I Find Him Not

I found Him in the shining of the stars,
I marked Him in the flowering of His fields,
But in His ways with men I find Him not.
I fought for Him, and now I pass and die.
Wherefore O God above is all below
As if some lesser god had made the world,
But had not force to shape it as he would,
Until High God behold it from beyond,
And enter it, and make it beautiful?
Or else as if the world were wholly fair,
But that these eyes of men are dense and dim,
And have not power to see it as it is—
Perchance, because our shadow darkens it;—
I thought I could accomplish all His will,
And have but stricken with the sword in vain;
And all whereon I leaned in wife and friend
Is traitor to my peace, and all my realm
Reels back into the beast, and is no more.
My God, thou hast forgot me in my death!
Nay—Jesu Christ—I pass but shall not die.

—Alfred Lord Tennyson, Idylls of the King, The Passing of Arthur, p242.