XVIII

Indefinite space, which, by co-substance night,

In one black mystery two void mysteries blends;

The stray stars, whose innumerable light

Repeats one mystery till conjecture ends;

The stream of time, known by birth-bursting bubbles;

The gulf of silence, empty even of nought;

Thought's high-walled maze, which the outed owner troubles

Because the string's lost and the plan forgot:

When I think on this and that here I stand,

The thinker of these thoughts, emptily wise,

Holding up to my thinking my thing-hand

And looking at it with thought-alien eyes,

The prayer of my wonder looketh past

The universal darkness lone and vast.