Two Greetings.
I.
Out of the deep, my child, out of the deep,1
Where all that was to be in all that was2
Whirl’d for a million æons thro’ the vast3
Waste dawn of multitudinous-eddying light—4
Out of the deep, my child, out of the deep,5
Thro’ all this changing world of changeless law,6
And every phase of ever-heightening life,7
And nine long months of antenatal gloom,8
With this last moon, this crescent—her dark orb9
Touch’d with earth’s light—thou comest, darling boy ;10
Our own ; a babe in lineament and limb11
Perfect, and prophet of the perfect man ;12
Whose face and form are hers and mine in one,13
Indissolubly married like our love ;14
Live and be happy in thyself, and serve15
This mortal race thy kin so well that men16
May bless thee as we bless thee, O young life17
Breaking with laughter from the dark, and may18
The fated channel where thy motion lives19
Be prosperously shaped, and sway thy course20
Along the years of haste and random youth21
Unshatter’d, then full-current thro’ full man,22
And last in kindly curves, with gentlest fall,23
By quiet fields, a slowly-dying power,24
To that last deep where we and thou are still.25
II.
1.
Out of the deep, my child, out of the deep,26
From that great deep before our world begins27
Whereon the Spirit of God moves as he will—28
Out of the deep, my child, out of the deep,29
From that true world within the world we see,30
Whereof our world is but the bounding shore—31
Out of the deep, Spirit, out of the deep,32
With this ninth moon that sends the hidden sun33
Down yon dark sea, thou comest, darling boy.34
2.
For in the world, which is not ours, They said35
‘ Let us make man’ and that which should be man,36
From that one light no man can look upon,37
Drew to this shore lit by the suns and moons38
And all the shadows. O dear Spirit half-lost39
In thine own shadow and this fleshly sign40
That thou art thou—who wailest being born41
And banish’d into mystery, and the pain42
Of this divisible-indivisible world43
Among the numerable-innumerable44
Sun, sun, and sun, thro’ finite-infinite space45
In finite-infinite time—our mortal veil46
And shatter’d phantom of that infinite One,47
Who made thee unconceivably thyself48
Out of His whole World-self and all in all—49
Live thou, and of the grain and husk, the grape50
And ivyberry, choose ; and still depart51
From death to death thro’ life and life, and find52
Nearer and ever nearer Him who wrought53
Not Matter, nor the finite-infinite,54
But this main miracle, that thou art thou,55
With power on thine own act and on the world.56