'_In no Strange Land_' <br /> <br />O world invisible, we view thee, <br />O world intangible, we touch thee, <br />O world unknowable, we know thee, <br />Inapprehensible, we clutch thee! <br /> <br />Does the fish soar to find the ocean, <br />The eagle plunge to find the air-- <br />That we ask of the stars in motion <br />If they have rumour of thee there? <br /> <br />Not where the wheeling systems darken, <br />And our benumbed conceiving soars!-- <br />The drift of pinions, would we hearken, <br />Beats at our own clay-shuttered doors. <br /> <br />The angels keep their ancient places;-- <br />Turn but a stone, and start a wing! <br />'Tis ye, 'tis your estranged faces, <br />That miss the many-splendoured thing. <br /> <br />But (when so sad thou canst not sadder) <br />Cry;--and upon thy so sore loss <br />Shall shine the traffic of Jacob's ladder <br />Pitched betwixt Heaven and Charing Cross. <br /> <br />Yea, in the night, my Soul, my daughter, <br />Cry,--clinging Heaven by the hems; <br />And lo, Christ walking on the water <br />Not of Gennesareth, but Thames!<br /><br />Francis Thompson<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-kingdom-of-god/
