Conceived as a convenience to those readers who are themselves concerned with doubt and faith. The Stream & The Sapphire presents a compact thematic grouping of thirty-eight poems, originally published in seven separate volumes. The earliest poem here dates from 1978, and though the sequence is not wholly chronological, "it does, " as Denise Levertov remarks in her brief Foreword, "to some extent, trace my slow movement from agnosticism to Christian faith, a movement incorporating much of doubt and questioning as well as affirmation."