 | Sonnets and Other Poems Chiefly Religious |  |
36
JOHN STUART MILL.
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[I have to thank Messrs. Macmillan and Co. for their kind permission to republish this poem, which originally appeared in Macmillan's Magazine. The first stanza of the original publication has been replaced by a new one, and the lines entitled “Afterthought” are also new.]
Would to our God thou hadst been ours!
We need you all, ye faithful few
Who consecrate to truth your powers,
And love it but for being true!
We need you all, ye faithful few
Who consecrate to truth your powers,
And love it but for being true!
I call thee happy; thou wast strong
In age with all the strength of youth;
With zeal for freedom, hate of wrong,
Reverence for man, and love of truth;
In age with all the strength of youth;
With zeal for freedom, hate of wrong,
Reverence for man, and love of truth;
And thou didst read, as in a scroll,
The laws of nature and of mind.
But wherefore is it, that thy soul
To higher things than these was blind?
The laws of nature and of mind.
But wherefore is it, that thy soul
To higher things than these was blind?
The world thy intellect descried
Was coloured with no heavenly glow;
Thy thought, a dwelling fair and wide,
Was lighted only from below.
Was coloured with no heavenly glow;
Thy thought, a dwelling fair and wide,
Was lighted only from below.
37
And yet, if God is Light indeed,
Then surely, whether clear or dim
Our knowledge, all its rays proceed—
Though they be broken rays—from Him.
Then surely, whether clear or dim
Our knowledge, all its rays proceed—
Though they be broken rays—from Him.
And He, I know, will guide thee right.
The pure to Him shall see their way;
The just shall tread a path of light,
Increasing to the perfect day;
The pure to Him shall see their way;
The just shall tread a path of light,
Increasing to the perfect day;
And thou art such as these; and He
Who healed the blind, will touch thine eyes
To see the God thou didst not see,
The Christ thou didst not recognize;
Who healed the blind, will touch thine eyes
To see the God thou didst not see,
The Christ thou didst not recognize;
And that which seemed a Stygian shore
Will prove a land of knowledge, grown
From earthly germs yet more and more,
Till thou shalt know as thou art known.
Will prove a land of knowledge, grown
From earthly germs yet more and more,
Till thou shalt know as thou art known.
AFTERTHOUGHT.
Yet, when that second world is won,
And thou, in uncreated Light,
Hast learned how God's eternal Son
Guides all His universe aright,
And thou, in uncreated Light,
Hast learned how God's eternal Son
Guides all His universe aright,
Wilt not thou feel an underflow,
Beneath the joy, of chill regret,
To think that here thou didst not know
The Saviour thou at last hast met?
Beneath the joy, of chill regret,
To think that here thou didst not know
The Saviour thou at last hast met?
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