A HYMN FOR ADAM

Sun of amazement, manifold
as the grey flush of wind in grass,
as all your angel-moons, as cold 
of star-thought of star-fluted space:
all times and all directions bend
inward upon themselves at last;
for they have met you at their end
and have no roads for going past.

The glacier's gathered muscle, furred
with souls of breathless music, still
breaks the unripple of your word
and loosens tongues towards your will.
For the unchanging is your dance;
infinite speed is motionless;
your power is quiet circumstance
and silence is your blessedness.

Yet you have spoken to our flesh
because we closed the inward ear,
because we struggled in the mesh
of eyeless evil and its fear:
and leaning down like a gold wind
to feel the moments of the flood,
you hear the sunlight, see behind
the warmth we carry on our blood.

Between the cortex and the twig
your eyes have seen your heralds pass;
the virgin belly of the fig
has closed upon your resting place:
you who conceived along your voice,
you who are infinite and small,
did not compel our needless choice,
will not let fallen children fall.

You who are knowledge, gave us earth
to be our servant, and had care
to build the planets round our birth:
will you send more than we can bear?
In murderous throat and raging eyes
and in the leaping talon, still 
you have preceded us; there lies
the peace of your unmoving will.