Kingdom of Heaven (Thompson)

by Francis Thompson

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 rumour 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, but start a wing!

‘Tis ye, ‘tis your estranged faces,

That miss the many-splendoured 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 Heaven by the hems;

And lo, Christ walking on the water

Not of Gennesareth, but Thames!