Page:Roden Noel - A Little Child's Monument - 1881.pdf/143

Man's beast progenitor! lo! from hopeless falls
Under the precipice of grand endeavour,
Beautiful youths and maidens, mute for ever,
Piteously silent, utter loud reproof
On Him who holds Himself unseen, aloof,
And makes Him sport, engendering their vain
Faith, effort, prayer, the longer to sustain
This miserable mockery of life
Wherewith He endows them, grim and cold, and rife
With cruel humour, with insane, fierce relish
For wine of anguish wrung from tortures hellish
Of souls and bodies! lo! we all pass by,
Saluting Cæsar, men who are to die!

Or is it but inevitable, blind
Dull monster Force, that doth terrific grind
Forth idle aspiration, and fond fears,
Illusive bliss, and terror, and wild tears
From one dim, boundless chaos of a womb,
Till, white with horror of the waking doom,
All cower for refuge in their natal tomb?

Hath God, like mortals, a divided will,
Drunkenly reeling from weak good to ill?
Yea, there be throned gods, fallen dignities!
But high beyond we lift our longing eyes!
Ye may not fold your thoughts at such a goal,