Fugitive Poetry. 1600–1878/Where is God?

Where Is God?

Where is He? Ask His emblem,
The glorious, glorious sun,
Who glads the round world with his beams
Ere his day's course is run.

Where is He? Ask the stars that keep
Their nightly watch on high.
Where is He? Ask the pearly dew,
The tear-drops of the sky.

Where is He? Ask the secret founts
That feed the boundless deep,
The dire simoom, or soft night-breeze
That lulls the world to sleep.

Where is He? Ask the storm of fire
That bursts from Etna's womb;
And ask the glowing lava flood
That makes the lands a tomb.

Where is He? Ask the Maelstrom's whirl,
Shivering tall pines like glass;
Ask the great oak, the graceful flower,
Or simplest blade of grass.

Where is He? Ask the Behemoth,
Who drinketh rivers dry;
The' ocean king Leviathan,
Or scarce seen atom fly.

Where is He? Ask the awful calm
On mountain-tops that rests;
And bounding, thundering avalanche,
Rent from their rugged crests.

Ask the wide-wasting hurricane,
Careering in its might;
The thunder crash, the lightning blaze,
Earth all convulsed with fight.

Where is He? Ask the crystal isles
On Arctic seas that sail;
Or ask from lands of balm and spice,
The perfume-breathing gale.

Where on the universe is found,
That presence-favoured spot?—
All, all proclaim His dwelling-place!
But say, where is He not?