Charles Mackay

Two Mysteries

Two awful mysteries compass me around,
And follow me for ever as I go:
I see, yet see them not. I know they are,
And that they change more rapidly than thought,
Yet feel 'mid variability that change,
While it affects them, leaves them still the same.
Sane, I enjoy them both — both are myself:
Insane, I fly them, but they haunt me still:
Two mysteries and yet one — one infinite.
Two undistinguished points in space and time,
Ever effaced and ever permanent.
Two little atoms so magnificent
That all the past conspired to give them birth,
And all the mighty future hangs on one.
My Self, my Now; God's Self, God's Now; — so linked
That not Eternity can disentwine
One from the other. Both to be employed
So that their circle evermore shall stretch
Till suns, and systems, and whole firmaments
Shall seem but points commensurate with them,
And aye to widen ever and evermore,
Nearing the throne where the Eternal sits,
Is joy, love, knowledge, happiness divine —
Oh that the secret of their use was mine!