Page:The torrent and The night before.djvu/20

 ZOLA he puts the compromising chart Of hell before your eyes, you are afraid; Because he counts the price that you have paid For innocence, and counts it from the start, You loathe him. But he sees the human heart Of God meanwhile, and in God's hand has weighed Your squeamish and emasculate crusade Against the grim dominion of his art.

Never until we conquer the uncouth Connivings of our shamed indifference (We call it Christian faith!) are we to scan The racked and shrieking hideousness of Truth To find, in hate's polluted self-defence Throbbing, the pulse, the divine heart of man.

BALLADE dreams I crossed a barren land, A land of ruin, far away; Around me hung on every hand A deathful stillness of decay; And silent, as in bleak dismay That song should thus forsaken be, On that forgotten ground there lay The broken flutes of Arcady.

The forest that was all so grand When pipes and tabors had their sway Stood leafless now, a ghostly band Of skeletons in cold array. A lonely surge of ancient spray Told of an unforgetful sea, But iron blows had hushed for aye The broken flutes of Arcady.

No more by summer breezes fanned, The place was desolate and gray;