Page:Poems, now first collected, Stedman, 1897.djvu/131

CORDA CONCORDIA We think, we feel, we are;

And light, as of a star,

Gropes through the mist,—a little light is given;

And aye from life and death

We strive, with indrawn breath,

To somehow wrest the truth, and long have striven,

Nor pause, though book and star and clod

Reply, Canst thou by searching find out God?

As from the hollow deep

The soul's strong tide must keep

Its purpose still. We rest not, though we hear

No voice from heaven let fall,

No chant antiphonal

Sounding through sunlit clefts that open near;

We look not outward, but within,

And think not quite to end as we begin.

For now the questioning age

Cries to each hermitage,

Cease not to ask,—or bring again the time

When the young world's belief

Made light the mourner's grief

And strong the sage's word, the poet's rhyme,—

Ere Knowledge thrust a spear-head through

The temple's veil that priests so closely drew.

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