Out of the changeful fury of the tide-rifts streaming by
Wilt build thee, O world, a place of peace, and show God by and by?
Or all the riot of roses and the loves that escape control,
Are they rainbows shed on a melting cloud from the central sun of
my soul?
O musical storms and stars, do ye strike wild chords unplanned?
Or is there a master-musician, who leads with uplifted hand?
If a God’s will shape the heavens, is He perfect, boundless, free?
Or feel He the bondage of violent dust? Does He suffer and strive
like me?
I know that I never shall answer the riddles that haunt the mind,
I see but a spark of the infinite flame--to all the rest born
blind.
Yet envy I not the gazers who boast of their clearer sight;
For safer I walk if I know I am blind, than calling the darkness
light.
For all my riddle unanswered, for all my blindness known,
I would rather keep asking the secret than to make it all my own.
I believe that the stir of the questions is the spirit’s ultimate
breath.
All life is a passionate question. Wilt thou not answer it, Death?
--THEODORE C. WILLIAMS, _Unity_.
(3032)
=Spiders and Music=--See MUSIC AND SPIDERS.
=Spider as a Barometer=--See INDICATOR, AN INSECT.
=Spiders, The Value of=--See BALANCE PRESERVED IN NATURE.