O world invisible, we view thee,
O world intangible, we touch thee,
O world unknowable, we know thee.

These lines are from Francis Thompson’s poem “The Kingdom of God,” written in the late Victorian period and published in his collection *New Poems* (1897). Thompson (1859–1907), a Catholic convert and devotional poet, often explored the paradox of divine immanence—God’s presence within the ordinary world—alongside transcendence. The poem meditates on how the “Kingdom of God” is not merely a distant afterlife but a reality apprehended through faith and spiritual perception. The quoted triad appears as a lyrical refrain-like assertion that the unseen can nonetheless be genuinely encountered, reflecting Thompson’s characteristic fusion of mystical theology with sensuous, concrete language.

The stanza turns apparent contradictions into a statement of spiritual epistemology: what is “invisible,” “intangible,” and “unknowable” to the senses can still be “viewed,” “touched,” and “known” through another faculty—faith, contemplation, or grace. Thompson’s parallel structure intensifies the claim that religious knowledge is not mere abstraction but a kind of real contact with ultimate reality. The lines also suggest that the deepest truths are not captured by ordinary categories of perception; they require a transformed way of seeing. In the context of “The Kingdom of God,” the “world” addressed is the divine order present within and behind the visible world.