The Kingdom of God / Francis Thompson

The Kingdom of God
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 rumor 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 and start a wing! 'Tis ye, 'tis your estrangèd faces, That miss the many-splendored 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 to Heaven by the hems; And lo, Christ walking on the water, Not of Genesareth, but Thames!