Doubtless we think the Being who made man,
The visible world, space powdered thick with stars;
The golden fruit whose core is curious life,
Created all things—love, and law, and death;
Fate, the crowned forehead; Will, the sceptred hand
Perchance—perchance: yet need it be that He
Who planted us is the Head-gardener? What
If beyond Him rose rank on rank, as the bulb
Is higher than the crystals of its food,
And he who sets it, higher than the flower,
And he that owns the garden, more than all?
The great Cause works through lesser ones. . . .
Know we the limit of the power He gives
To lesser Wills to will imperfectly?
Is earth that limit? Is the last link man,
Between the finite and the infinite? …
O mother world! we stammer at thy knee
Vainly our childish questions. 'Tis enough
For such as we to know, that on His throne,
Nearer than we can think, and farther off
Than any mind can fathom, sits the One,
And sees to it—though pain and evil come,
And all may not be good—that all is well.