No Words

My favorite thing about well-written poetry is its power to express emotions that I have felt but have never known the words to describe. I have been thinking and praying through doubts a lot this year, maybe particularly since Christmas, and I just found this poem that describes the experience of faith after doubt more eloquently than I could ever hope to. It's by Alfred, Lord Tennyson from "In Memoriam." I could comment on it, but nothing I say (especially at this late hour) will do anything but diminish the power of the poem, so here it is:

"That which we dare invoke to bless;
Our dearest faith; our ghastliets 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 through the questions men may try,
The petty cobwebs we have spun.

If e'er when faith had fallen asleep,
I heard a voice, "believe no more,"
And heard an ever-breaking shore
That tumbled in the Godless deep,

A warmth within the breast would melt
The freezing reason's colder part,
And like a man in wrath the heart
Stood up and answered, "I have felt."

No, like a child in doubt and fear:
But that blind clamor made me wise;
Then was I as a child that cries,
But, crying, knows his father near;

And what I am beheld again
What is, and no man understands;
And out of darkness came the hands
That reach through nature, molding men."