROSE BENET THE HUNTER'S MOON by MATHILDE BLIND THE WANDERER: 4. IN SWITZERLAND: A QUIET MOMEMENT by EDWARD ROBERT BULWER-LYTTON |