LIV.

OH yet we trust that somehow good
Will be the final goal of ill,

To pangs of nature, sins of will,
Defects of doubt, and taints of blood;

That nothing walks with aimless feet; That not one life shall be destroy'd,

Or cast as rubbish to the void, When God hath made the pile complete ;

That not a worm is cloven in vain ;

That not a moth with vain desire
Is shrivell'd in a fruitless fire,
Or but subserves another's gain.

Behold, we know not anything;

I can but trust that good shall fall
At last-far off-at last, to all,

And every winter change to spring.

So runs my dream: but what am I? An infant crying in the night:

An infant crying for the light:

And with no language but a cry.

LV.

THE wish, that of the living whole
No life may fail beyond the grave,
Derives it not from what we have

The likest God within the soul?

Are God and Nature then at strife,

That Nature lends such evil dreams?

So careful of the type she seems,

So careless of the single life;

That I, considering everywhere

Her secret meaning in her deeds, And finding that of fifty seeds She often brings but one to bear,

I falter where I firmly trod,

And falling with my weight of cares Upon the great world's altar-stairs That slope thro' darkness up to God,

I stretch lame hands of faith, and grope, And gather dust and chaff, and call

To what I feel is Lord of all,

And faintly trust the larger hope.

LVI.

'So careful of the type?' but no.

From scarped cliff and quarried stone
She cries, A thousand types are gone:

I care for nothing, all shall go.

'Thou makest thine appeal to me :
I bring to life, I bring to death:

The spirit does but mean the breath: I know no more.' And he, shall he,

Man, her last work, who seem'd so fair, Such splendid purpose in his eyes, Who roll'd the psalm to wintry skies, Who built him fanes of fruitless prayer,

Who trusted God was love indeed

And love Creation's final law

Tho' Nature, red in tooth and claw

With ravine, shriek'd against his creed