| O WORLD invisible, we view thee, |
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| O world intangible, we touch thee, |
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| O world unknowable, we know thee, |
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| Inapprehensible, we clutch thee! |
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| Does the fish soar to find the ocean, |
5 |
| The eagle plunge to find the air— |
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| That we ask of the stars in motion |
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| If they have rumour of thee there? |
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| Not where the wheeling systems darken, |
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| And our benumbed conceiving soars!— |
10 |
| The drift of pinions, would we hearken, |
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| Beats at our own clay-shuttered doors. |
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| The angels keep their ancient places;— |
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| Turn but a stone, and start a wing! |
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| ‘Tis ye, ‘tis your estrangèd faces, |
15 |
| That miss the many-splendoured thing. |
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| But (when so sad thou canst not sadder) |
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| Cry;—and upon thy so sore loss |
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| Shall shine the traffic of Jacob’s ladder |
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| Pitched betwixt Heaven and Charing Cross. |
20 |
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| Yea, in the night, my Soul, my daughter, |
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| Cry,—clinging Heaven by the hems; |
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| And lo, Christ walking on the water |
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| Not of Gennesareth, but Thames |
How my heart sings 