Poems (Commelin)/Questioning
QUESTIONING.
My little bird within his cage is singing His gay, sweet song;With joyous melody the room is ringing The whole day long.
Beyond his gilded cage he has no dreaming, His all, his home:No care beside e'er shades his happy seeming, No wish to roam.
But when I ope his cage and bid him enter The mansion wide,Where rooms and halls diverge as from a centre On every side,
He mutely stands to turn and gaze and wonder At space so vast:Relations old and sense secure asunder Are rent at last.
So when, with midnight's radiance streaming o'er us, From earth we gazeTo worlds on worlds and spaces vast before us, Our thoughts we raise,—
We mutely stand to gaze with awe and longing Upon the sky,Where suns and stars and planets fair are thronging In majesty:—
Where ends creation? where is its beginning? Is our refrain:From the dread silences no answer winning— We ask in vain.