Faith Is A Fine Invention

To lose one's faith surpasses
The loss of an estate,
Because estates can be
Replenished, -- faith cannot.

Inherited with life,
Belief but once can be;
Annihilate a single clause,
And Being's beggary.

My faith is rooted in no written creed;
And there are those who call me heretic;
Yet year on year, though I be well or sick
Or opulent, or in the slough of need,
If, light of foot, fair Life trips by me pleasuring,
Or, by the rule of pain, old Time stands measuring
The dull, drab moments - still ascends my cry:
'God reigns on high!
He doeth all things well!'

Not much I prize, or one, or any brand
Of theologic lore; nor think too well
Of generally accepted heaven and hell.
But faith and knowledge build at Love's command
A beauteous heaven; a heaven of thought all clarified
Of hate and fear and doubt; a heaven of rarefied
And perfect trust; and from the heaven I cry:
'God reigns on high!
Whatever is, is best.'

My faith refuses to accept the...

Hail! holy FAITH, on life's wide ocean toss'd,
I see thee sit calm in thy beaten bark;
As NOAH sat, throned in his high-borne ark,
Secure and fearless while a world was lost!
In vain contending storms thy head enzone,
Thy bosom shrinks not from the bolt that falls:
The dreadful shaft plays harmless, nor appals
Thy stedfast eye, fix'd on Jehovah's throne!
E'en though thou saw'st the mighty fabric nod,
Of system'd worlds, thou hear'st a sacred charm,
Graved on thy heart, to shelter thee from harm.
And thus it speaks:--"Thou art my trust, O GOD!
And thou canst bid the jarring-powers be still,
Each ponderous orb, subservient to thy will!"

Of all the souls that stand create
I have elected one.
When sense from spirit files away,
And subterfuge is done;

When that which is and that which was
Apart, intrinsic, stand,
And this brief tragedy of flesh
Is shifted like a sand;

When figures show their royal front
And mists are carved away, --
Behold the atom I preferred
To all the lists of clay!

What here we hope for, we shall once inherit;
By faith we all walk here, not by the Spirit.

A charm invests a face
Imperfectly beheld, --
The lady dare not lift her veil
For fear it be dispelled.

But peers beyond her mesh,
And wishes, and denies, --
Lest interview annul a want
That image satisfies.