Page:Poems of the Great War - Cunliffe.djvu/133

 ��ULTIMATE HELL

Satax? lam.

The Other One ? " The Great I am " ? Who knows? IMillenniums ago Some rumor ran that He existed yet ! I half believed it true, as loath to think That He'd outwitted me, or suffered harm To rob me of a thrill. Eternity Is deadly now, I own.

His name, you say, was God.

As I recall, it was. Priests mumbled it.

And cutthroats bawled it for an oath,

Then, all at once, the priests began to think,

And ceased to pray.

'Twas quite the oddest thing that I have known.

And mv dear Foe became thenceforth a mvth,

Or faded, like the morning cloud, with man's

Immortal hope (poor Tyndall's, eke, whose word

I'll not forget) into the azure past.

WTiat of my kingdom now ?

I have no kingdom now. Long time ago

I tired of kings, as God in His day tired.

�� �