The Convert

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After one moment when I bowed my head
 And the whole world turned over and came upright,
 And I came out where the old road shone white,
 I walked the ways and heard what all men said,
 Forests of tongues, like autumn leaves unshed,
 Being not unlovable but strange and light;
 Old riddles and new creeds, not in despite
 But softly, as men smile about the dead.

 The sages have a hundred maps to give
 That trace their crawling cosmos like a tree,
 They rattle reason out through many a sieve
 That stores the sand and lets the gold go free:
 And all these things are less than dust to me
 Because my name is Lazarus and I live.

© Gilbert Keith Chesterton