Israel.

When by Jabbok the patriarch waited         To learn on the morrow his doom,     And his dubious spirit debated         In darkness and silence and gloom,         There descended a Being with whom     He wrestled in agony sore,         With striving of heart and of brawn,     And not for an instant forbore         Till the east gave a threat of the dawn;     And then, as the Awful One blessed him,         To his lips and his spirit there came,     Compelled by the doubts that oppressed him,     The cry that through questioning ages     Has been wrung from the hinds and the sages,         "Tell me, I pray Thee, Thy name!"     Most fatal, most futile, of questions!         Wherever the heart of man beats,         In the spirit's most sacred retreats,     It comes with its sombre suggestions,         Unanswered for ever and aye.         The blessing may come and may stay,     For the wrestlers heroic endeavour;     But the question, unheeded for ever,         Dies out in the broadening day.     In the ages before our traditions,     By the altars of dark superstitions,         The imperious question has come;     When the death-stricken victim lay sobbing         At the feet of his slayer and priest,     And his heart was laid smoking and throbbing         To the sound of the cymbal and drum     On the steps of the high Teocallis;         When the delicate Greek at his feast     Poured forth the red wine from his chalice         With mocking and cynical prayer;     When by Nile Egypt worshipping lay,         And afar, through the rosy, flushed air     The Memnon called out to the day;     Where the Muezzin's cry floats from his spire;         In the vaulted Cathedral's dim shades,     Where the crushed hearts of thousands aspire     Through arts highest miracles higher,         This question of questions invades         Each heart bowed in worship or shame;     In the air where the censers are swinging,     A voice, going up with the singing,         Cries, "Tell me, I pray Thee, Thy name!"     No answer came back, not a word,     To the patriarch there by the ford;     No answer has come through the ages     To the poets, the seers, and the sages     Who have sought in the secrets of science     The name and the nature of God,     Whether cursing in desperate defiance     Or kissing His absolute rod;     But the answer which was and shall be,     "My name!    Nay, what is it to thee?"     The search and the question are vain.     By use of the strength that is in you,     By wrestling of soul and of sinew     The blessing of God you may gain.     There are lights in the far-gleaming Heaven         That never will shine on our eyes;     To mortals it may not be given         To range those inviolate skies.     The mind, whether praying or scorning,         That tempts those dread secrets shall fail;     But strive through the night till the morning,         And mightily shalt thou prevail.