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     Its darkness melt, its coldness warm,     The lost restore, the ill transform,     That flower and fruit henceforth may be     Its grateful offering, worthy Thee