Page:Marlborough and other poems, Sorley, 1919.djvu/64

 A thousand years have passed amain;

The sands of life are running thin;

Thought is our leader—Thought is vain;

Speech is our goddess—Speech is sin.

II

It needs no thought to understand,

No speech to tell, nor sight to see

That there has come upon our land

The curse of Inactivity.

We do not see the vital point

That 'tis the eighth, most deadly, sin

To wail, "The world is out of joint"—

And not attempt to put it in.

We see the swollen stream of crime

Flow hourly past us, thick and wide;

We gaze with interest for a time,

And pass by on the other side.

We see the tide of human sin

Rush roaring past our very door,

And scarcely one man plunges in

To drag the drowning to the shore.

46