Nicholson & Lee, eds. The Oxford Book of English Mystical Verse. 1917.
Alice Meynell (18471922)265. Christ in the Universe
W
His dealings have been told us. These abide:
The signal to a maid, the human birth,
The lesson, and the young Man crucified.
The innumerable host of stars has heard
How He administered this terrestrial ball.
Our race have kept their Lord’s entrusted Word.
None knows the secret, cherished, perilous,
The terrible, shamefast, frightened, whispered, sweet,
Heart-shattering secret of His way with us.
Our wayside planet, carrying land and wave,
Love and life multiplied, and pain and bliss,
Bears, as chief treasure, one forsaken grave.
May His devices with the heavens be guessed,
His pilgrimage to thread the Milky Way
Or His bestowals there be manifest.
Doubtless we shall compare together, hear
A million alien Gospels, in what guise
He trod the Pleiades, the Lyre, the Bear.
To read the inconceivable, to scan
The myriad forms of God those stars unroll
When, in our turn, we show to them a Man.