Part 11

GOD-FORGOTTEN

I TOWERED far, and lo! I stood within The presence of the Lord Most High, Sent thither by the sons of earth, to win Some answer to their cry.

—“The Earth, say’st thou? The Human race? By Me created? Sad its lot? Nay: I have no remembrance of such place: Such world I fashioned not.”—

—“O Lord, forgive me when I say Thou spak’st the word, and mad’st it all.”— “The Earth of men—let me bethink me . . . Yea! I dimly do recall

“Some tiny sphere I built long back (Mid millions of such shapes of mine) So named . . . It perished, surely—not a wrack Remaining, or a sign?

“It lost my interest from the first, My aims therefor succeeding ill; Haply it died of doing as it durst?”— “Lord, it existeth still.”—

“Dark, then, its life! For not a cry Of aught it bears do I now hear; Of its own act the threads were snapt whereby Its plaints had reached mine ear.

“It used to ask for gifts of good, Till came its severance self-entailed, When sudden silence on that side ensued, And has till now prevailed.

“All other orbs have kept in touch; Their voicings reach me speedily: Thy people took upon them overmuch In sundering them from me!

“And it is strange—though sad enough— Earth’s race should think that one whose call Frames, daily, shining spheres of flawless stuff Must heed their tainted ball! . . .

“But say’st thou ’tis by pangs distraught, And strife, and silent suffering?— Deep grieved am I that injury should be wrought Even on so poor a thing!

“Thou should’st have learnt that Not to Mend For Me could mean but Not to Know: Hence, Messengers! and straightway put an end To what men undergo.” . . .

Homing at dawn, I thought to see One of the Messengers standing by. —Oh, childish thought! . . . Yet oft it comes to me When trouble hovers nigh.

THE BEDRIDDEN PEASANT TO AN UNKNOWING GOD

MUCH wonder I—here long low-laid— That this dead wall should be Betwixt the Maker and the made, Between Thyself and me!

For, say one puts a child to nurse, He eyes it now and then To know if better ’tis, or worse, And if it mourn, and when.

But Thou, Lord, giv’st us men our clay In helpless bondage thus To Time and Chance, and seem’st straightway To think no more of us!

That some disaster cleft Thy scheme And tore us wide apart, So that no cry can cross, I deem; For Thou art mild of heart,

And would’st not shape and shut us in Where voice can not he heard: ’Tis plain Thou meant’st that we should win Thy succour by a word.

Might but Thy sense flash down the skies Like man’s from clime to clime, Thou would’st not let me agonize Through my remaining time;

But, seeing how much Thy creatures bear— Lame, starved, or maimed, or blind— Thou’dst heal the ills with quickest care Of me and all my kind.

Then, since Thou mak’st not these things be, But these things dost not know, I’ll praise Thee as were shown to me The mercies Thou would’st show!

BY THE EARTH’S CORPSE

“O LORD, why grievest Thou?— Since Life has ceased to be Upon this globe, now cold As lunar land and sea, And humankind, and fowl, and fur Are gone eternally, All is the same to Thee as ere They knew mortality.”

“O Time,” replied the Lord, “Thou read’st me ill, I ween; Were all the same, I should not grieve At that late earthly scene, Now blestly past—though planned by me With interest close and keen!— Nay, nay: things now are not the same As they have earlier been.

III

“Written indelibly On my eternal mind Are all the wrongs endured By Earth’s poor patient kind, Which my too oft unconscious hand Let enter undesigned. No god can cancel deeds foredone, Or thy old coils unwind!

“As when, in Noë’s days, I whelmed the plains with sea, So at this last, when flesh And herb but fossils be, And, all extinct, their piteous dust Revolves obliviously, That I made Earth, and life, and man, It still repenteth me!”