Classic Poem

Oh Thou, for whom as in thyself thou art,
And by thyself perceived, we know no name,
Nor dare not seek to express, — but unto us,
Adonai! — who, before the heavens were built,
Or earth's foundations laid — within thyself,
Thine own more glorious habitation, dwelt.
But when within the abyss,
With sudden light illuminated,
Thou, thine image to behold,
Into its quickened depths,
Looked down with brooding eye, —
Earth with its mountains rose,
And seas, and streams;
And o'er them, like a cloud,
Rose the blue firmament;
And the sun burst forth
With wide and sudden blaze,
That made the dazzled night
Know its own darkness — and the stars
Rose glimmering in his skirts;
And nearer to the earth, the moon
Above the mountains' blue and skiey peaks
Rode pale and beautiful.
And man stood up before thee, not as these,
The image of thy wisdom and thy power,
But of Thyself; and in his heart was born
Thy highest name, the unpronounceable,
Adorable I AM, and on his lips,
Adonai! Father! God. — Oh Spirit pure,
Creator increate, the work, how vain
Of them who seek with impious hands to shape
Thee, the Invisible; that within thyself
Sittest with glory covered,
Garmented with light,
To them who at its blaze
Kindle their dazzled eyes,
The cherubim, and flame-winged seraphim,
Insufferable as noon: —
Brightness that, more than night
And thickest darkness, hides Thee from our sight.
Oh thou, our Father, Saviour, Sovereign, God,
Immovably the pillars of thy throne,
With all the structure vast of earth and heaven,
Rest on the dark foundations of thy will.
Thy hand is sceptred with almighty power,
The rod of boundless empire, and the bolt
Of universal ruin, should it leave,
Omnipotent! thy grasp, — Oh God,
Our fathers' God! the earth and seas —
The eternal hills, and undecaying heavens,
Shall vanish at thy breath: and all that is
Shall be as it had never been; but we,
Thy children, shall we too be naught, when this
That now supports shall perish and dissolve? —
When earth and heaven shall fade and fall away,
Thine arm, beneath us placed, our God, shall save
And from the dark abyss in which the sun
And stars shall sink, extinguished, from the grave
Of universal life shall lift us up —
Shall lift us to Thyself, and we, above
Our own conception glorified, shall live,
And with the Righteous and the Just of earth
In thee, our everlasting habitation, rest.