In No Strange Land

The Angels' Vision

¹O world invisible, we view thee,

²O world intangible, we touch thee,

³O world unknowable, we know thee,

⁴Inapprehensible, we clutch thee!

⁵Does the fish soar to find the ocean,

⁶The eagle plunge to find the air —

⁷That we ask of the stars in motion

⁸If they have rumour of thee there?

⁹Not where the wheeling systems darken,

¹⁰And our benumbed conceiving soars! —

Jacob's Ladder

¹¹The drift of pinions, would we hearken,

¹²Beats at our own clay-shuttered doors.

¹³The angels keep their ancient places; —

¹⁴Turn but a stone, and start a wing!

¹⁵'Tis ye, 'tis your estrangèd faces,

¹⁶That miss the many-splendoured thing.

¹⁷But (when so sad thou canst not sadder)

¹⁸Cry; — and upon thy so sore loss

¹⁹Shall shine the traffic of Jacob's ladder

²⁰Pitched betwixt Heaven and Charing Cross.

²¹Yea, in the night, my Soul, my daughter,

²²Cry, — clinging Heaven by the hems;

²³And lo, Christ walking on the water

²⁴Not of Gennesareth, but Thames!