Christ in the Universe

¹With this ambiguous earth

²His dealings have been told us. These abide:

³The signal to a maid, the human birth,

⁴The lesson, and the young Man crucified.

⁵But not a star of all

⁶The innumerable host of stars has heard

⁷How He administered this terrestrial ball.

⁸Our race have kept their Lord's entrusted Word.

⁹Of His earth-visiting feet

¹⁰None knows the secret, cherished, perilous,

¹¹The terrible, shamefast, frightened, whispered, sweet,

¹²Heart-shattering secret of His way with us.

¹³No planet knows that this

¹⁴Our wayside planet, carrying land and wave,

¹⁵Love and life multiplied, and pain and bliss,

¹⁶Bears, as chief treasure, one forsaken grave.

¹⁷Nor, in our little day,

¹⁸May His devices with the heavens be guessed,

¹⁹His pilgrimage to thread the Milky Way,

²⁰Or His bestowals there be manifest.

²¹But in the eternities,

²²Doubtless we shall compare together, hear

²³A million alien Gospels, in what guise

²⁴He trod the Pleiades, the Lyre, the Bear.