C.D. Warner, et al., comp.
The Library of the World’s Best Literature. An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.

Eliza Scudder (1821–1896)

I CANNOT find thee! Still on restless pinion

My spirit beats the void where thou dost dwell;

I wander lost through all thy vast dominion,

And shrink beneath thy Light ineffable.

I cannot find thee! Even when, most adoring,

Before thy shrine I bend in lowliest prayer,

Beyond these bounds of thought, my thought upsoaring,

From furthest quest comes back: thou art not there.

Yet high above the limits of my seeing,

And folded far within the inmost heart,

And deep below the deeps of conscious being,

Thy splendor shineth: there, O God! thou art.

I cannot lose thee! Still in thee abiding,

The end is clear, how wide soe’er I roam;

The law that holds the worlds my steps is guiding,

And I must rest at last in thee, my home.