The Approach to the Choir: Despondency

And is this all ? and what avail
These cloistral watchings pale?
And what to walk in holy heed
Beneath the o'erarching Creed ?
Or track Heaven-lighten'd caves of thought,
In prayer which Jesus taught ?
These to His presence-chamber bring,
Where, as an abject thing,
In that true light for evermore
We should ourselves deplore.