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We cry "Our Father!" we that yearn
Upward to some Divine embrace,
And dimly through the mist, discern
At times a lovely awesome Face,
Whose darkened likeness haunts our race.

 

"Our Father,"--we that climb with pain
And stumbling till our strength is gone
Fall on our knees, with hands that strain
To clasp a Hand, and eyes updrawn
Toward some great heights of cloudy dawn.

 

The shuddering sea beneath us raves;
"No God, no God!" yet wild despair
Shrieks out His name mid whelming waves;
A sea of souls! what sight could bear
That image, marred and dreadful, there?

 

Is He a Father? He that leaves
His children on this perilous slope,
Where strength betrays, where sight deceives,
Where knowledge fails, where faith must grope,
Where weakness falls past help and hope?

 

Is He that Love our dreams disclose,
Within whose strong enfolding lie
All heights and depths? Alas! who knows?
But if He be not, then would I
Fall on these slippery crags and die.

 

Yea, by this life of mine, He is?
He lives and reigns; this earth, that hell,
Down to the central fire, is His;
Deep unto deep declares it well--
The prayers, that break thro' curses, tell!

 

Father of souls! Redeem thine own!
Lo, on these death-sharp rocks I fall;
I hear the awful waves alone,
And through the dark my comrades call--
Yet I can trust Thee for us all!