Classic Poem

The Christ of Creeds has lost His fame,
His bells are silent on the mount,
No candles on the altar flame,
And empty the baptismal fount;
The wine we drank was moldered must,
The blessed wafer but a crust.

Thou, too, fair Face, beyond all creeds,
Art sunk in ocean like a wraith,
A shadow cast by human needs,
Lost when we lost the light of faith —
The " Father " of this peopled shore
Becomes but idle metaphor.

Whilst that grim Somewhat of the mind,
The primal Cause, the cosmic One,
Though throned forever there behind,
Gleams colder than the polar sun,
To whom, across the eternal ice,
Man never burned a sacrifice.

And yet we plant and store our shelves,
And kiss the young and lead the old,
And die for dreams we dreamed ourselves,
Because the Laws within us hold;
And, closely read, those Laws immerse
Our being in the Universe.