The Agnostic

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NOT in the hour of peril, thronged with foes,
  Panting to set their heel upon my head,--
  Or when alone from many wounds I bled
Unflinching beneath Fortune's random blows;
Not when my shuddering hands were doomed to close
  The unshrinking eyelids of the stony dead;--
  Not then I missed my God, not then--but said:
"Let me not burden God with all man's woes!"

But when resurgent from the womb of night
  Spring's Oriflamme of flowers waves from the Sod;
  When peak on flashing Alpine peak is trod
By sunbeams on their missionary flight;
When heaven-kissed Earth laughs, garmented in light;--
  That is the hour in which I miss my God.

© Mathilde Blind