A Cry

Lord, hear my discontent: all blank I stand,     A mirror polished by thy hand;     Thy sun's beams flash and flame from me--     I cannot help it: here I stand, there he!     To one of them I cannot say,     Go, and on yonder water play;     Nor one poor ragged daisy can I fashion--     I do not make the words of this my limping passion!     If I should say, Now I will think a thought,     Lo, I must wait, unknowing     What thought in me is growing,     Until the thing to birth be brought!     Nor know I then what next will come     From out the gulf of silence dumb:     I am the door the thing will find     To pass into the general mind!     I cannot say I think--     I only stand upon the thought-well's brink:     From darkness to the sun the water bubbles up--     lift it in my cup.     Thou only thinkest--I am thought;     Me and my thought thou thinkest. Nought     Am I but as a fountain spout     From which thy water welleth out.     Thou art the only one, the all in all.--     Yet when my soul on thee doth call     And thou dost answer out of everywhere,     I in thy allness have my perfect share.