Canto XCIV

You say, but with no touch of scorn,

      Sweet-hearted, you, whose light-blue eyes

      Are tender over drowning flies,

You tell me, doubt is Devil-born.

I know not: one indeed I knew

      In many o subtle question versed,

      Who touched a jarring lyre at first,

But ever strove to make it true:

Perplext in faith, but pure in deeds,

      At last he beat his music out.

      There lives more faith in honest doubt,

Believe me, than in half the creeds.

He fought his doubts and gather'd strength,

      He would not make his judgment blind,

      He faced the spectres of the mind

And laid them: thus he came at length

To find a stronger faith his own;

      And Power was with him in the night,

      Which makes the darkness and the light,

And dwells not in the light alone,

But in the darkness and the cloud,

      As over Sinaï's peaks of old,

      While Israel made their gods of gold

Altho' the trumpet blew so loud.