Page:The Collected Poems of Dora Sigerson Shorter.djvu/250



crowded weeping from the teacher's house, Crying aloud their fear at what he taught. Old men and young men, wives and maids unwed. And children screaming in the crowds unsought: Some to their temples with accustomed feet Bent—as the oxen go beneath the rod, To fling themselves before some pictured saint, “Alas! God help us if there is no God.”

Some to the bed-side of their dying kind To clasp with arms afraid to loose their hold; Some to a churchyard falling on a grave To kiss the carven name with Ups as cold. Some watched from break of day into the night. The flash of birds, the bloom of flower and tree, The whirling worlds that glimmer in the dark, All said, “God help us if no God there be.”

Some hid in caves and chattered mad with fear At the uprising of the patient poor. “He suffers with you,” no more could they say, Thus lock with keys of Heaven their bonds secure. Some called their dead, and then remembering fell Abusing death and cursed the wormy grave. And wept for their long hoped-for Paradise, “God help us if there be no God to save!”

And others sought for right and found it not. And, seeking duty, found that it was dead, Blamed their long blameless lives and vowed no more To sacrifice, for “Might is right” they said.