Page:The torrent and The night before.djvu/51

 And I, like a struck dog, crept and listened. And then when I met the man who had weakened A woman's love to his own desire, It seemed to me that all hell were laughing In fiendish concert!—I was their victim— And his, and hate's. And there was the struggle!— As long as the earth we tread holds something A tortured heart can love, the meaning Of life is not wholly blurred; but after The last loved thing in the world has left us, We know the triumph of hate. The glory Of good goes out forever; the beacon Of sin is the light that leads us downward— Down to the fiery end. The road runs Right through hell; and the souls that follow The cursed ways where its windings lead them Suffer enough, I say, to merit All grace that a God can give.—The fashion Of our belief is to lift all beings Born for a life that knows no struggle In sin's tight snares to eternal glory— All apart from the branded millions Who carry through life their faces graven With sure brute scars that tell the story Of their foul, fated passions.—Science Has yet no salve to smooth or soften The cradle-scars of a tyrant's visage;— No drug to purge from the vital essence Of souls the sleeping venom. Virtue May flower in hell, when its roots are twisted And wound with the roots of vice; but the stronger Never is known till there comes that battle With sin to prove the victor. Perilous Things are these demons we call our passions— Slaves are we of their roving fancies, Fools of their devilish glee.—You think me, I know, in this maundering way designing To lighten the load of my guilt and cast it Half on the shoulders of God But hear me!—