Incalculably small, its closest cluster
Mere milky lustre
Staining the infinite darkness! Base and blind
Our minion mind
Seeks a great light, a light sufficient, light
Insufferably bright,
So hidden for an hour: imagining
This vast vain thing,
We call it God, and Father. Empty hand
And prayer unplanned
Stretch fatuous to the void. Ah! men my
friends,
What fury sends
This folly to intoxicate your hearts?
Dread air disparts
Your vital ways from these unsavoury follies,
Black melancholies
Sit straddled on your bended backs. The throne
Of the unknown
Is fit for children. We are too well ware
How vain is prayer,
How naught is great, since all is immanent,
The vast content
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