Page:An epic of women and other poems (IA epicofwomenother00osha).pdf/115

 For through whole bitter days it seemed in vain That all the mighty desert had no stain Of sin around him; that the burning breaths Went forth from the eternal One, and rolled For ever through it, filling it with deaths, And plagues, and fires; that he did behold The earthquakes and the wonders manifold:

It seemed in vain that all the place was bright Ineffably with that unfading light No man who worketh evil can abide; That he could see too with his open eyes Fair troops of deathless ones, and those that died In martyrdoms, or went up to the skies In fiery cars—walk there with no disguise;—

It seemed in vain that he was there alone With no man's sin to tempt him but his own;— Since in his body he did bear about A seeming endless sin he could not quell With the most sharp coercement, nor cast out Through any might of prayer. O, who can tell— Save God—how often in despair he fell?