Canto LIV
The wish, that of the living wholeNo life may fail beyond the grave:Derives it not from what we haveThe likest God within the soul?
Are God and Nature then at strife,That Nature lends such evil dreams?So careful of the type she seems,So careless of the single life;
That I, considering everywhereHer secret meaning in her deeds,And finding that of fifty seedsShe often brings but one to bear;
I falter where I firmly trod,And falling with my weight of caresUpon the great world’s altar-stairsThat slope thro’ darkness up to God;
I stretch lame hands of faith, and grope,And gather dust and chaff, and callTo what I feel is Lord of all,And faintly trust the larger hope.