One’s faith has little nightmares
It easily survives: —
Divorcing lust and Luther,
Henry and lots of wives.
But these are sham encounters
Quickly dissolved in air;
The soul beset no more than this
Will never know despair.
But oh, to go by moonlight
And wrestle all alone,
And fight against no heresy
Except against one’s own;
And be entrapped forever
By what one knows is true,
And dared to do the only thing
That one desires to do!
This is what makes one falter
And waver like a wraith;
This is the Christian’s agony,
And this the Faith.
To face those stark alternatives:
A Nothing and an All;
To choose a Vision or a Void,
A Silence or a Call; —
This is what sets one groaning
Under the olive trees,
Bathed by the blood of Jesus
In wild Gethsemanes.
From Boundaries
