Francis Thompson (Фрэнсис Томпсон)
In No Strange Land
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 rumor 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 and start a wing! 'Tis ye, 'tis your estrangèd faces, That miss the many-splendored 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 to Heaven by the hems; And lo, Christ walking on the water, Not of Genesareth, but Thames!
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