156. A New Orphic Hymn

THE PEAKS, and the starlit skies, the deeps of the fathomless seas,

Immanent is He in all, yet higher and deeper than these.

The heart, and the mind, and the soul, the thoughts and the yearnings of Man,

Of His essence are one and all, and yet define it who can?

The love of the Right, tho’ cast down, the hate of victorious Ill,

All are sparks from the central fire of a boundless beneficent Will.

Oh, mystical secrets of Nature, great Universe undefined,

Ye are part of the infinite work of a mighty ineffable Mind.

Beyond your limitless Space, before your measureless Time,

Ere Life or Death began was this changeless Essence sublime.

In the core of eternal calm He dwelleth unmoved and alone

’Mid the Universe He has made, as a monarch upon his throne.

And the self-same inscrutable Power which fashioned the sun and the star

Is Lord of the feeble strength of the humblest creatures that are.

The weak things that float or creep for their little life of a day,

The weak souls that falter and faint, as feeble and futile as they;

The malefic invisible atoms unmarked by man’s purblind eye

That beleaguer our House of Life, and compass us till we die;

All these are parts of Him, the indivisible One,

Who supports and illumines the many, Creation’s Pillar and Sun!

Yea, and far in the depths of Being, too dark for a mortal brain,

Lurk His secrets of Evil and Wrong, His creatures of Death and of Pain.

A viewless Necessity binds, a determinate Impetus drives

To a hidden invisible goal the freightage of numberless lives.

The waste, and the pain, and the wrong, the abysmal mysteries dim,

Come not of themselves alone, but are seed and issue of Him.

And Man’s spirit that spends and is spent in mystical questionings,

Oh, the depths of the fathomless deep, oh, the riddle and secret of things,

And the voice through the darkness heard, and the rush of winnowing wings!