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THE MISSING ATOM.
When God made man and dowered with awful reasonHe did not finish quite His poor clay vessel,
But planted him on land and turned the seas on
And gave him hills and woods with which to wrestle;
That he might quarry out a soul by toiling,
And be again himself his own creator
Through sin and sorrow of the day and morrow,
By armèd will which took the world for spoiling,
And be its legislator.
He wrought him comely and keen-witted,
With eyes that coasted heaven and earth and boasted
Tremendous things of thought and vision;
But He omited
Among the glorious gifts that which was greatest,
Not in delight of cold derision,
But out of love and wisdom the sedatest.
He clothed his lips with thunder, as on Chatham
He poured the passion of the speaker,
And breathed a gnôsis
Quick as the lark's apotheosis
Which walks the paths of air, but left him weaker
By this one vital flaw—a missing atom.
But what it is, no sage, no lover,
No seer who reads the future's riddle
And plucks its secret from the Night's blank middle,
Can yet discover.
It's that which in the sweetest sounds' election
Establishes the void of something lacking,
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Of strainèd strings, the jar and trouble
Which turn the best to lovely imperfection;
An absent note, that else would double
The treasures setting in the getting,
And proved but flashes
Shed idly upon funeral ashes.
And thought of subtlest mind however far gone
Down in the deeps unplumbed, unsounded,
Has never compassed this ethereal argon
And from the search comes back confounded,
Baffled by this one ray so dim, so distant;
Which is a blurring
In brightest portraits and a blot resistant;
And seems a slurring
Of pictured beauty which denies its duty,
Without the sweetness
Which only gives the crown of full completeness.
When God made man He gave His own Divinity
In measure,
Short of that dread infinity
Encompassing all space and time at pleasure
To see before and after,
Through blessèd tears and bitter laughter
And surf of sinning
Which at His calm white feet is broken
And spoiled of fruits ere done or spoken,
The end in the beginning.
That man thus wrought should wax yet wiser
From conscious might and native neediness,
And be a brave despiser
Of little pains and brittle gains
And fleeting gawds and earth-bound greediness;
Attaining slowly and by stages lowly
To something grand and beautiful and holy,
Purged of his drosses by the losses
And lifted up on burning crosses
To the great stature
Of gracious Godhead and consummate nature.
And so among the crime and kissing
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Climb up or down His altar steps and stumble
To unconjectured issues sad or saintly,
We have one atom missing—
Which bids the firmest of foundations crumble.
We mourn it in the music never rounded
Quite by the last fair finish
Of perfect art, ungrounded
All on the eternal bases, lacking somewhat
To carry sick hearts home when days diminish
Their glory, and to rest us (come what
Might in the morning of the morrow)
With the clear dayshine of diviner sorrow.
This absent ray, which could enkindle ages
With unheard splendour
And turn our midnight bosoms tender
As the soft light on golden Gospel pages,
We ask for ever;
And still we must in poor purblind endeavour,
Who seek we know not what and dimly, dumbly,
Do voyage for a yet uncharted haven
Where marriage bells are always ringing;
Led by that dream-note which (though we be craven)
Would, if we listened humbly,
Put all the world in tune and keep it singing.
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