"Angel whose hand is cold in mine, Whose seaward eyes are not for me, Why do I cry for wings like thine? I would leave all and follow thee." To this the apparition, who is the Spirit of Science, replies: "Ah, rash one, pause and learn my name. I know not love, nor hate, nor ruth. I am that heart of frost and flame That knows but one desire--the Truth. "Thou shalt indeed be lifted up On wings like mine, 'twixt seas and sky. But can'st thou drink with me my cup, And can'st thou be baptized as I? "The cup I drink of does but rouse The thirst it slakes not, like the sea; And lo, my own baptismal brows Must be their own Gethsemane. "Across the paths where I must go The shuttles of the lightning fly From pole to pole, and strike, nor know If Christs and kingdoms live or die. "How wilt thou bear the worlds of fire, The worlds of snow, or dare to mark On each some ratlike race expire That cannot leave its foundering bark? "Oh, you, for whom my robes are bright, For whom my clear eyes in the gloom Are lamps--you who would share my flight, Be warned in time. I know my doom. "I shall become the painless pain, The soundless sound, as, deaf and dumb, The whole creation strives in vain To sing the song that will not come. "Till maimed and weary, burnt and blind, I am made one with God, and feel The tumult of the mindless mind Torn on its own eternal wheel." The suppliant replies that he knows from his own experience what such a counsel means, but has found it himself to be no longer practicable. There was a time, he says, when he found the perfect peace in kneeling before the Christian altar, but what is the Eucharist for him who can no longer believe in it? He still is prepared to follow the Spirit of Truth at all costs. "For me," he says: "For me the kneeling knees are vain, In vain for me the sacred dew. I will not drink that wine again Unless with thee I drink it new. "Give me thy wings, thy wings of steel, And I with thee will cleave the skies, And broken on the eternal wheel My God may take his sacrifice." "And yet," he says in conclusion, "Truth, to those who follow it, may at last bring its own reward." "Though storms may blow, though waves may roar, It may be, ere the day is done, Mine eyes shall turn to thine once more, And learn that thine and his are one." _The Veil of the Temple_ winds up, in short, with the indication that, if both are completely thought out, the gospel of Faith is no more irrational than the gospel of scientific negation, and that the former can be a guide to action, whereas, if thought out completely, this is precisely what the latter cannot be.