The Agnostic

NOT in the hour of peril, thronged with foes,
Panting to set their heel upon my head,--
Or when alone from many wounds I bled
Unflinching beneath Fortune's random blows;
Not when my shuddering hands were doomed to close
The unshrinking eyelids of the stony dead;--
Not then I missed my God, not then--but said:
'Let me not burden God with all man's woes!'

But when resurgent from the womb of night
Spring's Oriflamme of flowers waves from the Sod;
When peak on flashing Alpine peak is trod
By sunbeams on their missionary flight;
When heaven-kissed Earth laughs, garmented in light;--
That is the hour in which I miss my God.