AVARICE
They said, "God made him," ah, the clean, great God!
Perhaps! Even as He made the loathèd beast
Whose use is to take offal for his feast;
As He made viper and vermin or, at a nod,
Made hell, to do some necessary part
In His wide-stretched, inscrutable universe.
Yes, haply God imagined him for a curse,
A scourge, a vengeance; with slow, patient art
Him did He fashion cunningly; saying: "This
My sign and warning, to time's distant end,
That all a loveless life is may be known,
And desolate horror of pure avarice;
The world is his,—a world without a friend,—
Without one friend an honest man would own."
PITY THE BLIND
I
"Pity the blind!" Yes, pity those
Whom day and night inclose
In equal dark; to whom the sun's keen flame
And pitchy night-time are the same.
II
But pity most the blind
Who cannot see
That to be kind
Is life's felicity.
PROOF OF SERVICE
Thou who wouldst serve thy country and thy kind,
Winning the praise of honorable men
