_'Lord, I believe: help Thou mine unbelief.'_ <br /> <br /> <br />We must believe-- <br />Being from birth endowed with love and trust-- <br />Born unto loving;--and how simply just <br />That love--that faith!--even in the blossom-face <br />The babe drops dreamward in its resting-place, <br />Intuitively conscious of the sure <br />Awakening to rapture ever pure <br />And sweet and saintly as the mother's own, <br />Or the awed father's, as his arms are thrown <br />O'er wife and child, to round about them weave <br />And wind and bind them as one harvest-sheaf <br />Of love--to cleave to, and _forever_ cleave.... <br />Lord, I believe: <br />Help Thou mine unbelief. <br /> <br />We must believe-- <br />Impelled since infancy to seek some clear <br />Fulfillment, still withheld all seekers here;-- <br />For never have we seen perfection nor <br />The glory we are ever seeking for: <br />But we _have_ seen--all mortal souls as one-- <br />Have seen its _promise_, in the morning sun-- <br />Its blest assurance, in the stars of night;-- <br />The ever-dawning of the dark to light;-- <br />The tears down-falling from all eyes that grieve-- <br />The eyes uplifting from all deeps of grief, <br />Yearning for what at last we shall receive.... <br />Lord, I believe: <br />Help Thou mine unbelief. <br /> <br />We must believe-- <br />For still all unappeased our hunger goes, <br />From life's first waking, to its last repose: <br />The briefest life of any babe, or man <br />Outwearing even the allotted span, <br />Is each a life unfinished--incomplete: <br />For these, then, of th' outworn, or unworn feet <br />Denied one toddling step--O there must be <br />Some fair, green, flowery pathway endlessly <br />Winding through lands Elysian! Lord, receive <br />And lead each as Thine Own Child--even the Chief <br />Of us who didst Immortal life achieve.... <br />Lord, I believe: <br />Help Thou mine unbelief.<br /><br />James Whitcomb Riley<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/we-must-believe-3/
