Page:Poems and lyrics of the joy of earth.djvu/128

Rh What I ask is, Why persecute such a poor dear,
 * If there's Law above all? Answer that if you can!

Irreligious I'm not; but I look on this sphere
 * As a place where a man should just think like a man.

It isn't fair dealing! But, contrariwise,
 * Do bullets in battle the wicked select?

Why, then it's all chance-work! And yet, in her eyes,
 * She holds a fixed something by which I am checked.

Yonder riband of sunshine aslope on the wall,
 * If you eye it a minute 'll have the same look:

So kind! and so merciful! God of us all!
 * It's the very same lesson we get from the Book.

Then, is Life but a trial? Is that what is meant?
 * Some must toil, and some perish, for others below;

The injustice to each spreads a common content;
 * Ay! I've lost it again, for it can't be quite so.