WHILE in my simple gospel creed <br />That 'God is Love' so plain I read, <br />Shall dreams of heathen birth affright <br />My pathway through the coming night? <br />Ah, Lord of life, though spectres pale <br />Fill with their threats the shadowy vale, <br />With Thee my faltering steps to aid, <br />How can I dare to be afraid? <br /> <br />Shall mouldering page or fading scroll <br />Outface the charter of the soul? <br />Shall priesthood's palsied arm protect <br />The wrong our human hearts reject, <br />And smite the lips whose shuddering cry <br />Proclaims a cruel creed a lie? <br />The wizard's rope we disallow <br />Was justice once,--is murder now! <br /> <br />Is there a world of blank despair, <br />And dwells the Omnipresent there? <br />Does He behold with smile serene <br />The shows of that unending scene, <br />Where sleepless, hopeless anguish lies, <br />And, ever dying, never dies? <br />Say, does He hear the sufferer's groan, <br />And is that child of wrath his own? <br /> <br />O mortal, wavering in thy trust, <br />Lift thy pale forehead from the dust! <br />The mists that cloud thy darkened eyes <br />Fade ere they reach the o'erarching skies <br />When the blind heralds of despair <br />Would bid thee doubt a Father's care, <br />Look up from earth, and read above <br />On heaven's blue tablet, GOD IS LOVE!<br /><br />Oliver Wendell Holmes<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/tatarus/
