A Course in Theology

I stood upon the prairie wide
Where mighty breezes sough and sweep,
And stir strange longings in the heart
Strange longings, still and strong and deep.
And seem to bring divineness nigh,
And speak of God and life on high.
But still I said: "There is no God;
God is a myth and man a clod."

I stood upon the trackless sea
And viewed with awe the shoreless tide.
The watery deep called unto deep;
The deep within my heart replied.
But still I said: "There's naught divine;
At death will die this soul of mine;
And God is but a figment wrought
In poet's and the rabble's thought."

I viewed from crest of mountain height
Majestic peaks, at dawn, sunlit,
The sky's abyss and glens profound,
A page from nature's Holy Writ.
My soul with silent awe was filled;
A rapture through my being thrilled;
But still I said: "My faith can see
No God and no etemity."

I lay oppressed with crushing grief;
A sorrow whose pervading sob
Convulsed my soul to hidden depths,
And deeper sank with every throb.
"O soul!" I cried, "O heart of mine"
August thou art; thou art divine-,
Too vast for three score years and ten,
The years allowed to mortal men.'

Absorbing love swept through my soul;
Its pulsing thrill from depth to height
Made Life stand forth and seem too real
To flicker out in endless night.
"My soul," I cried, "I learn, of Thee,
Bleat lessons of infinity;
Convinced of endless life I grow,
And God, divine, begin to know."

Quillings In Verse
John Edward Everett
(Smith Center: ^___. 1912)
Pages 95-96