O Real, O That Which Is,
Beyond all earthly bliss
My spirit prays to be at one with Thee;
Away from that which seems,
From unenduring dreams,
From vain pursuits and vainer meeds set free.
How rosy to our eyes
The mists of error rise,
The proud pavilions that we weave at will I
How glittering the ray
Of that illusive day,
The hills how grand, the vales how green and still!
And how inviting yet
The service of deceit,
Paid by the crowd that does not understand,
Parents and friends and foes
All bowing down to those
Who against Thee have lifted up their hand!
Ah, but on whomsoever
Amid such glib endeavour
Thy light has shined in sudden sovereignty,
He who has fallen and heard
Thy spirit-searching word:
_Why kick against the pricks? Why outrage Me?
He can no longer stay
There in the easy way,
No longer please himself with make-believe,
No longer shape at will
The forms of good and ill
And what he shall reject and what receive.
Nor may he dwell content
In self-aggrandisement,
To the deep wrong of modern Mammon blind;
Nor can he drown his cares
Among the doctrinaires,
Who think by sowing hate to save mankind.
For every scheme of vision
He sees as the condition
Not of the truest only but the best--
The riches of all wealth,
The beauty of Beauty's self--
That on Thee and within Thee it should rest.
By Thee our bounds are set;
Thou madest us; and yet
O Mother, when we strain to see Thy face,
Still dost Thou tease our prying
With masks and mystifying,
Still hold us at arm's length from Thy embrace!
Yet would I rather in act
Plough with the iron Fact
And earn at least some harvest that is bread,
Than rich and popular
In gay Imposture's car
Dazzle mankind and leave them still unfed.
Rather would I in thought
Miss all that I had sought,
Still pining on Negation's desert isle,
Than with the current float
In Pragmatism's boat
Down to the fatal shore where sirens smile.
Rather would I be thrown
Against Thine altar-stone,
Unsanctified, unpitied, unreprieved,
Than in some other shrine
Sup the priests' meat and wine,
Taking the wages of a world deceived.