The sole way to put flight into the wing, To preen its feathers, and to make them grow, Is to heed humbly every smallest thing With which the Christ in us has aught to do. So will the Christ from child to manhood go, Obedient to the father Christ, and so Sweet holy change will turn all our old things to new. 10. Creation thou dost work by faint degrees, By shade and shadow from unseen beginning; Far, far apart, in unthought mysteries Of thy own dark, unfathomable seas, Thou will'st thy will; and thence, upon the earth-- Slow travelling, his way through centuries winning-- A child at length arrives at never ending birth. 11. Well mayst thou then work on indocile hearts By small successes, disappointments small; By nature, weather, failure, or sore fall; By shame, anxiety, bitterness, and smarts; By loneliness, by weary loss of zest:-- The rags, the husks, the swine, the hunger-quest, Drive home the wanderer to the father's breast. 12. How suddenly some rapid turn of thought May throw the life-machine all out of gear, Clouding the windows with the steam of doubt, Filling the eyes with dust, with noise the ear! Who knows not then where dwells the engineer, Rushes aghast into the pathless night, And wanders in a land of dreary fright. 13. Amazed at sightless whirring of their wheels, Confounded with the recklessness and strife, Distract with fears of what may next ensue, Some break rude exit from the house of life, And plunge into a silence out of view-- Whence not a cry, no wafture once reveals What door they have broke open with the knife. 14. Help me, my Father, in whatever dismay, Whatever terror in whatever shape, To hold the faster by thy garment's hem; When my heart sinks, oh, lift it up, I pray; Thy child should never fear though hell should gape, Not blench though all the ills that men affray Stood round him like the Roman round Jerusalem. 15. Too eager I must not be to understand. How should the work the master goes about Fit the vague sketch my compasses have planned? I am his house--for him to go in and out. He builds me now--and if I cannot see At any time what he is doing with me, 'Tis that he makes the house for me too grand. 16. The house is not for me--it is for him. His royal thoughts require many a stair, Many a tower, many an outlook fair, Of which I have no thought, and need no care. Where I am most perplexed, it may be there Thou mak'st a secret chamber, holy-dim, Where thou wilt come to help my deepest prayer. 17.