Strong Son of God, immortal Love, <br /> Whom we, that have not seen thy face, <br /> By faith, and faith alone, embrace, <br /> Believing where we cannot prove; <br /> Thine are these orbs of light and shade; <br /> Thou madest Life in man and brute; <br /> Thou madest Death; and lo, thy foot <br /> Is on the skull which thou hast made. <br /> Thou wilt not leave us in the dust: <br /> Thou madest man, he knows not why, <br /> He thinks he was not made to die; <br /> And thou hast made him: thou art just. <br /> <br /> Thou seemest human and divine, <br /> The highest, holiest manhood, thou. <br /> Our wills are ours, we know not how, <br /> Our wills are ours, to make them thine. <br /> <br /> Our little systems have their day; <br /> They have their day and cease to be: <br /> They are but broken lights of thee, <br /> And thou, O Lord, art more than they. <br /> <br /> We have but faith: we cannot know; <br /> For knowledge is of things we see; <br /> And yet we trust it comes from thee, <br /> A beam in darkness: let it grow. <br /> <br /> Let knowledge grow from more to more, <br /> But more of reverence in us dwell; <br /> That mind and soul, according well, <br /> May make one music as before, <br /> <br /> But vaster. We are fools and slight; <br /> We mock thee when we do not fear: <br /> But help thy foolish ones to bear; <br /> Help thy vain worlds to bear thy light. <br /> <br /> Forgive what seem'd my sin in me, <br /> What seem'd my worth since I began; <br /> For merit lives from man to man, <br /> And not from man, O Lord, to thee. <br /> <br /> Forgive my grief for one removed, <br /> Thy creature, whom I found so fair. <br /> I trust he lives in thee, and there <br /> I find him worthier to be loved. <br /> <br /> Forgive these wild and wandering cries, <br /> Confusions of a wasted youth; <br /> Forgive them where they fail in truth, <br /> And in thy wisdom make me wise.<br /><br />Alfred Lord Tennyson<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/in-memoriam-a-h-h-the-prelude/
