The Sun rose in his might--
The light from whose white, hidden fires were lit
The torches of the night;

The Light that shining on a thing of clay
Giveth it Life and Will:
The Light that with an unknown power can blast
And bid all life be still;

The Light that calls a ray of its own light
A man's undying soul--
The Light that lifts the broken lives of earth,
Touches and makes them whole.

Up towards the Radiance Bartimeus went,
Alone, and poor, and blind--
Feeling his way, if haply it led on
To One he fain would find.

Then spoke the Voice again. Oh, mystic words
Of a compelling grace:
The curtain rose from off his darkened sight--
He saw the King's own face.

So strangely beautiful--so strangely near--
He worshipped with his eyes,
Unheeding that for him at last there shone
The sunlit noonday skies.

What though the clamouring crowd echoed his name