University of Virginia Library

Search this document 
Poems Real and Ideal

By George Barlow

expand section 


66

SONNET XXII. GOD.

Think you that God is moral? God is Love—
But Love that transcends every mortal law:—
The singer climbs with strange desire and awe
These low green misty earthly hills above
And sees the sun come nearer,—and he finds
That God is not as man;—He laughs to scorn
The petty creeds of petty fancies born,
And scatters all our goodness with his winds.
Oh, God is not as man! Love in God's sight
Is ever sweet, and passion ever pure:
The God who made the wild hedge-rose so white
Gave it besides the scent that doth allure;
There is a holiness in all delight;
The sweeter is the nobler law, be sure.