“Strong Son of God, immortal Love”

From “In Memoriam”: Introduction STRONG Son of God, immortal Love, Whom we, that have not seen thy face, By faith, and faith alone, embrace, Believing where we cannot prove; Thine are these orbs of light and shade; Thou madest Life in man and brute; Thou madest Death; and lo, thy foot Is on the skull which thou hast made. Thou wilt not leave us in the dust: Thou madest man, he knows not why; He thinks he was not made to die; And thou hast made him: thou art just. Thou seemest human and divine, The highest, holiest manhood, thou: Our wills are ours, we know not how; Our wills are ours, to make them thine. Our little systems have their day; They have their day and cease to be: They are but broken lights of thee, And thou, O Lord, art more than they. We have but faith: we cannot know; For knowledge is of things we see; And yet we trust it comes from thee, A beam in darkness: let it grow. Let knowledge grow from more to more, But more of reverence in us dwell; That mind and soul, according well, May make one music as before, But vaster. We are fools and slight; We mock thee when we do not fear: But help thy foolish ones to bear; Help thy vain worlds to bear thy light. Forgive what seemed my sin in me; What seemed my worth since I began; For merit lives from man to man, And not from man, O Lord, to thee. Forgive my grief for one removed, Thy creature, whom I found so fair. I trust he lives in thee, and there I find him worthier to be loved. Forgive these wild and wandering cries, Confusions of a wasted youth; Forgive them where they fail in truth, And in thy wisdom make me wise.

Collection: 
Sub Title: 
I. The Divine Element—(God, Christ, the Holy Spirit)

More from Poet

Comrades, leave me here a little, while as yet ’t is early morn,— Leave me here, and when you want me, sound upon the bugle horn. ’T is the place, and all around it, as of old, the curlews call, Dreary gleams about the moorland, flying over Locksley Hall: Locksley Hall, that in the distance...

Lady Clara VERE DE VERE, Of me you shall not win renown; You thought to break a country heart For pastime, ere you went to town. At me you smiled, but unbeguiled I saw the snare, and I retired: The daughter of a hundred Earls, You are not one to be desired. Lady Clara Vere de Vere, I...

17— i. wailing, wailing, wailing, the wind over land and sea— And Willy’s voice in the wind, “O mother, come out to me.” Why should he call me to-night, when he knows that I cannot go? For the downs are as bright as day, and the full moon stares at the snow. II. We should be seen, my dear; they...

[October 25, 1854] HALF a league, half a league, Half a league onward, All in the valley of Death Rode the six hundred. “Forward, the Light Brigade! Charge for the guns!” he said; Into the valley of Death Rode the six hundred. “Forward, the Light Brigade!” Was there a man dismayed? Not...

FIRST drink a health, this solemn night, A health to England, every guest: That man ’s the best cosmopolite Who loves his native country best. May Freedom’s oak for ever live With stronger life from day to day: That man ’s the best Conservative Who lops the...