The South Aisle: The Creed I

Go, stand beneath some Minster tall,
Stretching in aisles majestical ;
In branchings of embowering length,
And avenues of pillar'd strength,
'Mid arch and pile aloft array'd,
And clustering reach of vaulted shade,
Dwarf'd to a speck man there doth stand,
'Mid the colossal mountain band.

Or go, and gaze, when mortals sleep,
Upon the wild ethereal deep !
Solemn and vast in night's stern dress,
Of worlds a very wilderness,
In their blue caves half seen they lie,
The many mansions of the sky.
Man sinks his inmost soul within,
In littleness and conscious sin.

Thus, in Christ's holy Creed displayed,
Truth on eternal pillars laid, .
World beyond world, end without end,
Doth over man her vastness bend.
Far stooping from the deeps of night,
She stands reveal'd to mortal sight,
Like the broad Heaven's o'er-arching span,
Divinity encircling man.