| |
| WHEN by Jabbok the patriarch waited | |
| To learn on the morrow his doom | |
| And his dubious spirit debated | |
| In darkness and silence and gloom, | |
| There descended a Being with whom | 5 |
| He wrestled in agony sore, | |
| With striving of heart and of brawn, | |
| And not for an instant forbore | |
| Till the east gave a threat of the dawn; | |
| And then, the Awful One blessed him; | 10 |
| To his lips and his spirit there came, | |
| Compelled by the doubts that oppressed him, | |
| The cry that through questioning ages | |
| Has been rung from the hinds and the sages, | |
| “Tell me, I pray Thee, Thy name!” | 15 |
| Most fatal, most futile of questions! | |
| Wherever the heart of man beats, | |
| In the spirits’ most sacred retreats, | |
| It comes with its sombre suggestions | |
| Unanswered forever and aye. | 20 |
| The blessing may come and may stay, | |
| For the wrestler’s heroic endeavor; | |
| But the question, unheeded forever, | |
| Dies out in the broadening day. | |
| |
| In the ages before our traditions, | 25 |
| By the altars of dark superstitions, | |
| The imperious question has come; | |
| When the death-stricken victim lay sobbing | |
| At the feet of his slayer and priest, | |
| And his heart was laid smoking and throbbing | 30 |
| To the sound of the cymbal and drum | |
| On the steps of the high Teocallis; | |
| When the delicate Greek at his feast | |
| Poured forth the red wine from his chalice | |
| With mocking and cynical prayer; | 35 |
| When by Nile Egypt worshipping lay, | |
| And afar through the rosy, flushed air | |
| The Memnon called out to the day; | |
| Where the Muezzin’s cry floats from his spire; | |
| In the vaulted Cathedral’s dim shades, | 40 |
| Where the crushed hearts of thousands aspire | |
| Through art’s highest miracle higher, | |
| This question of questions invades | |
| Each heart bowed in worship or shame; | |
| In the air where the censers are swinging, | 45 |
| A voice, going up with the singing, | |
| Cries, “Tell me I pray Thee Thy name.” | |
| No answer came back, not a word, | |
| To the patriarch there by the ford; | |
| No answer has come through the ages | 50 |
| To the poets, the seers and the sages | |
| Who have sought in the secrets of science | |
| The name or the nature of God, | |
| Whether crushing in desperate defiance | |
| Or kissing his absolute rod; | 55 |
| But the answer which was and shall be, | |
| “My name! Nay, what is it to thee?” | |
| The search and the question are vain. | |
| By use of the strength that is in you, | |
| By wrestling of soul and of sinew | 60 |
| The blessing of God you may gain. | |
| There are lights in the far-gleaming Heaven | |
| That never shall shine on our eyes; | |
| To mortals it may not be given | |
| To range those inviolate skies. | 65 |
| The mind, whether praying or scorning, | |
| That tempts those dread secrets shall fail; | |
| But strive through the night till the morning, | |
| And mightily thou shalt prevail. | |
| |
