Page:Oxford Book of English Verse 1250-1900.djvu/867

 If such a dreamy touch should fall, O turn thee round, resolve the doubt; My guardian angel will speak out In that high place, and tell thee all.

VIII

The wish, that of the living whole No life may fail beyond the grave, Derives it not from what we have The likest God within the soul?

Are God and Nature then at strife, That Nature lends such evil dreams? So careful of the type she seems, So careless of the single life;

That I, considering everywhere Her secret meaning in her deeds, And finding that of fifty seeds She often brings but one to bear,

I falter where I firmly trod, And falling with my weight of cares Upon the great world's altar-stairs That slope thro' darkness up to God,

I stretch lame hands of faith, and grope, And gather dust and chaff, and call To what I feel is Lord of all, And faintly trust the larger hope.

IX

'So careful of the type?' but no.   From scarpèd cliff and quarried stone She cries, 'A thousand types are gone I care for nothing, all shall go.