211. In Summer Fields

SOMETIMES, as in the summer fields

I walk abroad, there comes to me

So strange a sense of mystery,

My heart stands still, my feet must stay,

I am in such strange company.

I look on high—the vasty deep

Of blue outreaches all my mind;

And yet I think beyond to find

Something more vast—and at my feet

The little bryony is twined.

Clouds sailing as to God go by,

Earth, sun, and stars are rushing on;

And faster than swift time, more strong

Than rushing of the worlds, I feel

A something Is, of name unknown.

And turning suddenly away,

Grown sick and dizzy with the sense

Of power, and mine own impotence,

I see the gentle cattle feed

In dumb unthinking innocence.

The great Unknown above; below,

The cawing rooks, the milking-shed;

God’s awful silence overhead;

Below, the muddy pool, the path

The thirsty herds of cattle tread.

Sometimes, as in the summer fields

I walk abroad, there comes to me

So wild a sense of mystery,

My senses reel, my reason fails,

I am in such strange company.

Yet somewhere, dimly, I can feel

The wild confusion dwells in me,

And I, in no strange company,

Am the lost link ’twixt Him and these,

And touch Him through the mystery.