Poems (Hoffman)/Retribution

by Martha Lavinia Hoffman

For works with similar titles, see Retribution.

RETRIBUTION

No human law can reach all human wrong,
Only a God can judge this world of ours
Where cruel hawks disturb the birds of song,
And coarsest weeds choke out the sweetest flowers.

Where Infamy can break sweet Virtue down,
And strew her lily petals in the dust;
Then turn to wear applause's proffered crown,
And fill a throne of trust.

Where Tyranny still holds in chains her slaves,
And helpless under Freedom's stripes and stars;
Where some who Honor crowns are greater knaves,
Than some who languish behind prison bars.

Where little lives, oft trampled in the dust,
Distorting all their promised symmetry,
Grow up to lie before some adverse gust,
Fallen and lost as snowflakes from the sky.

Where slander, cruelty and dark deceit,
Make misery to mar a world of bliss,
What human law for these can Justice mete,
Or quell the flood that drowns earth's happiness?

We suffer, body, soul and heart and mind,
Woe for which we can find no cure, no cause;
The direst troubles that afflict mankind
Are penalties of violated laws.

Wronged nature crushed by frailty and fraud
Cries out for justice and approves the plan
That all shall stand before the bar of God,
Who only can just judgment mete to man.

But God looks down from above and sees
Life's little drama through and through;
And clear to Him are the mysteries
Of wrongs and crimes that elude our view.

The grave of the murdered heart and brain,
The brow that is set with the mark of Cain;
And His retribution comes swift and sure
As the iron wheels of the evening train.

They yet may pity who of vengeance dream,
When falls the feeble arm of human might;
And the Great Judge, o'er countless worlds supreme,
Makes all things right.

Build strong the fortress of thy character,
Midst crumbling reputation, honor, fame,
To stand before the eternal judgment bar,
Acquitted of all blame.