Francis Thompson

“Short arm needs man to reach to Heaven, So ready is Heaven to stoop to him.”

“All things by immortal power, Near or far, Hiddenly To each other linked are, That thou canst not stir a flower Without troubling of a star.”

“The angels keep their ancient places;— Turn but a stone, and start a wing! 'Tis ye, 'tis your estranged faces, That miss the many-splendoured thing.”

“I fled Him, down the nights and down the days; I fled Him, down the arches of the years.”

“For we are born in others' pain, and perish in our own.”

“O world invisible, we view thee, O world intangible, we touch thee, O world unknowable, we know thee, Inapprehensible, we clutch thee!”

“Summer set lip to earth's bosom bare, And left the flushed print in a poppy there.”

“Across the traffic of cities, I hear the wheels of His chariot.”

“Ever and anon a trumpet sounds From the hid battlements of Eternity.”

“But (when so sad thou canst not sadder) Cry;—and upon thy so sore loss Shall shine the traffic of Jacob's ladder Pitched betwixt Heaven and Charing Cross.”

“Halts by me that footfall: Is my gloom, after all, Shade of His hand, outstretched caressingly?”