Invocation.

A poem by Victor Marie Hugo

[V, vi., August, 1832.]


Say, Lord! for Thou alone canst tell
Where lurks the good invisible
Amid the depths of discord's sea -
That seem, alas! so dark to me!
Oppressive to a mighty state,
Contentions, feuds, the people's hate -
But who dare question that which fate
Has ordered to have been?
Haply the earthquake may unfold
The resting-place of purest gold,
And haply surges up have rolled
The pearls that were unseen!

G.W.M. REYNOLDS.