III.

If I do ask, How God can dumbness keep
While Sin creeps grinning through His house of Time,
Stabbing His saintliest children in their sleep,
And staining holy walls with clots of crime? —
Or, How may He whose wish but names a fact
Refuse what miser’s-scanting of supply
Would richly glut each void where man hath lacked
Of grace or bread? — or, How may Power deny
Wholeness to th’ almost-folk that hurt our hope —
These heart-break Hamlets who so barely fail
In life or art that but a hair’s more scope
Had set them fair on heights they ne’er may scale? —
Somehow by thee, dear Love, I win content:
Thy Perfect stops th’ Imperfect’s argument.