Invocation

Through Thy clear spaces, Lord, of old,

Formless and void the dead earth rolled;

Deaf to Thy heaven’s sweet music, blind

To the great lights which o’er it shined;

No sound, no ray, no warmth, no breath,—

A dumb despair, a wandering death.

To that dark, weltering horror came

Thy spirit, like a subtle flame,—

A breath of life electrical,

Awakening and transforming all,

Till beat and thrilled in every part

The pulses of a living heart.

Then knew their bounds the land and sea;

Then smiled the bloom of mead and tree;

From flower to moth, from beast to man,

The quick creative impulse ran;

And earth, with life from thee renewed,

Was in thy holy eyesight good.

As lost and void, as dark and cold

And formless as that earth of old;

A wandering waste of storm and night,

Midst spheres of song and realms of light;

A blot upon thy holy sky,

Untouched, unwarned of thee, am I.

O Thou who movest on the deep

Of spirits, wake my own from sleep!