O you not only worshipful but dear
Now have I learned not merely majesty
But gentleness and friendlihood to be
Your way of drawing near.
And late, upon a blue and yellow day,
Wandering alone along a hill of Spring
I caught another tender summoning,
As if you were the comrad of my play.
How strange that I have looked so lone and far
When it is you, Great Love, who lonely are.
How I have sought you in your cosmic leisure
When you are eager in my childish pleasure.
Why there is no dim doctrine to believe!
Only to feel this touching at my sleeve.
WHO IS THIS THAT IS SO NEAR?
Who is this that is so near?
Not a face and not a voice.
But a sense of someone here,
Or of something not ourselves.
At no altar, from no ark——
Is it He? O wonderful
In the day and in the dark
To behold Him by no eyes.
Is it They? Ask us not who.
As trees know when creatures pass,
We may know when Those look through
From another kind of day.
He and They within our sense.
As we hope of bird or root:
“Lo, it has intelligence!”
Hidden ones may hope of us.