Religious Poems, Part 1., from Poems of Nature, - Poems Subjective and Reminiscent and Religious Poems - Volume II., the Works of Whittier by John Greenleaf Whittier
page 57 of 88 (64%)
page 57 of 88 (64%)
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I raise the questions, old and dark,
Of Uzdom's tempted patriarch, And, speech-confounded, build again The baffled tower of Shinar's plain. I am: how little more I know! Whence came I? Whither do I go? A centred self, which feels and is; A cry between the silences; A shadow-birth of clouds at strife With sunshine on the hills of life; A shaft from Nature's quiver cast Into the Future from the Past; Between the cradle and the shroud, A meteor's flight from cloud to cloud. Thorough the vastness, arching all, I see the great stars rise and fall, The rounding seasons come and go, The tided oceans ebb and flow; The tokens of a central force, Whose circles, in their widening course, O'erlap and move the universe; The workings of the law whence springs The rhythmic harmony of things, Which shapes in earth the darkling spar, And orbs in heaven the morning star. Of all I see, in earth and sky,-- Star, flower, beast, bird,--what part have I? This conscious life,--is it the same |
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