O ONLY Source of all our light and life, Whom as our truth, our strength, we see and feel, But whom the hours of mortal moral strife Alone aright reveal! Mine inmost soul, before Thee inly brought, Thy presence owns ineffable, divine; Chastised each rebel self-encentered thought, My will adoreth Thine. With eye down-dropt, if then this earthly mind Speechless remain, or speechless e'en depart; Nor seek to see -- for what of earthly kind Can see Thee as Thou art? -- If well-assured 'tis but profanely bold In thought's abstractest forms to seem to see, It dare not dare the dread communion hold In ways unworthy Thee, O not unowned, thou shalt unnamed forgive, In worldly walks the prayerless heart prepare; And if in work its life it seem to live, Shalt make that work be prayer. Nor times shall lack, when while the work it plies, Unsummoned powers the blinding film shall part, And scarce by happy tears made dim, the eyes In recognition start. But, as thou willest, give or e'en forbear The beatific supersensual sight, So, with Thy blessing blest, that humbler prayer Approach Thee morn and night. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE SONNET by WILLIAM WORDSWORTH A COAT by WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS SHIRK OR WORK? by GRACE BORDELON AGATE I HAVE LOVED by JOHANNA AMBROSIUS LYSISTRATA: HOW THE WOMEN WILL STOP WAR by ARISTOPHANES CHOPIN'S NOCTURNE IN G MINOR by ARLO BATES Γενεθλιακον by JOSEPH BEAUMONT THE MASQUERADE by EDMUND CHARLES BLUNDEN IN MEMORIAM: J. MACMEIKIN; DIED APRIL 1883 by THOMAS EDWARD BROWN |