38. Sonnet

WHEN we can all so excellently give

The measure of love’s wisdom with a blow,—

Why can we not in turn receive it so,

And end this murmur for the life we live?

And when we do so frantically strive

To win strange faith, why do we shun to know

That in love’s elemental over-glow

God’s wholeness gleams with light superlative?

Oh, brother men, if you have eyes at all,

Look at a branch, a bird, a child, a rose,

Or anything God ever made that grows,—

Nor let the smallest vision of it slip,

Till you may read, as on Belshazzar’s wall,

The glory of eternal partnership.