Passion Flowers (Watson)/Shakespeare

Shakespeare.

What time the earth was young and felt the thrill—
The ecstasy of life new-found and strange,
Across the fresh-made downs, the swelling hills,
He passed, the finite image of the Infinite,
The human voicing of the One Divine;
Since then the God in man so faint hath grown,
So overcast with earthly lust, with greed for gain,
It is not strange that clouded vision sees,
But evidenced an earth-born, mongrel race,
Which lives a fleeting day and strives and dies.

But through the ages, as to save alive
The faith of man in kinship most divine,
Hath sometime been this marvel wrought anew,
This speech of Infinite through finite voice,
Then him inspired men have list'ning called;
'Twas in this wise inspired He the bard,
Who sang into the eager ear of earth
The grandest strains since sang the morning stars;
The sweetest songs since limpid waters tuned
Their silver drops to tell a rhythmic tale
The breath of God breathes through his wondrous lays,
And God is proved in making such a man.