And sturdily back he marched to his death
Of terrible pain and shame;
And never a shade of fear again
To the stout apostle came.



Israel


When by Jabbok the patriarch waited
To learn on the morrow his doom,
And his dubious spirit debated
In darkness and silence and gloom,
There descended a Being with whom
He wrestled in agony sore,
With striving of heart and of brawn,
And not for an instant forbore
Till the east gave a threat of the dawn;
And then, as the Awful One blessed him,
To his lips and his spirit there came,
Compelled by the doubts that oppressed him,
The cry that through questioning ages
Has been wrung from the hinds and the sages,
"Tell me, I pray Thee, Thy name!"

Most fatal, most futile, of questions!
Wherever the heart of man beats,
In the spirit's most sacred retreats,