Thomas Toke Lynch (1818–1871)

MY God, I love the world,

I love it well—

Its wonder, and fairness, and delight—

More than my tongue can tell;

And ever in my heart, like morning clouds

New earth-loves rise and swell.

Lilies I love, and stars,

Dewdrops, and the great sea;

Colour, and form, and sound,

Combining variously;

The rush of the wind, and the overhanging vast—

Voiceless immensity.

Thou world-creator art,

World-lover too;

In delight didst found the deep,

In delight uprear the blue;

And with an infinite love and carefulness

The wide earth furnish through.

My God, I am afraid of Thee, I am afraid—

Thou art so silent, and so terrible;

And oft I muse upon Thee in the deep night dead,

Listening as for a voice that shall my spirit tell,

To be of comfort and of courage, for that all is well.

Of thoughts uncounted as the stars,

Which burn undimm’d from old eternity,

Oh, everlasting God!

Thy Spirit is a sky—

A brighten’d dark, enrounding every world

With stillness of serenest majesty:

Fit several forms of the same splendour

Thou to beholding worlds dost render,

In starry wonder of a thousand skies,

Beheld by creature-eyes:

Who in the glorious part have symbol bright

Of the uncomprehended Infinite.

But if as the great dark art Thou, unknown,

Thou, God reveal’d, art as the sweet noon blue;

Soft canopying mercy in the Christ is shown,

And the azure of His love Thy face beams through,

Looking forth, like the sun, to comfort and to bless,

And with beauty over-lighting the rough wilderness.