Peccavi, Domine

O Power to whom this earthly clime     Is but an atom in the whole,     O Poet-heart of Space and Time,     O Maker and Immortal Soul,     Within whose glowing rings are bound,     Out of whose sleepless heart had birth     The cloudy blue, the starry round,     And this small miracle of earth:     Who liv'st in every living thing,     And all things are thy script and chart,     Who rid'st upon the eagle's wing,     And yearnest in the human heart;     O Riddle with a single clue,     Love, deathless, protean, secure,     The ever old, the ever new,     O Energy, serene and pure.     Thou, who art also part of me,     Whose glory I have sometime seen,     O Vision of the Ought-to-be,     O Memory of the Might-have-been,     I have had glimpses of thy way,     And moved with winds and walked with stars,     But, weary, I have fallen astray,     And, wounded, who shall count my scars?     O Master, all my strength is gone;     Unto the very earth I bow;     I have no light to lead me on;     With aching heart and burning brow,     I lie as one that travaileth     In sorrow more than he can bear;     I sit in darkness as of death,     And scatter dust upon my hair.     The God within my soul hath slept,     And I have shamed the nobler rule;     O Master, I have whined and crept;     O Spirit, I have played the fool.     Like him of old upon whose head     His follies hung in dark arrears,     I groan and travail in my bed,     And water it with bitter tears.     I stand upon thy mountain-heads,     And gaze until mine eyes are dim;     The golden morning glows and spreads;     The hoary vapours break and swim.     I see thy blossoming fields, divine,     Thy shining clouds, thy blessed trees -     And then that broken soul of mine -     How much less beautiful than these!     O Spirit, passionless, but kind,     Is there in all the world, I cry,     Another one so base and blind,     Another one so weak as I?     O Power, unchangeable, but just,     Impute this one good thing to me,     I sink my spirit to the dust     In utter dumb humility.