The Eclipse of Faith
The shapes that frowned before the eyes
Of the early world have fled,
And all the life of earth and skies,
Of streams and seas, is dead.
Forgotten is the Titan’s fame,
The dread Chimæra now
Is but a mild innocuous flame
Upon a mountain’s brow,
Around whose warmth its strawberry red
The arbutus hangs and goatherds tread.
And now has Typho spent his rage,
The Sirens now no more
Entice the song-struck mariner
To give his voyage o’er.
The sailor past Messina hies,
And scorns the den where Scylla lies.
Leda’s twin sons no more are seen
In battle’s hottest press,
Nor shine the wind-tost waves between
To seamen in distress.
The muse is but the poet’s soul,
That looked towards Helicon,
And for its living thought divine
Raised up a mountain throne.
But ah! is nought save fable slain
In this new realm of thought?
Or has the shaft Primeval Truth
And Truth’s great Author sought?
Yes, wisdom now is built on sense;
We measure and we weigh,
We break and join, make rare and dense,
And reason God away.
The wise have probed this wondrous world,
And searched the stars, and find
All curious facts and laws revealed,
But not Almighty mind.
From thinking dust we mould the spheres,
And shape earth’s wondrous frame:
If God had slept a million years,
All things would be the same.
O give me back a world of life,
Something to love and trust,
Something to quench my inward strife
And lift me from the dust.
I cannot live with nature dead,
Mid laws and causes blind;
Powerless on earth, or overhead,
To trace the all-guiding mind;
Then boast that I have found the keys
That time and space unlock,
That snatch from heaven its mysteries,
Its fear from the earthquake shock.
Better the instinct of the brute
That feels its God afar,
Than reason, to his praises mute,
Talking with every star.
Better the thousand deities
That swarmed in Greece of yore,
Than thought that scorns all mysteries
And dares all depths to explore.
Better is childhood’s thoughtless trust
Than manhood’s daring scorn;
The fear that creeps along the dust
Than doubt in hearts forlorn.
And knowledge, if it cost so dear,
If such be reason’s day,
I ’ll lose the pearl without a tear,
And grope my star-lit way.
And be the toils of wisdom curst
If such the meed we earn;
If freezing pride and doubt are nurst,
And faith forbid to burn.