| Nicholson & Lee, eds. The Oxford Book of English Mystical Verse. 1917. |
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| 265. Christ in the Universe |
| By Alice Meynell (b. 1847) |
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| WITH this ambiguous earth | |
| His dealings have been told us. These abide: | |
| The signal to a maid, the human birth, | |
| The lesson, and the young Man crucified. | |
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| But not a star of all | 5 |
| The innumerable host of stars has heard | |
| How He administered this terrestrial ball. | |
| Our race have kept their Lord’s entrusted Word. | |
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| Of His earth-visiting feet | |
| None knows the secret, cherished, perilous, | 10 |
| The terrible, shamefast, frightened, whispered, sweet, | |
| Heart-shattering secret of His way with us. | |
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| No planet knows that this | |
| Our wayside planet, carrying land and wave, | |
| Love and life multiplied, and pain and bliss, | 15 |
| Bears, as chief treasure, one forsaken grave. | |
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| Nor, in our little day, | |
| May His devices with the heavens be guessed, | |
| His pilgrimage to thread the Milky Way | |
| Or His bestowals there be manifest. | 20 |
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| But in the eternities, | |
| Doubtless we shall compare together, hear | |
| A million alien Gospels, in what guise | |
| He trod the Pleiades, the Lyre, the Bear. | |
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| O, be prepared, my soul! | 25 |
| To read the inconceivable, to scan | |
| The myriad forms of God those stars unroll | |
| When, in our turn, we show to them a Man. | |
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