The mists that whirl in greater mists
Around the cliffs of space
Leave little drops of water
Upon his wrinkled face.
Have you heard Him, as walking through
The valleys of the night
He paces ever back and forth,
Silent, old and white?
Upon some jagged piece of dust
As high as night is high,
He watches all the tiny worlds
Go spinning down the sky.
Around Him are the burning stars
That toss like little ships,
The winds blow out of dim unknowns
Across his very lips.
Have you seen Him amid the silence,
Vast as a silken cloud,
Lifting His arms with jeweled pendants
Cloaked in a heavy shroud?
When sweeping through the open night
Great pinions touch the face;
Vast wings that fold the face of God
Against the breast of space;
We hear the hills that all one's life
Were silent as the sun,
Break forth in songs that waited there
Since life had first begun.
We reach out for the fluttering hand
And finding it is gone,
We know the stars that shake the sky
Are only old and wan.
We stand and listen and we know
That rising through the night
Pass all the hosts of all the years
Death ever hides from sight.
So much and yet so little then
With thrust that follows thrust....
The paltry things of paltry life
Shrink swiftly into dust.
We lift our hungry hands to Heaven
For pity and in pain
The only answer ever given
Is that fancy and faith remain.
Wars we wage that One might rule....
Proud and jealous is He.
With fire and sword we crush the fool
Who does not bend the knee.
Temple and palace, hovel and hut,
Dreamer and doer of deeds,
At least one door is never shut,
God answers all our needs.
He walks the crest of some far hill
Against the setting sun,
The presence of a mighty will
Whose journey is never done.
Into the night and over the dawn
All the things that are
Through empty voids go plunging on....
Planet and sun and star.
Yet He we worship died years ago
Like some poor human clod,
And that which wanders to and fro
Is only the ghost of God!