PECCAVI,
DOMINE
O power to
whom this earthly clime
Is but and atom in the whole,
O Poet-heart of Space and Time,
O Maker and Immortal Soul,
Within whose glowing rings are bound,
5
Out of whose sleepless heart
had birth
The cloudy blue, the starry round,
And this small miracle of earth:
Who liv’st
in every living thing,
And all things are thy script
and chart,
10
Who rid’st upon the eagle’s wing,
And yearnest in the human heart;
O Riddle with a single clue,
Love, deathless, protean, secure,
The ever old, the ever new,
15
O Energy, serene and pure.
Thou, who
art also part of me,
Whose glory I have sometime
seen.
O Vision of the Ought-to-be,
O Memory of the Might-have-been,
20
I have had glimpses of thy way,
And moved with winds and walked
with stars.
But, weary, I have fallen astray,
And, wounded, who shall count
my scars?
O Master,
all my strength is gone;
25
Unto the very earth I bow;
I have no light to lead me on;
With aching heart and burning
brow,
I lie as one that travaileth
In sorrow more than he can bear;
30
I sit in darkness as of death,
And scatter dust upon my hair.
The God within
my soul hath slept,
And I have shamed the nobler
rule;
O Master, I have whined and crept
35
O Spirit, I have played the
fool.
Like him of old upon whose head
His follies hung in dark arrears,
I groan and travail in my bed,
And water it with bitter tears.
40
I stand upon
thy mountain-heads,
And gaze until mine eyes are
dim;
The golden morning glows and spreads;
The hoary vapours break and
swim.
I see thy blossoming fields, divine,
45
Thy shining clouds, thy blessed
trees—
And then that broken soul of mine—
How much less beautiful than
these!
O Spirit,
passionless, but kind,
Is there in all the world, I
cry,
50
Another one so base and blind,
Another one so weak as I?
O power, unchangeable, but just,
Impute this one good thing to
me,
I sink my spirit to the dust
55
In utter dumb humility.
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