130. Vesica Piscis

IN strenuous hope I wrought,

And hope seem’d still betray’d;

Lastly I said,

‘I have labour’d through the Night, nor yet

Have taken aught;

But at Thy word I will again cast forth the net!’

And, lo, I caught

(Oh, quite unlike and quite beyond my thought,)

Not the quick, shining harvest of the Sea,

For food, my wish,

But Thee!

Then, hiding even in me,

As hid was Simon’s coin within the fish,

Thou sigh’d’st, with joy, ‘Be dumb,

Or speak but of forgotten things to far-off times to come.’