O WORLD invisible, we view thee,
O World intangible, we touch thee,
O World unknowable, we know thee,
Inapprehensible, we clutch thee!

Does the fish soar to find the ocean,
The eagle plunge to find the air-
That we ask of the stars in motion
If they have rumour of thee there?

Not where the wheeling systems darken,
And our benumbed conceiving soars!-
The drift of pinions, would we hearken,
Beats at our own clay-shuttered doors.

The angels keep their ancient places; –
Turn but a stone, but start a wing!
‘Tis ye, ‘tis your estranged faces,
That miss the many-splendoured thing.

But(when so sad thou canst not sadder)
Cry; -and upon thy so sore loss
Shall shine the traffic of Jacob’s ladder
Pitched betwixt Heaven and Charing Cross

Yea, in the night, my Soul, my daughter,
Cry; -clinging Heaven by the hems;
And lo, Christ walking on the water
Not of Gennesareth, but Thames!