| Nicholson & Lee, eds. The Oxford Book of English Mystical Verse. 1917. |
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| 156. A New Orphic Hymn |
| By Sir Lewis Morris (1833–1907) |
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| THE PEAKS, and the starlit skies, the deeps of the fathomless seas, | |
| Immanent is He in all, yet higher and deeper than these. | |
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| 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? | |
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| The love of the Right, tho’ cast down, the hate of victorious Ill, | 5 |
| All are sparks from the central fire of a boundless beneficent Will. | |
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| Oh, mystical secrets of Nature, great Universe undefined, | |
| Ye are part of the infinite work of a mighty ineffable Mind. | |
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| Beyond your limitless Space, before your measureless Time, | |
| Ere Life or Death began was this changeless Essence sublime. | 10 |
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| In the core of eternal calm He dwelleth unmoved and alone | |
| ’Mid the Universe He has made, as a monarch upon his throne. | |
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| 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. | |
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| The weak things that float or creep for their little life of a day, | 15 |
| The weak souls that falter and faint, as feeble and futile as they; | |
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| The malefic invisible atoms unmarked by man’s purblind eye | |
| That beleaguer our House of Life, and compass us till we die; | |
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| All these are parts of Him, the indivisible One, | |
| Who supports and illumines the many, Creation’s Pillar and Sun! | 20 |
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| 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. | |
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| A viewless Necessity binds, a determinate Impetus drives | |
| To a hidden invisible goal the freightage of numberless lives. | |
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| The waste, and the pain, and the wrong, the abysmal mysteries dim, | 25 |
| Come not of themselves alone, but are seed and issue of Him. | |
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| 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! | |
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