Driven by a divine bitterness,
Impatiently He bared
His body to the thongs
As if a lover of his kind could not agree
In such a world as this
To any form of death save by the abhorrèd tree,
And by deliberate will
United Love to man's extremest ill.
3.
O Thou Whom men call Father, Who dost taste
An infinite pain in infinite ways, and share
Each pang we bear,
Pierced through with sorrow at the abysmal waste
Wherewith the creature
Gropes his way on in age-long strife with nature,
How shall these know of Thee
Whose years were circled with malignancy?
How shall they know Thee father save Thou prove
To the uttermost Thy love?
They heard no tale of Thee.
Earth's frozen landscapes, unrelenting storms
Let no sign through of that great hearth that warms Eternity.
Cast from the void upon the atrocious years
A lifeless world they trod,
As some dark out-worn earth forgotten even by God,
Ruled by the powers of darkness and a brood
Of Terrors and gaunt Fears.
Born to make hope their spiritual food
They found no trace of good,
Born to breathe God they found no God to breathe;
And they are gone
With no report of mercy to pass on,
No record of compassion to bequeath,
Nor token of Thy grace to testify.
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