4 THE WRECK OF THE DEUTSCHLAND

Thou mastering me

God! giver of breath and bread;

World's strand, sway of the sea;

Lord of living and dead;

Thou hast bound bones and veins in me, fastened me flesh,

And after it almost unmade, what with dread,

Thy doing: and dost thou touch me afresh?

Over again I feel thy finger and find thee.

I did say yes

O at lightning and lashed rod;

Thou heardst me truer than tongue confess

Thy terror, O Christ, O God;

Thou knowest the walls, altar and hour and night:

The swoon of a heart that the sweep and the hurl of thee trod

Hard down with a horror of height:

And the midriff astrain with leaning of, laced with fire of stress.

The frown of his face

Before me, the hurtle of hell

Behind, where, where was a, where was a place?

I whirled out wings that spell

And fled with a fling of the heart to the heart of the Host.

My heart, but you were dovewinged, I can tell,

Carrier-witted, I am bold to boast,

To flash from the flame to the flame then, tower from the grace to the grace.

I am soft sift

In an hourglass — at the wall

Fast, but mined with a motion, a drift,

And it crowds and it combs to the fall;

I steady as a water in a well, to a poise, to a pane,

But roped with, always, all the way down from the tall

Fells or flanks of the voel, a vein

Of the gospel proffer, a pressure, a principle, Christ's gift.

I kiss my hand

To the stars, lovely-asunder

Starlight, wafting him out of it; and

Glow, glory in thunder;

Kiss my hand to the dappled-with-damson west:

Since, tho’ he is under the world's splendour and wonder,

His mystery must be instressed, stressed;

For I greet him the days I meet him, and bless when I understand.

Not out of his bliss

Springs the stress felt

Nor first from heaven ( and few know this )

Swings the stroke dealt —

Stroke and a stress that stars and storms deliver,

That guilt is hushed by, hearts are flushed by and melt —

But it rides time like riding a river

( And here the faithful waver, the faithless fable and miss ),

It dates from day

Of his going in Galilee;

Warm-laid grave of a womb-life grey;

Manger, maiden's knee;

The dense and the driven Passion, and frightful sweat;

Thence the discharge of it, there its swelling to be,

Though felt before, though in high flood yet —

What none would have known of it, only the heart, being hard at bay,

Is out with it! Oh,

We lash with the best or worst

Word last! How a lush-kept plush-capped sloe

Will, mouthed to flesh-burst,

Gush!— flush the man, the being with it, sour or sweet,

Brim, in a flash, full!— Hither then, last or first,

To hero of Calvary, Christ,' s feet —

Never ask if meaning it, wanting it, warned of it — men go.

Be adored among men,

God, three-numberèd form;

Wring thy rebel, dogged in den,

Man's malice, with wrecking and storm.

Beyond saying sweet, past telling of tongue,

Thou art lightning and love, I found it, a winter and warm;

Father and fondler of heart thou hast wrung:

Hast thy dark descending and most art merciful then.

With an anvil-ding

And with fire in him forge thy will

Or rather, rather then, stealing as Spring

Through him, melt him but master him still:

Whether at once, as once at a crash Paul,

Or as Austin, a lingering-out sweet skill,

Make mércy in all of us, out of us all

Mastery, but be adored, but be adored King.