Page:Roden Noel - A Little Child's Monument - 1881.pdf/143

 Man's beast progenitor! lo! from hopeless falls Under the precipice of grand endeavour, Beautiful youths and maidens, mute for ever, Piteously silent, utter loud reproof On Him who holds Himself unseen, aloof, And makes Him sport, engendering their vain Faith, effort, prayer, the longer to sustain This miserable mockery of life Wherewith He endows them, grim and cold, and rife With cruel humour, with insane, fierce relish For wine of anguish wrung from tortures hellish Of souls and bodies! lo! we all pass by, Saluting Cæsar, men who are to die!

Or is it but inevitable, blind Dull monster Force, that doth terrific grind Forth idle aspiration, and fond fears, Illusive bliss, and terror, and wild tears From one dim, boundless chaos of a womb, Till, white with horror of the waking doom, All cower for refuge in their natal tomb?

Hath God, like mortals, a divided will, Drunkenly reeling from weak good to ill? Yea, there be throned gods, fallen dignities! But high beyond we lift our longing eyes! Ye may not fold your thoughts at such a goal,