Page:The children of the night.djvu/17



those that never know the light,
 * The darkness is a sullen thing;

And they, the Children of the Night,
 * Seem lost in Fortune’s winnowing.

But some are strong and some are weak,—
 * And there’s the story. House and home

Are shut from countless hearts that seek
 * World-refuge that will never come.

And if there be no other life,
 * And if there be no other chance

To weigh their sorrow and their strife
 * Than in the scales of circumstance,

’T were better, ere the sun go down
 * Upon the first day we embark,

In life’s imbittered sea to drown,
 * Than sail forever in the dark.

But if there be a soul on earth
 * So blinded with its own misuse

Of man’s revealed, incessant worth,
 * Or worn with anguish, that it views

No light but for a mortal eye,
 * No rest but of a mortal sleep,

No God but in a prophet’s lie,
 * No faith for “honest doubt” to keep;