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-preface/
