O world invisible, we view thee, O world intangible, we touch thee, O world unknowable, we know thee, Inapprehensible, we clutch thee! Does the fish soar to find the ocean, The eagle plunge to find the air -- That we ask of the stars in motion If they have rumour of thee there? Not where the wheeling systems darken, And our benumbed conceiving soars! -- The drift of pinions, would we hearken, Beats at our own clay-shutter'd doors. The angels keep their ancient places; -- Turn but a stone, and start a wing! 'Tis ye, 'tis your estranged faces, That miss the many-splendour'd thing. But (when so sad thou canst not sadder) Cry; -- and upon thy so sore loss Shall shine the traffic of Jacob's ladder Pitched betwixt Heaven and Charing Cross. Yea, in the night, my Soul, my daughter, Cry, -- clinging Heaven by the hems; And lo, Christ walking on the water Not of Gennesareth, but Thames! | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...FOUR QUARTETS: BURNT NORTON by THOMAS STEARNS ELIOT THE ILIAD: ACHILLES OVER THE TRENCH by HOMER THE COMPLAINT OF THE FAIR ARMOURESS by FRANCOIS VILLON ODES: BOOK 1: ODE 18. TO THE HON. FRANCIS EARL OF HUNTINGDON by MARK AKENSIDE THE BLIND LEAD THE BLIND by EDMUND CHARLES BLUNDEN |