God, if this were enough, <br />That I see things bare to the buff <br />And up to the buttocks in mire; <br />That I ask nor hope nor hire, <br />Nut in the husk, <br />Nor dawn beyond the dusk, <br />Nor life beyond death: <br />God, if this were faith! <br /> <br />Having felt thy wind in my face <br />Spit sorrow and disgrace, <br />Having seen thine evil doom <br />In Golgotha and Khartoum, <br />And the brutes, the work of thine hands, <br />Fill with injustice lands <br />And stain with blood the sea: <br />If still in my veins the glee <br />Of the black night and the sun <br />And the lost battle, run: <br />If, an adept, <br />The iniquitous lists I still accept <br />With joy, and joy to endure and be withstood, <br />And still to battle and perish for a dream of good: <br />God, if that were enough! <br /> <br />If to feel, in the ink of the slough, <br />And the sink of the mire, <br />Veins of glory and fire <br />Run through and transpierce and transpire, <br />And a secret purpose of glory in every part, <br />And the answering glory of battle fill my heart; <br />To thrill with the joy of girded men <br />To go on for ever and fail and go on again, <br />And be mauled to the earth and arise, <br />And contend for the shade of a word and a thing <br />not seen with the eyes: <br />With the half of a broken hope for a pillow at night <br />That somehow the right is the right <br />And the smooth shall bloom from the rough: <br />Lord, if that were enough!<br /><br />Robert Louis Stevenson<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/if-this-were-faith/
