Poetry Explorer


Classic and Contemporary Poetry


THE DIVINE PRESENCE by AUBREY THOMAS DE VERE

First Line: ALL BUT UNUTTERABLE NAME!
Last Line: FROM THEE, O GOD, WE FLY -- TO THEE.
Subject(s): GOD; RELIGION; THEOLOGY;

All but unutterable Name!
Adorable, yet awful sound!
Thee can the sinful nations frame
Save with their foreheads on the ground?

Soul-searching and all-cleansing Fire;
To see Thy countenance were to die:
Yet how beyond the bound retire
Of Thy serene immensity?

Thou mov'st beside us, if the spot
We change -- a noteless, wandering tribe;
The orbits of our life and thought
In Thee their little arcs describe.

In their dead calm, at cool of day,
We hear Thy voice, and turn, and flee:
Thy love outstrips us on our way!
From Thee, O God, we fly -- to Thee.



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