s for the sun,
Ere man in his darkness waking adored what the soul in him could,
And the manifold God of his making was manifest evil and good,
One law from the dim beginning abode and abides in the end,
In sight of him sorrowing and sinning with none but his faith for
friend.
Dark were the shadows around him, and darker the glories above,
Ere light from beyond them found him, and bade him for love's sake
love.
About him was darkness, and under and over him darkness: the night
That conceived him and bore him had thunder for utterance and
lightning for light.
The dust of death was the dust of the ways that the tribes of him
trod:
And he knew not if just or unjust were the might of the mystery of
God.
Strange horror and hope, strange faith and unfaith, were his boon
and his bane:
And the God of his trust was the wraith of the soul or the ghost of
it slain.
A curse was on death as on birth, and a Presence that shone as a
sword
Shed menace from heaven upon earth that beheld him, and hailed him
her Lord.
Sublime and triumphant as fire or as lightning, he kindled the
skies,
And withered with dread the desire that would look on the light of
his eyes.
Earth shuddered with worship, and knew not if hell were not hot in
her breath;
If birth were not sin, and the dew of the morning the sweat of her
death.
The watchwords of evil and good were unspoken of men and unheard:
They were shadows that willed as he would, that were made and
unmade by his word.
His word was darkness and light, and a wisdom that makes men mad
Sent blindness upon them for sight, that they saw but and heard as
he bade.
Cast forth and corrupt from the birth by the crime of creation,
they stood
Convicted of evil on earth by the grace of a God found good.
The grace that enkindled and quickened the darkness of hell with
flame
Bade man, though the soul in him sickened, obey, and give praise to
his name.
The still small voice of the spirit whose life is as plague's hot
breath
Bade man shed blood, and inherit the life of the kingdom of death.

"Bring now for blood-offering thy son to mine altar, and bind him