A New Pilgrimage: Sonnet XXII

Unblest discovery of an age too real!
They needed not the beauty of the Earth,
Who held Heaven's hope for their supreme ideal,
And found in worlds unseen a better birth.
What to the eye of faith were the hills worth,
The voiceless forests, the unpeopled coasts,
The wildernesses void of sentient mirth?
In death men praise thee not, Thou Lord of Hosts!
But when faith faltered, when the hope grew dim,
And Heaven was hid with phantoms of despair,
And Man stood trembling on destruction's brim,
Then turned he to the Earth, and found her fair;
His home, his refuge, which no doubt could rob,
A beauty throbbing to his own heart's throb.