Faith, Spirituality and Religion

The best way to escape His ire Is, not to seem too happy.

Setebos, Setebos, and Setebos! ’Thinketh, He dwelleth i’ the cold o’ the moon.

The high that proved too high, the heroic for earth too hard, The passion that left the ground to lose itself in the sky, Are music sent up to God by the lover and the bard.

On the earth the broken arcs; in the heaven, a perfect round.

Do I find love so full in my nature, God’s ultimate gift, That I doubt his own love can compete with it? Here, the parts shift?

You call for faith: I show you doubt, to prove that faith exists. The more of doubt, the stronger faith, I say, If faith o’ercomes doubt.

That low man seeks a little thing to do, Sees it and does it; This high man, with a great thing to pursue, Dies ere he knows it. That low man goes on adding one to one, His hundred’s soon hit; This high man, aiming at a million, Misses an unit. That, has the world here—should he need the next, Let the world mind him! This, throws himself on God, and unperplexed Seeking shall find Him.

In Vishnu-land what Avatar?

The Savior at his sermon on the mount, Saint Praxed in a glory, and one Pan Ready to twitch the Nymph’s last garment off.

And then how I shall lie through centuries, And hear the blessed mutter of the mass, And see God made and eaten all day long, And feel the steady candle flame, and taste Good strong thick stupefying incense smoke!

The year’s at the spring And day’s at the morn; Morning’s at seven; The hillside’s dew-pearled; The lark’s on the wing; The snail’s on the thorn: God’s in his heaven— All’s right with the world.

Dear Lord and Father of mankind, Forgive our foolish ways! Reclothe us in our rightful mind, In purer lives Thy service find, In deeper reverence, praise.

Smiles, tears, of all my life!—and, if God choose, I shall but love thee better after death.

Because God’s gifts put man’s best dreams to shame.

They reckon ill who leave me out; When me they fly, I am the wings; I am the doubter and the doubt, And I the hymn the Brahmin sings.

So nigh is grandeur to our dust, So near is God to man, When Duty whispers low, Thou must, The youth replies, I can.

“Pass in, pass in,” the angels say, “In to the upper doors, Nor count compartments of the floors, But mount to paradise By the stairway of surprise.”

Heartily know, When half-gods go, The gods arrive.

I like a church; I like a cowl; I love a prophet of the soul; And on my heart monastic aisles Fall like sweet strains or pensive smiles; Yet not for all his faith can see Would I that cowlèd churchman be.

It is thy very energy of thought Which keeps thee from thy God.

Lead, kindly Light, amid the encircling gloom; Lead thou me on! The night is dark, and I am far from home; Lead thou me on! Keep thou my feet: I do not ask to see The distant scene; one step enough for me.

Wherein lies happiness? In that which becks Our ready minds to fellowship divine, A fellowship with essence; till we shine, Full alchemiz’d, and free of space. Behold The clear religion of heaven!

Nothing in the world is single, All things by a law divine In one spirit meet and mingle.

From the dust of creeds outworn.