| Nicholson & Lee, eds. The Oxford Book of English Mystical Verse. 1917. |
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| 263. The Unknown God |
| By Alice Meynell (b. 1847) |
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| ONE of the crowd went up, | |
| And knelt before the Paten and the Cup, | |
| Received the Lord, returned in peace, and prayed | |
| Close to my side; then in my heart I said: | |
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| ‘O Christ, in this man’s life— | 5 |
| This stranger who is Thine—in all his strife, | |
| All his felicity, his good and ill, | |
| In the assaulted stronghold of his will, | |
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| ‘I do confess Thee here, | |
| Alive within this life; I know Thee near | 10 |
| Within this lonely conscience, closed away | |
| Within this brother’s solitary day. | |
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| ‘Christ in his unknown heart, | |
| His intellect unknown—this love, this art, | |
| This battle and this peace, this destiny | 15 |
| That I shall never know, look upon me! | |
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| ‘Christ in his numbered breath, | |
| Christ in his beating heart and in his death, | |
| Christ in his mystery! From that secret place | |
| And from that separate dwelling, give me grace.’ | 20 |
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