Thomas Humphry Ward, ed. The English Poets. 1880–1918.rnVol. V. Browning to Rupert Brooke
Richard Monckton Milnes, Lord Houghton (18091885)Mohammedanism
O
One God the Orient still
Adores through many a realm of mighty span,
A God of Power and Will—
Rests utterly apart
From all the vast Creations of His might,
From Nature, Man, and Art:—
All other beings weigh
No more than in the potter’s reckoning stand
The workings of his clay:—
To save or to destroy;
And to eternal pain predestinate,
As to eternal joy:—
Demanding simple awe,
Beyond all principles of good or ill,
Above idea of law.
To which the bounds belong
Only of that unalterable line
Disparting right from wrong:—
The issues of free-will,
By its own sacrifice can expiate
The penalties of ill.
Of fallen nature raised,
By inward strife and moral discipline
Higher than e’er debased,—
From highest heaven to meet
The poorest wandering spirit that returns
To its Creator’s feet.
At once to God and man,
Author Himself and part of the profound
And providential plan:
Himself the living sign,
How by God’s grace the fallen sons of earth
May be once more divine.
Were different powers of strife;
Mohammed’s truth lay in a holy Book,
Christ’s in a sacred Life.
And realms of thought expand,
The Letter stands without expanse or range,
Stiff as a dead man’s hand;
The Spirit Christ has shed
Flows through the ripening ages fresh and warm,
More felt than heard or read.
And closest ties of race,
May guard Mohammed’s precept and decrees,
Through many a tract of space,
The sapless tree must fall,
Nor let the form one time did well to take
Be tyrant over all.
Bringing the blessèd hour,
When in Himself the God of Love shall merge
The God of Will and Power.