6. ‘I Am Alpha and Omega....’
And dost Thou bless the end? O Lord of Life
And the Beginning, Lord of the New Birth,
Lord of the dancing April days of earth!
When the sour chills of Autumn winds are rife,
And Summer faints and withers in the strife
Of tempests and the strangling grips of dearth,
Dost Thou still bless the End?
O Lord of the world’s morning!—Thou canst bless,
Birth-pangs and travail—Thou hast hallowed all—
But canst Thou bless the turning to the wall
Of dying eyes? the panting slow distress
Of those who fear the clutch of Nothingness?
When into death’s cold deeps Thy servants fall,
Dost Thou still bless the End?
And canst Thou bless the hour when love is dead?
Thou seek’st the harmonies of new-strung lyres,
Thou art the guardian of new-kindled fires,
But when the last of love’s poor life is fled,
His ashes to the four winds scatterèd,
And my charred soul crept bleeding from the pyres,
Dost Thou still bless the End?
Yea, Thou dost bless the End—For Thou hast sworn
That Thou, Eternal, art the First and Last,
Lord of the Future, Thine too is the past,
Thine is the night, O high priest of the dawn!
Alpha and Omega! both love new-born
And love long dead are in Thy hands kept fast,
Yea, Thou dost bless the End.
Thine are the shadows of the dropping night,
Thine are the wastes of lonely moonless seas,
The wilted leaves of tossing Autumn trees,
Thine the faint cries, the slowly drowning sight
Of those who in the gulfs of darkness fight—
And dead love sleeps upon Thy mighty knees
Ever world without end.