For works with similar titles, see A Fragment.
A FRAGMENT.
Faith is seraph born,
And mindful of her origin, most wise,
For she has listened at the feet of Christ;
Calm-hearted as an angel, for she keeps
The trustfulness of childhood, as a sabbath
Keeps the dawn's stillness.
At her shining feet,
Ah, then, be mute and listen, while she tells
The chastened spirit what its pride of strength
In vain petitions. All her words are pleasant
As shadows by the way-side, and we bear
Their memory with us as we pluck a branch
From some green sheltering tree. And, through them fall,
Like light through leaves, faint glimpses of a glory
Yet unrevealed; some rays of that far sun
That sends its shining to our distant hearts;
Gleams of the time when man, that grand conception
Unworthily embodied, shall stand forth
As God pronounced him first, ere, like an echo,
Through each reverberating age, he grew
With repetition feebler and unlike
The great original.
And mindful of her origin, most wise,
For she has listened at the feet of Christ;
Calm-hearted as an angel, for she keeps
The trustfulness of childhood, as a sabbath
Keeps the dawn's stillness.
At her shining feet,
Ah, then, be mute and listen, while she tells
The chastened spirit what its pride of strength
In vain petitions. All her words are pleasant
As shadows by the way-side, and we bear
Their memory with us as we pluck a branch
From some green sheltering tree. And, through them fall,
Like light through leaves, faint glimpses of a glory
Yet unrevealed; some rays of that far sun
That sends its shining to our distant hearts;
Gleams of the time when man, that grand conception
Unworthily embodied, shall stand forth
As God pronounced him first, ere, like an echo,
Through each reverberating age, he grew
With repetition feebler and unlike
The great original.