“Perplext in faith, but pure in deeds,At last he beat his music out.There lives more faith in honest doubt,Believe me, than in half the creeds.He fought his doubts and gather'd strength,He would not make his judgment blind,He faced the spectres of the mindAnd laid them: thus he came at lengthTo find a stronger faith his own;And Power was with him in the night,Which makes the darkness and the light,And dwells not in the light alone,”

“There lives more faith in honest doubt, believe me, than in half the creeds.”

“That which we dare invoke to bless;Our dearest faith; our ghastliest doubt;He, They, One, All; within, without;The Power in darkness whom we guess;I found Him not in world or sun,Or eagle's wing, or insect's eye;Nor thro' the questions men may try,The petty cobwebs we have spun:If e'er when faith had fall'n asleep,I heard a voice `believe no more'And heard an ever-breaking shoreThat tumbled in the Godless deep;A warmth within the breast would meltThe freezing reason's colder part,And like a man in wrath the heartStood up and answer'd `I have felt.'No, like a child in doubt and fear:But that blind clamour made me wise;Then was I as a child that cries,But, crying, knows his father near;And what I am beheld againWhat is, and no man understands;And out of darkness came the handsThat reach thro' nature, moulding men.”

“So word by word, and line by line,The dead man touch'd me from the past,And all at once it seem'd at lastThe living soul was flash'd on mine,And mine in his was wound, and whirl'dAbout empyreal heights of thought,And came on that which is, and caughtThe deep pulsations of the world,Æonian music measuring outThe steps of Time—the shocks of Chance--The blows of Death. At length my tranceWas cancell'd, stricken thro' with doubt.”

“Who is this? And what is here? And in the lighted palace near Died the sound of royal cheer; And they crossed themselves for fear, All the Knights at Camelot; But Lancelot mused a little space He said, "She has a lovely face; God in his mercy lend her grace, The Lady of Shalott.”

“I sing to him that rests below,And, since the grasses round me wave,I take the grasses of the grave,And make them pipes whereon to blow.The traveller hears me now and then,And sometimes harshly will he speak:`This fellow would make weakness weak,And melt the waxen hearts of men.'Another answers, `Let him be,He loves to make parade of painThat with his piping he may gainThe praise that comes to constancy.'A third is wroth: `Is this an hourFor private sorrow's barren song,When more and more the people throngThe chairs and thrones of civil power?'A time to sicken and to swoon,When Science reaches forth her armsTo feel from world to world, and charmsHer secret from the latest moon?'Behold, ye speak an idle thing:Ye never knew the sacred dust:I do but sing because I must,And pipe but as the linnets sing:And one is glad; her note is gay,For now her little ones have ranged;And one is sad; her note is changed,Because her brood is stol'n away.”

“The EagleHe clasps the crag with crooked hands; Close to the sun in lonely lands, Ring'd with the azure world, he stands. The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls; He watches from his mountain walls, And like a thunderbolt he falls.”