The Open Door

O Mystery of life,
That, after all our strife,
Defeats, mistakes,
Just as, at last, we see
The road to victory,
The tired heart breaks.

Just as the long years give
Knowledge of how to live,
Life’s end draws near;
As if, that gift being ours,
God needed our new powers
In worlds elsewhere.

There, if the soul whose wings
Were won in suffering, springs
To life anew,
Justice would have some room
For hope beyond the tomb,
And mercy, too.

And since, without this dream
No light, no faintest gleam
Answers our ‘why’;
But earth and all its race
Must pass and leave no trace
On that blind sky;

Shall reason close that door
On all we struggled for,
Seal the soul’s doom;
Make of this universe
One wild answering curse,
One lampless tomb?

Mine be the dream, the creed
That leaves for God, indeed,
For God, and man,
One open door whereby
To prove His world no lie
And crown His plan.

~Alfred Noyes